Dr. Huggens nodded.
“And I can smell something,” said Lynn Anne.
“What was that?”
Lynn Anne acted a little embarrassed. “I don’t know,” she said. “It is a bad smell, and although I don’t know what it is, it seems familiar.”
Dr. Huggens nodded, but it was apparent that Lynn Anne’s symptoms were not falling into any simple category. “Anything else?”
“Some dizziness, and my legs feel heavy, and it’s happening mere often now, almost every time I try to read.”
Dr. Huggens put down the chart and examined Lynn Anne. He looked into her eyes and ears; he looked into her mouth and listened to her heart and lungs. He tested her reflexes, had her touch things, walk in a straight line, and remember sequences of numbers.
“You seem pretty normal to me,” said Dr. Huggens. “I think maybe you should take two doctors and come back and see us in the aspirin.” He laughed at his own joke. Lynn Anne didn’t laugh. She had decided she wasn’t going to be brushed off that easily, especially after waiting so long. Dr. Huggens noticed she wasn’t responding to his humor. “Seriously. I think you should take some aspirin for symptomatic relief and come back to Neurology tomorrow. Maybe they’ll be able to find something.”
“I want to see Neurology now,” said Lynn Anne.
“This is an emergency room, not a clinic,” said Dr. Huggens firmly.
“I don’t care,” said Lynn Anne. She shielded her emotions with defiance.
“Okay, Okay!” said Dr. Huggens. “I’ll get Neurology. In fact I’ll get Ophthalmology too, but it might be a wait.”
Lynn Anne nodded. She was afraid to talk for the moment lest her defense dissolve to tears.
And a wait it was. It was after six when the curtain was pulled aside again. Lynn Anne looked up into the bearded face of Dr. Wayne Thomas. Dr. Thomas, a black from Baltimore, surprised Lynn Anne, who had never been treated by a black doctor. But she quickly forgot her initial reaction and responded to his exacting questions.
Dr. Thomas was able to uncover several more facts he felt were significant. About three days previously Lynn Anne had had one of her “episodes” as she called them, and had immediately jumped up from her bed where she had been reading. The next thing she remembered was that she “came to” on the floor, having fainted. Apparently she had hit her head, because she had suffered a large lump on the right side of her scalp. Dr. Thomas also learned that Lynn Anne had had two atypical Pap smear tests and was currently scheduled to return to GYN clinic in a week. She also had had a recent urinary-tract infection successfully treated with sulfur.
After finishing the history, Dr. Thomas called in an LPN and did the most complete physical examination Lynn Anne had ever had. He did everything Dr. Huggens did and more. Most of the tests were a total mystery to Lynn Anne, but his thoroughness encouraged her. The only test she disliked was the lumbar puncture. Curled up on her side with her knees to her chin, she felt a needle pierce the skin of her lower back, but it only hurt for a moment.
When he finished, Dr. Thomas told Lynn Anne that he wanted to take some X rays to make sure she had not fractured her skull when she had fallen. Just before he left her he told her that all he found during the examination was that certain areas of her body seemed to have lost sensation. He admitted that he didn’t know if it was significant or not. Lynn Anne waited again.
“Can you believe it?” asked Philips while he shoved more turkey tetrazzini into his mouth. He chewed quickly and swallowed. “Mannerheim’s first OR death and it has to be a patient I wanted more film on.”
“She was only twenty-one, wasn’t she?” said Denise.
“That’s right.” Martin put more salt and pepper on his food to give it some taste. “Tragedy, actually a double tragedy since I can’t get those films.”
They had taken their hospital cafeteria trays to the farthest corner from the steam table, trying to isolate themselves as much as possible from the institutional environment. It was difficult. The walls were painted a dirty mustard; the floor was covered with gray linoleum; and the molded plastic chairs were an awful yellow-green. In the background the hospital paging system maintained a steady monotone of doctors’ names and the extension number they were to call.