by Anthony Youn
I DO NO further damage in the afternoon. At least I don’t kill any more patients. Except for poor dead Mrs. Zingerman, I call the day a success. Nancy hasn’t canned me, and the dozen or so lacerations on my face caused by her flying ponytail have started to scab and heal.
“Yippee. You made it through day one, hotshot.” Nancy, an elastic in her mouth, tortures her hair into a bun.
“I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“No shit.”
“Well, okay, then. Guess I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Yes, you will. You’ll also see me tonight, you lucky stiff.”
I blink furiously.
“We’re both on call. What a coinkydink. Here, partner.” She tosses me her pager.
My mouth flops open. Goes well with the uncontrollable blinking.
“You seem mentally challenged. Have you been tested? Listen up, superstar. Here’s the deal. That’s my pager. If someone pages me between now and six A.M., you answer it. If it looks like blood, guts, or death, wake me up. Otherwise, leave me the fuck alone. I need my beauty rest.”
She guns her eyes into mine, dares me to flinch. I’m ready for her. “Sweet. I’m your screener.”
“I was gonna say scut monkey, but we’ll go with screener. I don’t hand out this privilege to everyone, by the way. My screener. I like it. Oh. In case you’re wondering, you’ll sleep next year. Night-night.”
Hair stacked on her head like a hut, fumbling at the top buttons of her long white coat, she disappears behind door number one.
I’ll sleep next year.
Hell, Nance, don’t spoil me. I bang into door number two.
The call room.
A closet with a saggy cot, a coat rack, a bulletin board cluttered with notices dated a month ago. Tighter, darker, and more depressing than my bedroom on Flower Street, which, before this moment, I thought impossible. I strip down to my boxers, slip on scrubs I find hanging on the backside of the coat rack, and collapse onto the cot. I slam the pillow over my head and stifle a scream.
. . . .
NOBODY PAGES YOU with good news.
You never pick up a page that reads, Congratulations, Tony! You’ve hit the lottery! You win 84 million dollars!
No. Every page brings you a variation of bad. When I answer Nancy’s first page, I emerge from a snowflaked stupor to a bonking yellow message that announces a spiking fever and uncontainable discharge. Jarred awake, I feel like a firefighter aroused to save a flaming city block. Adrenaline rush. I’m on it!
Two minutes later, I chase Nancy, who lumbers down the slick, barren corridor. She moves fast for a troll. I jog to keep up. It may be too early—or too late—for small talk, but it’s after midnight, and this is my first night on call and I’m wired.
“I have to admit. I’m excited.”
“Here’s the deal,” Nancy says, whipping around, voice fuzzy, as if she’s been chewing on a bar rag. “We’re putting out fires.”
“That’s just how I feel. Like a firefighter.”
“Shut up.” She burns rubber around a corner, halts, leaves a skid mark in front of an open door. Moaning flies out, bounces off the walls. “Our job is to make sure all these patients survive until six A.M. Then we hand the baton off to the morning crew and get the hell out of Dodge. You got me?”
“I do.”
“We’re plate spinners. Keep ’em in the air, never let ’em fall.”
She bulldozes into the room. I’m right behind her. Putting out the fire.
THE PAGES DON’T stop. They come every fifteen minutes. All seem to contain the word blood. I’m thrilled by the first one, charged up for number two, ready to rumble for number three. Number four frankly annoys me, number five pisses me off, number six sends me diving under my pillow. By number seven, I’m as surly as Nancy. The eighth call does me in. Pushing on a gomer’s distended belly, Nancy grunts and carves the air with a cracked whisper. “Tony? Would you like some action?”
This perks me up. I so want to be a part of this. I’ll do anything besides answer her pager and nip at her heels like a puppy. “You bet.”
She hands me a pair of white latex gloves. I snap them on like the surgeon I hope someday to be.
Nancy smiles. I think she smiles. Put it this way: something happens with her mouth that doesn’t scare me. “Relieve the pressure on this patient’s colon.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Get your hands up there and pull.”
