study, dividing the children into experimental
and control groups, the latter treated in
BLOOD TEST
57 …..
regular hospital rooms using conventional isolation
procedures such as masks .and gowns. He hired
microbiologists to monitor the germ count. He gained
access to a computer at Gal Tech to analyze the
data. He was ready to go.
Then someone raised the issue of psychological
damage.
Raoul pooh-poohed the risk, but others weren’t
convinced. After all, they reasoned, the plans were
to subject children as young as two to what could
only be termed sensory deprivation–months in a
plastic room,’ no skin to skin contact with other
human beings, segregation from normal life activities.
A protective environment, to be sure, but one
that could be harmful. It needed to be looked into.
At the time I was a junior level psychologist and
was offered the job because none of the other therapists
wanted anything to do with cancer. And none
of them wanted to work with Raoul Melendez-Lynch;
I saw it as an opportunity to do some fascinating
research and prevent emotional catastrophe. The
first time I met Raoul and tried to tell him about
my ideas, he gave me a cursory glance, returned his
attention to the New EngLand Journal, and nodded
absently.
When I finished my pitch he looked up and said,
“I suppose you’ll be needing an office.”
It wasn’t an auspicious beginning, but gradually
his eyes were opened to the value of psychological
consultation. I badgered him into building the unit
so that each module had access to a window and. a
clock. I nagged him until he obtained funds for a
fuR-time play therapist and a social worker for the
families. I cadged a healthy chunk of computer
time for psychological data. In the end it paid off.
58 JOnathan Kellerma
Other hospitals were having to release patients from
isolation because of psychological problems but our
children adjusted well. I collected mountains of
data and published several articles and a monograph
with Raoul as co-author. The psychological
findings received more scientific attention than the
medical articles, and by the end of three years he
was an enthusiastic supporter of psychosocial care
and somewhat humanized.
We grew friendly, though on a relatively superficial
level. Sometimes he talked about his childhood.
His family, originally Argentinian, had escaped from
Havana in a fishing boat after Castro nationalized
their plantation and most of their wealth. He was
proud of a family tradition of physician-businessmen.
All of his uncles and most of his cousins, he explained,
were doctors, many of them professors of
medicine. (All were fine gentlemen except Cousin
Ernesto, who was a scum-sucking Communist pig.
Ernesto had been a doctor, too, but he’d abandoned
his family and his profession for the life of a radical
murderer. No matter that thousands of fools
worshipped him as Ch Guevara. To Raoul he’d
of the family.)
As successful as he was in medicine, his personal
life was a disaster. Women were fascinated by him
but ultimately repelled by his obsessive character.
Four of them endured marriage with him and he
sired eleven children, most of whom he never saw.
A complex and difficult man.
Now he sat in a plastic chair in a drab little
office and tried to be macho about the buzz saw
ripping through his skull.
“I’d like to meet the’ boy,” I said.
“Of course. I can introduce-you now, if youtd like.”
Beverly Lucas came in just as he was about to get
up.
“Good morning, gentlemen, she said. “Alex–how
nice to see you.”
“Hi, Bev.”
I rose and we embraced briefly.
She looked good, though considerably thinner than
I remembered. Years ago, she’d been a cheerful,
rather innocent trainee, full o£ enthusiasm. The
kind voted Miss Bubbly in high school.-She had to
be thirty by now, and some of the pixie cuteness
had turned to womanly determination. She was
petite and fair, with rosy cheeks and straw-colored
hair worn in a long soft perm, Her round open face
was dominated by hazel saucer eyes and untouched
by makeup. She wore no jewelry and her clothes
were simple–knee-length navy skirt, short-sleeved
blue-and-red plaid blouse, penny loafers. She carried
an oversize d’purse, which she swung up on