Scott snatched the ampule from the nurse and immediately injected the contents directly through the IV line.
Modestly smug, Scott’s eyes darted from the sweep second hand of his watch to the inert patient. In seemingly no time, the patient stirred, stretched his extremities, then tried to open his eyes. He couldn’t, due to the swelling.
“Fifteen seconds,” Scott announced. “He’s conscious. Let’s go from here.”
As though fleeing a plague, all save the X-ray technician cleared the room. It was X-ray time.
Koesler again found himself pressed alongside Dr. Scott.
“That was close,” Scott said.
“What would have happened?” Koesler asked. “I mean, what would have happened if the man had been taken up for a . . . uh . . . CAT scan?”
“What would have happened?” Scott repeated the question, taking time to consider the likely outcome. “His blood sugar was way low. Without that shot of dextrose, and with the amount of time needed for the CAT scan . . . he probably would’ve had a seizure on the table—or even a cardiac arrest.”
“You mean—”
“He could have died. The brain needs sugar.”
“Holy mackerel! You saved that man’s life.”
Scott shrugged. “You win some, you lose some. But if we hadn’t done that blood sugar test, we should have had our rumps kicked all over downtown Detroit. It’s one of those simple tests you should do routinely in a case like this. Sometimes you forget.”
Koesler could not get over the almost miraculous recovery he had just witnessed. “That was fantastic. That man will probably never know how close he came to dying. One medical procedure saved him. But it’s just as possible another medical procedure could have killed him.”
“That’s the way it goes in the hospital, Father. Most all the people who come here are in trouble—some of them serious trouble. Oftentimes their physical condition hangs by the proverbial thread. It doesn’t take much—nature, their own attitude, or a mistake—for their condition to worsen or even become terminal. Yep, life here hangs by a thread.”
X-rays were completed. The medical team swarmed back into the room, leaving Father Koesler still awaiting a family that would be grieving.
For some time, a rather nondescript man had been standing behind Koesler. No one had paid him much attention. In part because he was nondescript, and in part because he was wearing an appropriate uniform—a long white hospital coat. An ID dangled from the lapel. The top line identified him as Bruce Whitaker. The second line identified him as a hospital volunteer. Thus identified, and given St. Vincent’s rather casual internal security, he was virtually free to roam the hospital at will.
Whitaker had been a volunteer at St. Vincent’s for several weeks. Besides performing helpful if menial services for various units and departments, he had been carefully observing hospital procedures, with emphasis on such volatile and high-risk areas as emergency, intensive care, intensive cardiac care, and the clinic.
He could not have agreed more with Dr. Scott: Life here hung by a thread. That thread was Whitaker’s principal concern. But he had observed enough. He was ready to act.
2
Either out of incipient friendship, compassion, pity, or some combination thereof, Dr. Scott seemed to have taken Father Koesler under his wing. Having completed what was expected of them in the emergency unit, Scott and Koesler were immersed in a coffee break in the hospital’s small, ancient cafeteria.
It likely was friendship, thought Koesler, since they were able to endure long stretches of silence without forcing meaningless conversation. That pleased Koesler, for he had had positive feelings toward Scott since their meeting just a few hours before, although, given the in-built stress and sudden demands of Scott’s work, Koesler thought it odd that the doctor appeared so lighthearted.
Scott’s receding hairline and clipped beard framed a rather cherubic face set off by a neatly trimmed mustache. The hair was a salt-and-pepper mix. Scott carried a bit of unwanted weight. He probably would have been considerably more overweight if his work did not demand so much time on his feet and so much physical activity.
“Remarkable looking woman, isn’t she?” Scott ran a hand through his beard.
Koesler started. He realized he had been idly regarding a woman who had been making her way slowly through the cafeteria, stopping to chat at almost every occupied table.
Though he had never met her, Koesler well knew who she was. During the years he had been editor of the archdiocesan newspaper, he had published her picture many times. She was the highly regarded Sister Eileen Monahan, OSVDP (Order of St. Vincent de Paul), chief executive officer of St. Vincent’s Hospital for as long as anyone could remember.
Yes, she was a remarkable looking woman. There was a saying as well as a general agreement that nuns were ageless. That had been more generally true in the recent past before most religious orders of women had changed their minds, their rules, and their habits. The traditional habits covered everything but a woman’s hands and face. Facial wrinkles often were pulled smooth by a tightly fitting coif. The casual onlooker could never tell whether a nun had any hair at all, let alone whether it was gray or white.
But now was the day of the modified habit. Usually consisting of an off-the-face veil and a modest dress or suit whose only relationship to the former habit was its color. It was, for religious women, a day of truth in advertising.
The truth was . . . Sister Eileen had kept her figure. Granted it was a mature figure—Koesler guessed she must be in her mid- to late-sixties—but she was a grand looking woman. A very attractive, interesting face, and eyes that had endured a lot of suffering, her own and others’.
Both Koesler and Scott detected a pattern to her tablehopping. She was working her way toward them.
Sister Eileen seated herself across from Koesler and smiled warmly, extending her hand across the table. “Well, if it isn’t Father Koesler. I haven’t had the opportunity to welcome you to St. Vincent’s.”
“Thank you. I guess now I’m official.” Koesler noted she had a very firm handshake. “Although I have been welcomed.”
“The pastoral care team?”
Koesler nodded.
“What did they tell you?”
“Well, Father Thompson bequeathed me his beeper. He said it was the kindest thing he could do for me. He said it would free me from being lashed to a telephone.”
“By and large, that’s correct,” Scott agreed.
“Sister Mary Kevin introduced me—or rather, reintroduced me—to the theories of Kübler-Ross on the process of dying. And she described the chaplain’s routine when there’s a death in the hospital. And Sister Rosamunda—well, briefly, she urged that I spend most of my time being quiet and listening. Come to think of it, that’s pretty much what all three of them advised.”
Eileen sipped her coffee. “Not bad advice, at least for a start. This may seem like a very strange enterprise at first. Most beginning chaplains, especially after undergoing the orientation you’ve just had, are apt to be a bit nervous about what to say to sick or, particularly, to dying people. The best advice anyone can give at this point is that which you received.
“But it would be a serious mistake to overlook all the experience you’ve had in the priesthood. How long have you been a priest, Father?”
He paused to figure. “It’ll be thirty-two years in June.”
“Yes, and you’ll always be drawing on those years. In no time, you will feel very much at ease. In the meantime, ‘shut up and listen’ is not bad advice.”