Now she really is smiling. Like a homicidal maniac. Her pager hums. I flip it off my belt and make out words like immediately and panic and bloody discharge.
Nancy’s smile fades. Her face goes dark. “Dig in, Tony.”
She whacks my shoulder. I hesitate. Feel my jaw vibrate.
“Now!”
Trying to block out the patient’s moans, I hesitate, then tunnel in, panning for gold.
Rotation one. Day one. Internal medicine with the sadistic intern Nancy.
The shits.
DAY TWO. I’M late. Or so says Nancy, who fills the cafeteria doorway as I exit carrying a coffee and a glazed doughnut.
“What time is it, Tony?”
“Good morning.” I twist my doughnut hand and peek at my watch. “Six-twenty-five. I still have five minutes.”
“I get in at six-thirty. Which means you need to get in an hour before me to do prerounds on all the patients before I get here.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize—”
“Get the doughnut out of your face and start with the patient in 507. Frank Fremont. Fifty-five years old. In for an MI.”
“MI is of course—”
I hold. Wait for her to fill me in. She holds back, leaves me hanging until melting doughnut glaze drizzles onto my fingers.
“Myocardial infarction,” she says finally. “Which you didn’t know.”
“He had a heart attack, huh?”
Slight quiver of the lower lip. I’ve grazed her. Not for long. She battles back, counters with a left-right combination.
“Yes, Tony. Cardiothoracic surgery wants to take him in for a four-vessel CABG, but Mr. Fremont won’t consent to surgery. I’ve tried to talk him in to it, but he seems to find my manner somewhat . . . off-putting.”
“No way.”
“Perhaps you can convince him that having the surgery would be in his best interest.”
“Me?”
“Don’t spend longer than three minutes in there. It’s a waste of time. He’s a POS.”
Another dumb look.
“Piece of shit. Move it. And get here an hour earlier starting tomorrow. Five-thirty sharp.”
“I will. My mistake.”
“You won’t be needing these.” She whisks the coffee and doughnut out of my hands and thunders by, bashing my shoulder like a third-grade bully.
12
Role Model
I stand outside room 507 and read through Frank Fremont’s chart. Admitted three days before. Sudden onset of chest pressure. Diagnosis—severe coronary artery disease and mild heart attack. I scan further. All four arteries clogged nearly 100%. Bypass of blood vessels recommended immediately and urgently.
“Mr. Personality.” A nurse’s aide about the same age as my mother stops on her way to the nurses’ station. She looks over my shoulder at the chart. “Good luck in there.”
“Why?” The blinking again. “What I mean is . . . why?”
“Tough case. He doesn’t speak. Well, that’s not true. He says ‘Leave me alone’ and ‘Let me die.’ He also won’t eat and refuses an IV.”
“I can handle this guy. I’ve been on the job for almost two days.”
“Did I mention that he’s a junk dealer and he hasn’t bathed for I’m guessing at least a week before the admit? Stinks in there.”
“You’re not scaring me. Okay, maybe a little.”
She laughs. “Go get him, kid.”
I flap the chart against my thigh and knock.
Nothing.
I knock again. Again, nothing. I ease the door open a crack. “Mr. Fremont?”
“Get the fuck outta here.”
What do you mean, he doesn’t speak? I got him to talk right away.
I push the door open all the way and step in.
The stench hits me, whoosh, like a wind. Blowing sour like the retching smell from a Dumpster behind a Chinese restaurant. I clamp two fingers over my nose and step farther in. The shades are drawn. In shadows, I make out a gaunt man in a hospital gown, slumped in a chair next to the hospital bed. I stop at the edge of the bed, allow my eyes to adjust to the dark.
“Hello, Mr. Fremont. I’m Tony Youn. I’m the medical student on the internal medicine service. Mind if I talk to you about your medical situation?”
Frank raises his head. He looks like a ghost. He lifts a scrawny hand and dismisses me. His bones protrude through his wrists. Pockmarks spot his face like divots. He licks his lips, then lowers his head.
“Could we talk about the surgery the doctors are recommending for you? The surgery might save your life.”
