Harvest Page 6

  He reached again for the wine bottle and poured himself another glass—his third. For a man who prided himself on his temperate lifestyle, he was drinking like a lush. “Look,” he said. “I spend all day in the hospital. The last thing I feel like doing is talking about it. So let’s just drop the subject.”

  They both fell silent. The subject of Karen Terrio’s heart was like a blanket snuffing out the sparks of any other conversation. Maybe we’ve already said everything there is to say to each other, she thought. Maybe they’d reached that dismal phase of a relationship when their life stories had been told and the time had come to dredge up new material. We’ve been together only six months, and already the silences have started.

  She said: “That boy makes me think of Pete. Pete was a Red Sox fan.”

  “Who?”

  “My brother.”

  Mark said nothing. He sat with shoulders hunched in obvious discomfort. He’d never been at ease with the subject of Pete. But then, death was not a comfortable subject for doctors. Every day we play a game of tag with that word, she thought. We say “expired” or “could not resuscitate” or “terminal event.” But we seldom use that word: died.

  “He was crazy about the Red Sox,” she said. “He had all these baseball cards. He’d save his lunch money to buy them. And then he’d spend a fortune on little plastic covers to keep them safe. A five-cent cover for a one-cent piece of cardboard. I guess that’s the logic of a ten-year-old for you.”

  Mark took a sip of wine. He sat wrapped in his discomfort, insulated against her attempts at conversation.

  The celebration dinner was a bust. They ate with scarcely another word between them.

  Back in the house, Mark retreated behind his stack of surgical journals. That was the way he always reacted to their disagreements—withdrawal. Damn it, she didn’t mind a good, healthy fight. The DiMatteo family, with its three headstrong daughters and little Pete, had weathered more than its share of adolescent conflicts and sibling rivalries, but their love for each other had never been in doubt. Oh yes, Abby could deal with a healthy argument.

  It was silence she couldn’t stand.

  In frustration she went into the kitchen and scrubbed the sink. I’m turning into my mother, she thought in disgust. I get angry and what do I do? I clean the kitchen. She wiped the stovetop, then dismantled the burners and scrubbed those as well. She had the whole damn kitchen sparkling by the time she heard Mark finally head upstairs to the bedroom.

  She followed him.

  In darkness they lay side by side, not touching. His silence had rubbed off on her and she could think of no way to break through it without seeming like the needy one, the weak one. But she couldn’t stand it any longer.

  “I hate it when you do this,” she said.

  “Please, Abby. I’m tired.”

  “So am I. We’re both tired. It seems like we’re always tired. But I can’t go to sleep this way. And neither can you.”

  “All right. What do you want me to say?”

  “Anything! I just want you to keep talking to me.”

  “I don’t see the point of talking things to death.”

  “There are things I need to talk about.”

  “Fine. I’m listening.”

  “But you’re doing it through a wall. I feel like I’m in confession. Talking through a grate to some guy I can’t see.” She sighed and stared up at the darkness. She had the sudden, dizzying sensation that she was floating free, unattached. Unconnected. “The boy’s in MICU,” she said. “He’s only seventeen.”

  Mark said nothing.

  “He reminds me so much of my brother. Pete was a lot younger. But there’s this sort of fake courage that all boys have. That Pete had.”

  “It’s not my decision alone,” he said. “There are others involved. The whole transplant team. Aaron Levi, Bill Archer. Even Jeremiah Parr.”

  “Why the hospital president?”

  “Parr wants our statistics to look good. And all the research shows that outpatients are more likely to survive a transplant.”

  “Without a transplant, Josh O’Day’s not going to survive at all.”

  “I know it’s a tragedy. But that’s life.”

  She lay very still, stunned by his matter-of-fact tone.

  He reached out to touch her hand. She pulled away.

  “You could change their minds,” she said. “You could talk them into—”

  “It’s too late. The team’s decided.”

  “What is this team, anyway? God?”

  There was a long silence. Quietly, Mark said: “Be careful what you say, Abby.”

  “You mean about the holy team?”

  “The other night, at Archer’s, we all meant what we said. In fact, Archer told me later that you’re the best fellowship material he’s seen in three years. But Archer’s careful about which people he recruits, and I don’t blame him. We need people who’ll work with us. Not against us.”

  “Even if I don’t agree with the rest of you?”

