compare to finding out one’s child has cancer.
And part of the nightmare is the guilt parents
inflict upon themselves, searching for an answer to
the unanswerable question: why me? It’s not a rational
process. It occurs in doctors and biochemists
and other people who should know better–the mental
floggings, the I should haves and I could haves.
Most parents, get over it. The ones who don’t can be
crippled…
“Of course in this case,” Raoul was hypothesizing,
“there would be more of a basis for it, wouldn’t
there? Aged ovaries, etc. Well, enough conjecture,
let me go on. Where was I–ah, Mrs. Swope. Enuna.
A mouse. Obsequious even. The father’s the boss.
One sibling, a sister, around nineteen or so.”
“How long’s the boy been diagnosed?”
BLOOD TEST 45
“Officially just a couple of days. A local G.P.
piCkedup the distended abdomen on exam. There’d
been pain for a couple of weeks and fevers for the
last five days. The G.P. had sneaking suspicions–not
bad for a country, doc–didn’t like the local
facilities and sent them up here. We had to do an
extensive evalmrepeat physical, bloodwork, BUN,
uric acid, bone marrows from two sites, immuno-diagnostic
markers–the non-Hodgkin’s protocol demands
it. It wasn’t until a couple of days ago that
we had it stagged. Localized disease, no disseminated
mets.
“I had a diagnostic conference with the parents,
· told them the prognosis was good because the tumors
hadn’t spread, they filled out informed consents,
and we were ready to go. The boy has a
recent history of multiple infections and there was
pneumocystis swimming around in his blood so we
put him in Laminar Flow, planned to keep him
there for the first course of chemo, and then check
how the immune system was working. It looked
open and shut and then I got a call from Augie
Valcroix, my clinical Fellow–I’ll get to him in a
minute–and he- told me the parents were having
cold feet.”
“No indication of problems whenyou first spoke
to them?”
“Not really, Alex. The father does all the talking
in this family. She sat there and wept, I did my
best to comfort her. He asked lots of picky ques-tionzlike
I said, he was trying to impress–but it
was all very friendly. They seemed like intelligent
people, not flaky.”
He shook his head in frustration.
“After Valcroix’s call I went right over, talked to
46 JOnathan Kellerman
them, thinking it was momentary anXiety–you know
sometimes parents hear about treatment and get
the idea we’re out to torture their child. They start
looking for something Simple, like apricot pits. If
the doctor takes the time to explain the value of
chemo, they usually return to the fold. But not the
Swopes. They had their minds made up.
“I used a chalkboard. Drew out the survival
graphs–that eighty-one percent stat I gave you was
for localized disease. Once the tumors spread the
figure drops to forty-six. It didn’t impress them. I
told them speed was of the essence. I laid on the
charm, cajoled, pleaded, shouted. They didn’t argue.
Simply refused. They want to take him home.”
He tore a roll to shreds and arranged the fragments
in a semicircle on his plate.
“I’m going tohave eggs,” he announced.
He beckoned the waitress back. She took the order
and gave me a look behind his back that said I’m used to this.
“Any theory as to what caused the turnaround?”
I asked.
“I have two. One, Augie Valcroix mucked it up..
Two, those damned Touchers poisoned the parents’
minds.”
“Who?”
“Touchers. That’s what I call them. Members of
some damned sect that has its headquarters near
where the family lives. They worship this guru
named Noble Matthiasmthat’s what the social
worker told me–and call themselves the Touch.”
Raoul’s voice filled with contempt. “Madre de Dios Alex, California has become a sanctuary for the
psychic refuse of the world!”
“Are they holistic types?”
BLOOD TEST 47
“The social worker says-yes–big surprise, no? Assholistic is more like it. Cure disease with carrots
and bran and foul-smelling herbs thrown over
the shoulder at midnight. The culmination of centuries
of scientific progress–voluntary cultural.
regression!”
“What did these Touch people do, exactly?”