She was suddenly wide awake. “Get three IV lines in him!” Paige ordered. “Get him on oxygen. I want some blood sent down, stat. Call Records to get his blood type.”
The nurse looked at her in surprise. “You know him?”
“Yes.” She had to force herself to say the words. “His name is Jimmy Ford.”
Paige ran her fingers over his scalp. “There’s heavy edema. I want a head scan and X-rays. We’re going to push the envelope on this one. I want him alive!”
“Yes, doctor.”
Paige spent the next two hours making sure that everything possible was being done for Jimmy Ford. The X-rays showed a fractured skull, a brain contusion, broken humerus, and multiple lacerations. But everything would have to wait until he was stabilized.
At 3:30 A.M., Paige decided there was nothing more she could do for the present. He was breathing better, and his pulse was stronger. She looked down at the unconscious figure. We’re going to have half a dozen kids. The first girl is going to be named Paige. I hope you don’t mind.
“Call me if there’s any change at all,” Paige said.
“Don’t worry, doctor,” one of the nurses said. “We’ll take good care of him.”
Paige made her way back to the on-call room. She was exhausted, but she was too concerned about Jimmy to go back to sleep.
The telephone rang again. She barely had the energy to pick it up. “H’lo.”
“Doctor, you’d better come up to the third floor. Stat. I think one of Dr. Barker’s patients is having a heart attack.”
“Coming,” Paige said. One of Dr. Barker’s patients. Paige took a deep breath, staggered out of bed, threw cold water on her face, and hurried to the third floor.
A nurse was waiting outside a private room. “It’s Mrs. Hearns. It looks like she’s having another heart seizure.”
Paige went into the room.
Mrs. Hearns was a woman in her fifties. Her face still held the remnants of a onetime beauty, but her body was fat and bloated. She was holding her chest and moaning. “I’m dying,” she said. “I’m dying. I can’t breathe.”
“You’re going to be all right,” Paige said reassuringly. She turned to the nurse. “Did you do an EKG?”
“She won’t let me touch her. She said she’s too nervous.”
“We must do an EKG,” Paige told the patient.
“No! I don’t want to die. Please don’t let me die…”
Paige said to the nurse, “Call Dr. Barker. Ask him to get down here right away.”
The nurse hurried off.
Paige put a stethoscope to Mrs. Hearns’s chest. She listened. The heartbeat seemed normal, but Paige could not afford to take any chances.
“Dr. Barker will be here in a few minutes,” she told Mrs. Hearns. “Try to relax.”
“I’ve never felt this bad. My chest feels so heavy. Please don’t leave me.”
“I’m not going to leave you,” Paige promised her.
While she was waiting for Dr. Barker to arrive, Paige telephoned the intensive care unit. There was no change in Jimmy Ford’s condition. He was still in a coma.
Thirty minutes later, Dr. Barker appeared. He had obviously dressed in haste. “What’s going on?” he demanded.
Paige said, “I think Mrs. Hearns is having another heart attack.”
Dr. Barker moved over to the bedside. “Did you do an EKG?”
“She wouldn’t let us.”
“Pulse?”
“Normal. No fever.”
Dr. Barker put a stethoscope against Mrs. Hearns’s back. “Take a deep breath.”
She obliged.
“Again.”
Mrs. Hearns let out a loud belch. “Excuse me.” She smiled. “Oh. That’s better.”
He studied her a moment. “What did you have for dinner, Mrs. Hearns?”
“I had a hamburger.”
“Just a hamburger? That’s all? One?”
“Two.”
“Anything else?”
“Well, you know…onions and french fries.”
“And to drink?”
“A chocolate milk shake.”
Dr. Barker looked down at the patient. “Your heart is fine. It’s your appetite we have to worry about.” He turned to Paige. “What you’re seeing here is a case of heartburn. I’d like to see you outside, doctor.”
When they were in the corridor, he roared, “What the hell did they teach you in medical school? Don’t you even know the difference between heartburn and a heart attack?”