He chuckles. Shifts in his chair. Kicks at the floor with a paper shoe. “Leave me alone.”
I don’t move. After a moment, I sit down on the edge of the bed and wait. I have no idea what to do or say, but I know I can’t leave.
Suddenly, I hear myself speak. “Can I tell you about something that happened to me?”
He sniffs.
I lay his chart down on the bed next to me. Then, accustomed to the dim light, acclimated to the foul smell, I tell him a story.
I WANT TO tell you about my mother.
My mom is very traditional. She’s basically just your typical mom. The family caretaker and cook. The one who raised us. My dad is the breadwinner, the family disciplinarian, the ruler of the house. But if you asked me whom I look up to most in my life, who would be my role model, I would say my mom.
A few months ago I got a call from my father. My mom had played tennis in the early evening, and that night, in the middle of the night, she began to feel short of breath. It kept getting worse. She finally woke up my father and said she needed to go to the emergency room.
By the time they got to the ER, she could barely breathe. She was gasping for air. It was as if her lungs had filled up with gallons of water and she couldn’t manage even a tiny, shallow breath. My mother has never smoked in her life and rarely drinks. She exercises regularly. She’s been the picture of health. And then this happens.
At the ER, they run some tests. They find out that she’s in sudden heart failure. One of the valves of her heart has failed and her heart is no longer beating normally. This is causing her lungs to fill with fluid. She’s literally drowning from the inside out. They rush her to the ICU, put her on a bunch of IV meds. She starts coming around. My dad spends the night with her in our small-town hospital, waiting for them to transfer her the next morning to a bigger, better-equipped hospital. Here. Where you are.
They move her here and my father calls me and my brother. We all meet at the ICU. The cardiologist schedules her for an echocardiogram. By the time I see her, the meds have kicked in, and she’s breathing better. A nurse arrives, gives her another medication through the IV, a sedative for the procedure. It works quickly. My mother starts to drift off. My brother and I kiss her on the cheek and tell her we love her. My father says nothing. He awkwardly reaches over for her hand, holds it, then nods at her as they wheel her away for the procedure.
In my entire life, I’ve never seen my parents show any affection toward each other. They never kiss, hug, hold hands in front of me. I’ve never heard my dad tell my mom that he loves her. He’s never told me he loves me, either. I know he does. He doesn’t have to tell me. I’m sure it’s a Korean thing.
After they wheel my mother into the OR, my father, brother, and I go downstairs to the waiting room. After a while, my brother gets up and looks for a paper. My dad and I sit across from each other. We don’t say anything. Just sit there. In silence. Forever, it seems. I start to read. Then I hear this sound. Like a whimper. And then a gag. I look up. My father is sobbing. Tears are streaming down his face. I’ve never seen him cry. He can’t control himself. He covers his face with his hands. I don’t know what to do. I want to go over to him and put my arms around him. I want to rock him like he used to rock me when I was little. But I can’t move. I think he’ll be humiliated if I try to console him. So I don’t. I just sit across from him and watch him cry. I’ve never felt so helpless.
Finally, he gets ahold of himself. He exhales deeply a few times. He blows his nose, becomes completely composed. My brother returns. The three of us sit quietly and wait, as if nothing’s happened.
About an hour later, the cardiologist comes in. He explains that my mother needs open-heart surgery to repair the heart valve that has failed. He says if the surgery goes well, she’ll be fine for a very long time.
She has the surgery. It’s a complete success. The strangest part is that my mom never worried. She has this faith, this belief, that whatever happens is God’s will. This faith gives her enormous strength. And enormous peace. I admire that so much. I wish I had that. I wish I had her strength. I want to be like her.
That surgery is the same surgery they want for you.
That surgery gave me back my mom.
MY PAGER GOES off. It flashes neon yellow. What the hell are you doing in there??? Get your ass away from the POS and preround the rest of the patients!!!
So Nancy. Such concern. Such compassion.
I switch off the pager.
“Now tell me your story, Mr. Fremont.”
I don’t expect he will. I expect that I have wasted my time. I expect that he will ask me to leave. I pick up the chart, stand, start to leave.