  “It’s part of being on a team, Abby. We all have our points of view. But we make the decisions together. And we stick by them.” He reached out again to touch her hand. This time she didn’t pull away. Neither did she return his squeeze. “Come on, Abby,” he said softly. “There are residents out there who’d kill for a transplant fellowship at Bayside. Here you’re practically handed one on a platter. It is what you want, isn’t it?”

  “Of course it’s what I want. It scares me how much I want it. The crazy thing is, I never knew I did, not until Archer raised the possibility . . .” She took a deep breath, released it in a long sigh. “I hate the way I keep wanting more. Always wanting more. There’s something that keeps pulling me and pulling me. First it was getting into college, then med school. Then a surgery residency. And now, it’s this fellowship. It’s moved so far from where I started. When I just wanted to be a doctor . . .”

  “It’s not enough anymore. Is it?”

  “No. I wish it was. But it isn’t.”

  “Then don’t blow it, Abby. Please. For both our sakes.”

  “You make it sound as if you’re the one with everything to lose.”

  “I’m the one who suggested your name. I told them you’re the best choice they could make.” He looked at her. “I still think so.”

  For a moment they lay without talking, only their hands in contact. Then he reached over and caressed her hip. Not a real embrace, but an attempt at one.

  It was enough. She let him take her into his arms.

  The simultaneous squeal of half a dozen pocket pagers was followed by the curt announcement over the hospital speaker system:

  Code Blue, MICU, Code Blue, MICU.

  Abby joined the other surgical residents in a dash for the stairway. By the time she’d jogged into the MICU, a crowd of medical personnel was already thronging the area. A glance told her there were more than enough people here to deal with a Code Blue. Most of the residents were starting to drift out of the room. Abby, too, would have left.

  Had she not seen that the code was in Bed 4. Joshua O’Day’s cubicle.

  She pushed into the knot of white coats and scrub suits. At their center lay Joshua O’Day, his frail body fully exposed to the glare of overhead lights. Hannah Love was administering chest compressions, her blond hair whipping forward with every thrust. Another nurse was frantically rummaging through the crash cart drawers, pulling out drug vials and syringes and passing them to the medical residents. Abby glanced up at the cardiac monitor screen.

  Ventricular fibrillation. The pattern of a dying heart.

  “Seven and a half ET tube!” a voice yelled.

  Only then did Abby notice Vivian Chao crouched behind Joshua’s head. Vivian already had the laryngoscope ready.

  The crash cart nurse ripped the plastic cover off an ET tube and passed it to Vivian.

  “Keep bagging him!” Vivian ordered.

  The respiratory tech, holding an anesthesia mask to Josh�
��s face, continued squeezing the balloonlike reservoir a few times, manually pumping oxygen into the boy’s lungs.

  “OK,” said Vivian. “Let’s intubate.”

  The tech pulled the mask away. Within seconds, Vivian had the ET tube in place, the oxygen connected.

  “Lidocaine’s in,” said a nurse.

  The medical resident glanced up at the monitor. “Shit. Still in V. fib. Let’s have the paddles again. Two hundred joules.” A nurse handed him the defibrillator paddles. He slapped them onto the chest. The placement was already marked by conductive gel pads: one paddle near the sternum, the other outside the nipple. “Everyone back.”

  The burst of electricity shot through Joshua O’Day’s body, jolting every muscle into a simultaneous spasm. He gave a grotesque jerk and then lay still.

  Everyone’s gaze shot to the monitor screen.

  “Still in V. fib,” someone said. “Bretylium, two-fifty.”

  Hannah automatically resumed chest compressions. She was flushed, sweating, her expression numb with fear.

  “I can take over,” Abby offered.

  Nodding, Hannah stepped aside.

  Abby climbed onto the footstool and positioned her hands on Joshua’s chest, her palm on the lower third of the sternum. His chest felt thin and brittle, as though it would crack under a few vigorous thrusts; she was almost afraid to lean against it.

  She began to pump. It was a task that required no mental exertion. Just that repetitive motion of lean forward, release, lean forward, release. The alpha rhythm of CPR. She was a participant in the chaos yet she was apart from it, her mind pulling back, withdrawing. She could not bring herself to look at the boy’s face, to watch as Vivian taped the ET tube in place. She could only focus on his chest, on that point of contact between his sternum and her clasped hands. Sternums were anonymous. This could be anyone’s chest. An old man’s. A stranger’s. Lean, release. She concentrated. Lean, release.

  “Everyone back again!” someone yelled.

  Abby pulled away. Another jolt of the paddles, another grotesque spasm.

