“Can’t breathe,” Matt repeated.
“What’s wrong with him?” Donna asked.
David fought to control his dizziness.
“The effects of the chemotherapy. His low blood factors.” The nurse’s tone was reassuring. Nonetheless she frowned, checking Matthew’s pulse.
“David, he’s been like this since you left this morning,” Donna said. “I’m worried-more than usual.”
She had good reason to worry, David knew with inexplicable certainty. His arms and legs tingled in cold, then hot rushes.
“His heartbeat’s slightly higher than normal for him. Eighty-five instead of seventy,” the nurse said. “That’s probably from the exertion of taking a bath and coming back to his room.”
But her frown persisted as she wrapped a cuff around Matthew’s arm and pumped it full of air to monitor his blood pressure.
“Need oxygen,” Matthew repeated.
“Give it to him,” David said.
“He probably doesn’t need it. Most likely he’s just short of breath from walking back to”-the nurse interrupted herself, putting a stethoscope to her ears, then watching a blood-pressure monitor on the wall behind the bed. “Slightly higher than normal for him.”
Normal for Matt was one hundred and ten over seventy-five.
“What are the numbers?” David’s voice was strained with urgency.
“One hundred and twenty over eighty. Well within an acceptable range.”
“But look at him. He’s sick.”
“It’s to be expected. After all the treatment he’s had. When his blood counts start to rise, he’ll feel a lot better.”
“My stomach hurts,” Matt said.
“As if you might vomit?” The nurse grabbed for a plastic basin.
“No.” Matt gasped. “It burns.”
“You might have ulcers from the chemotherapy,” the nurse explained.
“But he’s had six months of chemotherapy,” Donna said, “and he never had ulcers before.”
“Because he never had treatment in such large doses.”
“Oxygen.” Matt’s chest heaved.
“Give it to him,” David said.
“But I can’t!”
“Why?”
“Here.” The nurse handed David a sheet of paper. “Before he went for his bath, I took a sample of his blood-to have it analyzed for its oxygen content. The computer just printed out the results of the test. His blood gases are just what they should be. The lab test shows he doesn’t need oxygen. If I give it to him, I’d hurt him more than help him. Oxygen’s toxic to a patient’s lungs if it’s administered when he doesn’t need it.”
The tingling rushed from David’s arms and legs toward his chest. His heart beat faster.
“But you said you took the blood-gas test before Matt went for his bath. Maybe he didn’t need oxygen then, but what if his condition changed in the meantime? What if he needs the oxygen now?”
“His condition couldn’t change that fast,” the nurse said. “Not without something to indicate the change. I just took his temperature. It’s normal.”
David’s lungs pumped. The swirling in his brain intensified. A peculiar kind of swirling. Not the sort in which the room seemed to spin. Instead the room remained still while his mind spun.
Again he saw fireflies. Again he floated down a brilliant corridor. Again he heard power chords.
But the fireflies could have been glinting specks behind his eyes.
And the power chords? David suddenly realized that Matthew’s portable radio had been playing heavy-metal rock all along.
My God, is this really just a delusion?
And yet he knew, he was sure that Matthew’s weakness and stomach pains were warnings of the septic shock that soon would kill him.
No!
He liked this nurse. She knew her job. She did it well. She was sympathetic, talented, motivated, and totally wrong.
I can’t waste time. I can’t let my son die.
His pulse thumped faster, increasing the humming behind his ears. He’d hoped to intervene subtly in Matthew’s treatment, to point out this or that minimal change in Matt’s condition, to maneuver Matt’s physicians into humoring David’s increasing concern and taking precautions that they saw no need for, given Matt’s presently acceptable vital statistics.
But now he realized that if he did believe in his premonitions, he couldn’t keep following the indirect tactic he’d chosen. He had to insist, to do and not just make suggestions, to act against the system instead of within it.
“Antibiotics,” David told the nurse. “He needs them right now. Give them.”
The nurse stepped backward. “What are you talking about?”
“Donna, do you understand?”
“Yes. Believe me.”
Again David saw her in triplicate-as a vibrant bride in her early twenties, as a dying elderly woman, as the middle-aged desperate mother she was at present-all equally beautiful, each the object of the various lifelong, profoundly increasing stages of his love.
But at the moment, he thought he’d never loved her more. And again he was struck by something behind her eyes, a frightened conviction, a terrified certainty, as if she truly did understand what he was warning about.
“Antibiotics. Matt needs them. Give them to him. Now,” David told the nurse.
“But I told you”-the nurse stepped farther back-“he doesn’t have a temperature. His other statistics are somewhat high but well within normal ranges. There’s no reason to give him antibiotics. Even if he had an infection, which he doesn’t, we’d need to do lab cultures on his blood, to learn what kind of infection it was, so we could decide what kind of antibiotics would be best to fight the-”
“Who’s the doctor on duty?”
The nurse veered quickly past David, her eyes no longer nervous but apprehensive. “I’ll hurry and get him.”
“No, I’ll go with you. Donna, in the next ten minutes, Matt’ll be so weak he won’t take phone calls. He’ll send away visitors, the friends he’s been anxious to hear from. He’ll ask you to turn off his music. Understand? He’ll start rejecting everything that’s important to him.”
“Yes,” Donna said, that same unsettling knowledge behind her eyes. “I understand. Do it. Whatever you think is right. I’m so afraid.”
“Twice is too many times.”
Donna nodded, as if she sensed exactly what he meant.
With a frightened look, the nurse left the room.
David followed.
4
In the corridor, the nurse whispered to the head physician, her remarks attracting a second physician. They turned, eyes narrowed, as David approached.
The first physician straightened. “We gather you’re having some reservations about your son’s treatment.”
“Fears.”
“That’s understandable.” The second physician cleared his throat, obviously hoping to avoid an awkward conversation in public.
“You’re following the procedure you explained to me. I understood the logic of that treatment. I agreed,” David said.
“Well, good,” the first physician said. “Then we don’t have a problem.”
“No,” David said. “Everything’s changed now.”
“Changed? Because he feels weak? But we told you that would happen.”
David’s heart kept pounding. “Yes, but something else is going to happen. All the early symptoms are there, but you don’t know it yet… because you’re not expecting it, so you’re not”-his lungs heaved-“you’re not interpreting the symptoms-”
“I beg your pardon?” The second physician narrowed his eyes. “I’m not interpreting…?”
“The symptoms the way you would if you knew what was going to happen.”
“Going to happen?” The first physician frowned at his colleague.
The parents of other patients had begun to gather and listen.
“Can we go somewhere else to have this talk?” the second physician said.
“As long as we get this settled.”
“There’s a conference room down the hall.”