only lets the patient lead a fairly
normal life, travel and so forth, but also his blood is cleaned steadily as with a
normal kidney; he is no longer cumulatively poisoned by his own toxins between his
assigned days or nights ‘on the machine.’
“This is new. A few have already made the switch but all kidney victims can
expect it soon. The suicide rate has dropped markedly-life is again worth living;
hope has been restored.
“Computerized-A,cial Tomography, or CAT, or ‘brain scan’: They strap you to
a table, fasten your skull firmly, duck behind a barrier, and punch a button- then
an automatic x-ray machine takes endless pictures, a tiny slice at a time. A special
computer synthesizes each series of slices into a picture; a couple of dozen such
pictures show the brain in three-dimensional, fine detail, a layer at a time.
“Doppler Ultrasound Stethoscope: another microminiaturization spinoff. This
instrument is to an ordinary stethoscope as a Rolls Royce is to a Model-T Ford.”
Witness stands up, turns from side to side. “Look at me, please! I’ll never
be Mr. America; I’ll never take part in the Olympics. I’ve climbed my last mountain.
“But I’m here, I’m alive, I’m functioning.
“Fourteen months ago my brain was dull-normal and getting worse, slipping
toward ‘human vegetable.’ I slept 16 hours a day and wasn’t worth a hoot the other 8
hours.
“Were it not for the skill of Dr. Norman Chater, plus certain spinoffs from
the space program, today I would either be a human vegetable or, if lucky, dead of
cerebral stroke.
“My father was not lucky; from a similar disorder it took him years to
die-miserable years. He died before the operation that saved me had been invented,
long before there was medical spinoff from space technology.
“Am I elderly? I’m 72.1 suffered from a disorder typical of old age, almost
never found in the young.
“Am I handicapped? Yes, but my handicaps do not interfere with my work-or my
joy in life. Over forty years ago the Navy handed me a piece of paper that
pronounced me totally and permanently disabled. I never believed it. That piece of
paper wore out; I did not.
“Mrs. Heinlein and I spent 1976 and -77 on blood drives all over this
nation. We crisscrossed the country so many times we lost track. It was worthwhile;
we recruited several thousand new blood donors-but it was very strenuous. By the end
of ’77 we badly needed a rest, so we took a sea voyage. She and I were walking the
beach on Moorea, Tahiti, when I turned my head to look at a mountain peak-and
something happened.
“I balanced on my left leg and said, ‘Darling, I’m terribly sorry but I
think I’ve had a stroke. Something happened inside my head and now I’m seeing double
and my right side feels paralyzed.’
“Mrs. Heinlein half carried me, half dragged me, back to the landing-got me
back aboard.
“A shipmate friend, Dr. Armando Fortuna, diagnosed what had happened: a
transient ischemic attack, not a stroke. When we reached California, this was
confirmed by tests. However a TIA is frequently a prelude to a stroke.
“Remember that spinoff, computerized-axial tomography? That was done to me
to rule out brain tumor. No tumor. The neurologist my physician had called in
started me on medication to thin my blood as the clinical picture indicated
constriction in blood flow to my brain. This treatment was to continue for six
months.
But in only two months I was failing so rapidly that I was shipped to the
University of California Medical School at San Francisco for further diagnosis.
Remember the image enhancer and that dog at the University of Arizona? I said that
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dog was not hurt. They did it to me, with no anesthesia; it did not hurt.
“The catheter goes in down here”-witness points at his right groin-“and goes
all the way up and into the aortal arch above the heart. There three very large
arteries lead up toward the brain; the catheter was used to shoot x-ray-opaque dye
into each, in succession. The procedure took over two hours . . . but I was never