“What happened in there?” Kim asked. “What did they say?”
“Not much,” Tracy reported. “Apparently her blood count and electrolytes, whatever they are, are fine. I’m supposed to give her broth and other fluids and lay off the dairy products.”
“Is that all?” Kim asked.
“That’s it,” Tracy said. “But, by the way, they said the culprit could very well have been Ginger’s chicken. They see a lot of food poisoning secondary to chicken.”
“It wasn’t,” Kim shot back. “No way! Ask Becky! She was feeling sick the morning before the chicken.” Kim leaned over to talk directly to his daughter. “Isn’t that right, Pumpkin?”
“I want to go home,” Becky said, staring out through the windshield.
“Good night, Kim,” Tracy said. She pulled the door shut. started the car, and drove away.
Kim watched the car until it had disappeared behind the corner of the hospital. Only then did he start walking toward the doctors’ parking area. He felt alone, more alone than he’d ever felt in his life.
SEVEN
Tuesday, January 20th
The OR door burst open, and Kim and Tom entered the scrub area outside OR number 20. As they did so, they untied their face masks and let them drop down over their chests. They rinsed off the talc from their hands.
“Hey, thanks for lending a hand on such short notice,” Tom said.
“Glad to help,” Kim said flatly.
The two men started walking up the corridor toward the recovery room.
“You seem down in the dumps,” Tom said. “What happened? Did your accountant just call you about your bottom line in response to the new Medicare reimbursement rates?”
Kim didn’t laugh. He didn’t respond at all.
“Are you all right?” Tom asked, seriously this time.
“I suppose,” Kim said without emotion. “Just a lot of aggravation.” Kim then told Tom what had happened in the ER the night before.
“Whoa!” Tom commented when Kim was finished. “What a God awful experience! But don’t be down on yourself for taking a poke at that Barclay Bradford character. I had a mini run-in with him myself. Administrators! You know, I read in a journal last night that in the United States there’s currently one administrator for every one and a half doctors or nurses. Can you believe that?”
“Yeah, I can,” Kim said. ‘That’s a big part of why our healthcare costs are so high.”
“That was exactly the point of the article,” Tom said. “But anyway, I can understand why you popped Bradford. If it had been me, I know I would have been bullshit. Three hours! Hell, I’d a punched him out as a minimum.”
“Thanks, Tom,” Kim said. “I appreciate your support. But the worst part of the whole episode is that after all that wait and aggravation, I never got a chance to talk with the doctor who examined Becky.”
“How’s she doing today?”
“I don’t know yet,” Kim said. “It was too early for me to call when I got up, and Tracy hasn’t called me. But she’s got to be doing better. Her bloodwork was fine, and she’s been afebrile.”
“Dr. Reggis!” a voice called.
Kim turned to see Deborah Silverman, the OR head nurse, beckoning toward him. Kim detoured to the OR desk.
“Dr. Biddle called while you were in surgery,” Deborah said. “He left a message for you to stop into his office as soon as you were out.”
Kim took the message slip. It was punctuated with a number of exclamation points. Apparently it was serious.
“Uh-oh!” Tom commented over Kim’s shoulder.
“Sounds to me like the chief is planning on adding to your aggravation.”
Kim and Tom parted ways at the recovery-mom door. Kim went into the surgical locker room. Despite the implied urgency of Forrester Biddle’s message, Kim took his time. It wasn’t hard to guess what Forrester wanted to see him about. The problem was that after a point, Kim wasn’t sure he understood his own behavior.
Kim took a shower and mulled over in his mind the previous evening’s experience. He didn’t reach any epiphany beyond admitting he’d been unduly stressed. After dressing in a clean set of scrubs, Kim used the phone in the surgical lounge to call Ginger at the office to discuss the afternoon schedule. Only then did he make his way over to the chief’s office in the administration wing.