“My wife died ten years ago.”
Frank speaks slowly in a smoker’s rasp. I sit back down on the bed.
“Breast cancer. She had a lump in her breast for years, but her doctor said not to worry about it. She finally went for a second opinion. This doctor found out that the cancer had already spread to her lungs and brain. Nothing they could do. She died six months later. To me, she was . . . everything.”
He coughs.
“After she went, my life ended. I have a daughter. She married this guy. We don’t get along. Put it mildly. I got a granddaughter. She’s five. I don’t see her much. I own a junkyard. I sell scraps for a living. I don’t bother nobody. Then one day this. My daughter doesn’t know I’m here. I didn’t tell her. She wouldn’t care. She doesn’t care if I live or die. End of story.”
“You sure?”
Frank shuffles both of his paper shoes. He looks past me, into the shadows, then he faces me. “What do you mean?”
“Sometimes people have a hard time expressing what they really feel.” I picture my father sobbing across from me in the waiting room. “Mr. Fremont, I’m young. I don’t know that much about life. But I do know that if my dad was sick, I’d want to know. And I think, in some way, my mom—” A catch in my throat strangles the rest of my thought.
“What?”
I clear my throat. “I think my mom had her surgery for us. Like I said, whatever the outcome, she felt it was God’s will. She was ready to go. But I wasn’t ready to let her go. Neither was my brother. Neither was my father. And she knew it.”
“So . . . you think I should have the surgery?”
“That has to be your call. You have to make that decision yourself. I know the doctors are good here. They saved my mom. And I’ll bet your daughter’s not ready to lose you yet. I bet no matter what you think, she wants you to play with your granddaughter for a long, long time.”
Frank slowly begins rocking in his chair. “I’ll think about it,” he says.
I grab his chart and stand again. “Good luck,” I say.
“Thank you,” Frank says. “For talking to me.”
He wheezes, then extends his hand. I grip it and we shake.
“I’ll see you again,” I say.
OUTSIDE FRANK’S ROOM, Nancy waits. Fists pumped tight on her hips, blood drained from her face, she washes me with a drizzle of spittle before she spews. “WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU DOING IN THERE?”
“What you told me. Trying to convince him to have the surgery.”
“I told you to take THREE MINUTES.”
“Sorry. I lost track of time. He’s such a talker.”
“Get your ass rounding. We are so behind. If you make me miss lunch.”
“I’m on it.”
I start to trot away. Nancy clutches my biceps in a death grip and nearly lifts me off my feet. She jams me into a watercooler. She grinds her head into my chest, arrows her purple devil eyes into my forehead. “And if you ever turn off your pager again, I’ll bust you so bad you’ll spend the rest of this rotation washing out specimen jars. We clear?”
I nod.
She cups an ear.
“Yes. We’re clear.”
“Dork.” She releases me. “I was just starting not to hate you.”
ROTATION ONE. DAY three. I get to sleep in my own bed in the comfort of my own dungeon on Flower Street. Heaven. I can unwind on my own time and talk to Amy. We talk nightly when I’m not on call. I vent about Nancy, she rails about the PBL domains. We hang up gushy after an hour. I set my alarm for four-thirty and drift off to Tim cooing to Jane. Ah. Medical-school romance.
The next morning, while rounding the fifth-floor patients with Nancy, I take a chance. “I’m gonna check in on 507.”
Nancy thumps her clipboard against a meaty thigh. “The POS.”
“Yeah. I told him I would.”
“Tony, if you take longer than two minutes.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
I break into a sprint. I slow down by the nurses’ station, wave at the same aide I saw yesterday.
“He’s gone,” she says.
I lean my elbows on the nurse’s desk for balance. “He died?”
“No, idiot. He’s in surgery.” She rolls her eyes, then pats my hand, the way my mother would.
Of course, I want to shove this news into Nancy’s face like a pie. I have to wait first. Make sure the surgery goes well and Frank’s out of the woods. Then a strange thing happens. I lose my taste for revenge. I don’t really care about Nancy. It’s not about her. It’s only about Frank.