“Dr. Kramer, can I speak with you alone for a moment?” Brian said when the doctor turned to him, presumably to declare Juliette a picture of health.
“Of course,” Dr. Kramer said, motioning for him to step out into the corridor.
“I thought it best to tell you that my daughter is under a lot of stress,” Brian said, struggling to stay in control of his emotions, now heightened by the long wait to be seen and Juliette’s disappearing symptoms. “Her mother died yesterday from EEE and my daughter happened to witness her suffering two grand mal convulsions, including the one yesterday that resulted in her death.”
“Oh, what a terrible story,” Dr. Kramer voiced with sympathy. “I’m so sorry for your loss. Was your wife seen here in our ED?”
“Yes,” Brian said. “Yesterday. She was brought in by ALS ambulance.”
“Oh, yes. I heard about that case. Such a tragedy for an otherwise healthy young woman. EEE is a bad disease, but it seems that your daughter is weathering your wife’s passing rather well.”
“Actually, she hasn’t,” he argued. “During the two weeks that my wife had been sick, my daughter had been struggling emotionally and behaviorally. Then it all came to a head yesterday when she was told her mother had died. She stopped communicating, and then today she had a chill, and when her temperature was taken, it was 101.”
“She’s afebrile now,” Dr. Kramer stated.
“But her fever was real,” Brian insisted. “I took it myself. It wasn’t quite 101 but very close. I’m worried that she might be coming down with something, like Covid.”
“Has she been exposed to someone with Covid?” Dr. Kramer asked. “Or has she been to any large functions or gatherings?”
“No, not at all.”
“Have any of her friends or anyone in the family tested positive?”
“No, no one. And even when she was occasionally out, she didn’t socialize, and she has been very good about wearing a mask. Or at least that is what I was told. But, still, her symptoms made us worry she might have the virus.”
“She likely doesn’t have Covid-19,” Dr. Kramer said. “And she has plenty of reason to have significant psychosomatic symptoms, including a slight elevation in body temperature. If someone has contracted Covid-19 and has begun to have symptoms, even mild symptoms, they don’t just spontaneously recover in a matter of hours. Trust me!”
“How can you be sure about my daughter?” he questioned. “I’d like her to at least have a Covid-19 test and maybe some blood work just to be on the safe side.”
“Mr. Murphy, your daughter is afebrile, currently has no symptoms, and has a completely negative physical exam. She doesn’t need blood work or a Covid-19 test. Besides, we currently are swamped with Covid-19 tests for people with real indications and for those being admitted as inpatients.”
“We’ve waited for more than three hours to be seen,” Brian snapped. “The least you could do is indulge me.”
“I’m sorry to hear you’ve had to wait,” Dr. Kramer said, trying to remain calm. “We make an effort to see everyone in a timely fashion according to their need.”
“I’ve heard that before, but it’s not been that busy. Three hours is a long time to wait with a sick child.”
“We try to triage as best as we can,” Dr. Kramer said with growing irritation. “We need to give priority to the sickest patients.”
“You’re not hearing me. We’ve witnessed a number of people who walked in after us who didn’t look or act sick, were seen, and walked out while we were ignored. I’ll tell you what it makes me think. I think we have been forced to wait because I owe the hospital a ton of money for my wife’s treatment. And now, also because of that, you are refusing to really look into my daughter’s symptoms. You don’t want to do any lab tests because you worry you won’t get paid.”
Clearly taking offense, Dr. Kramer said: “Mr. Murphy, we here in the ED have no idea of any patient’s financial status vis-à-vis the hospital. We don’t discriminate at all for any reason whatsoever except the degree of emergency involved. With an ambulatory patient, once they are signed in, we diagnose and we treat just as soon as we can. We order tests when we think they are called for. That’s the long and short of it.”
At that moment, Olivia stuck her head out from the examination room. “Sorry to interrupt, but Miss Juliette and Bunny very much want to go home.”
“Mr. Murphy, I strongly recommend you listen to your daughter and go home. You both are under a lot of stress. I’m sorry for your loss.” With that, Dr. Kramer turned on her heels and walked away.
Feeling newly annoyed at now being patronized, Brian stared after her, resisting going after her to get in the last word. Instead, he turned around and went into the examination room.
“Let’s go, Pumpkin!” he said, reaching to pick Juliette and Bunny up into his arms.
Chapter 24
September 1
By the time Brian got out to Jeanne in the waiting area, he’d calmed down to a degree. What had helped was seeing that Juliette had been entertained while he was having words with Dr. Kramer. Once again Olivia had given her the hemostat to play with, and now Juliette was telling him she wanted to be a surgeon when she grew up.
“Well, what was found?” Jeanne asked, pocketing her phone. She stood up and picked up his laptop.
“Absolutely nothing,” Brian answered, his frustration clearly showing. “They gave her a clean bill of health, and they refused to do any blood work or give her a Covid-19 test. We waited for three hours for nothing.”
“What about her fever?”
“It was gone,” Brian said. He sat Juliette down so he could get out his phone to call Camila. “I couldn’t believe it. They took her temperature twice with a thermal scanner. Both times 98.6. I’m not sure they believed that it had been 101 earlier.”
“Are you okay?”
“A little stressed,” he admitted. “I was hoping that they would have been willing to be a bit more aggressive diagnostically.”
As Brian made the call to arrange for them to be picked up, Jeanne asked Bunny how she felt about the examination. Juliette responded by talking about playing with the hemostat and explained how it functioned. As soon as he finished contacting Camila, all three walked out into the warm afternoon sunshine to stand at the turnout in front of the hospital. While they waited, Jeanne asked why the doctor didn’t do a Covid-19 test at the very least.
“She didn’t think it was necessary, especially with no history of exposure or symptoms,” Brian explained irritably. “She told me that their testing was currently swamped with people with definite symptoms and those who were about to be admitted as inpatients.”
“Isn’t a temperature elevation, a sore throat, and a headache enough to qualify?”
“By the time Juliette was seen she didn’t have any symptoms and had no fever,” Brian said with obvious frustration. “I still tried to force the issue, but the doctor was adamant, saying that Covid-19 symptoms don’t resolve over the course of a few hours, and for what it’s worth, I’m sure she is right. As for Juliette’s symptoms, the doctor attributed them to being psychosomatic.”
“Even the fever?”
“Yeah, even the fever.”
“Well, at least Juliette seemed to have enjoyed herself and now wants to be a surgeon,” Jeanne said, trying to look on the bright side.