  Ventricular fibrillation. The heart signaling that it cannot hold on.

  Abby crossed her hands and placed them again on the boy’s chest. Lean, release. Come back, Joshua, her hands were saying to him. Come back to us.

  A new voice joined in the bedlam. “Let’s try a bolus of calcium chloride. A hundred milligrams,” said Aaron Levi. He was standing near the footboard, his gaze fixed on the monitor.

  “But he’s on digoxin,” said the medical resident.

  “At this point, we’ve got nothing to lose.”

  A nurse filled a syringe and handed it to the resident. “One hundred milligrams calcium chloride.”

  The bolus was injected into the IV line. A penny toss into the chemical wishing well.

  “OK, try the paddles again,” said Aaron. “Four hundred joules this time.”

  “Everyone back!”

  Abby pulled away. The boy’s limbs jerked, fell still.

  “Again,” said Aaron.

  Another jolt. The tracing on the monitor shot straight up. As it settled back to baseline, there was a single blip—the jagged peak of a QRS complex. At once it deteriorated back to V. fib.

  “One more time!” said Aaron.

  The paddles were slapped on the chest. The body thrashed under the shock of 400 joules. There was a sudden hush as everyone’s gaze shot to the monitor.

  A QRS blipped across. Then another. And another.

  “We’re in sinus,” said Aaron.

  “I’m getting a pulse!” said a nurse. “I feel a pulse!”

  “BP seventy over forty . . . up to ninety over fifty . . .”

  A collective sigh seemed to wash through the room. At the foot of the bed, Hannah Love was crying unashamedly. Welcome back, Josh, Abby thought, her gaze blurred with tears.

  Gradually the other residents filed out, but Abby couldn’t bring herself to leave; she felt too drained to move on. In silence she helped the nurses gather up the used syringes and vials, all the bits of glass and plastic that are the aftermath of every Code Blue. Working beside her, Hannah Love sniffled as she wiped away the electrode paste, her washcloth stroking lovingly across Josh’s chest.

  It was Vivian who broke the silence.

  “He could be getting that heart right now,” she said. Vivian was standing by the tray table of Joshua’s trophies. She picked up the Cub Scout ribbon. Pinewood Derby, third grade. “He could’ve gone to the OR this morning. Had the transplant by ten o’clock. If we lose him, it’s your fault, Aaron.” Vivian looked at Aaron Levi, whose pen had frozen in the midst of signing the code sheet.

  “Dr. Chao,” said Aaron quietly. “Would you care to talk about this in private?”

  “I don’t care who’s listening! The match is perfect. I wanted Josh on the table this morning. But you wouldn’t give me a decision. You just delayed. And delayed. And fucking delayed.” She took a deep breath and looked down at the award ribbon she was holding. “I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing. Any of you.”

  “Until you calm down, I’m not going to discuss this with you,” said Aaron. He turned and walked out.

  “You are. You are going to,” said Vivian, following him out of the cubicle.

  Through the open doorway, Abby could hear Vivian’s pursuit of Aaron across the MICU. Her angry questions. Her demands for an explanation.

  Abby bent down and picked up the Pinewood Derby ribbon that Vivian had dropped on the floor. It was green—not a winner’s ribbon, but merely an honorable mention for the hours spent laboring over a small block of wood, sanding it, painting it, greasing the axles, pounding in the lead fishing weights to make it tumble faster. All that effort must be rewarded. Little boys need their tender egos soothed.

  Vivian came back into the cubicle. She was white-faced, silent. She stood at the foot of Josh’s bed, staring down at the boy, watching his chest rise and fall with each whoosh of the ventilator.

  “I’m transferring him,” she said.

  “What?” Abby looked at her in disbelief. “Where?”

  “Massachusetts General. Transplant Service. Get Josh ready for the ambulance. I’m going to make the calls.”

  The two nurses didn’t move. They were staring at Vivian.

  Hannah protested, “He’s in no condition to be moved.”

  “If he stays here, we’re going to lose him,” said Vivian. “We are going to lose him. Are you willing to let that happen?”

  Hannah looked down at the frail chest rising and falling beneath her washcloth. “No,” she said. “No. I want him to live.”

  “Ivan Tarasoff was my professor at Harvard Med,” said Vivian. “He’s head of their transplant team. If our team won’t do it, then Tarasoff will.”

  “Even if Josh survives the transfer,” said Abby, “he still needs a donor heart.”

  “Then we’ll have to get him one.” Vivian looked straight at Abby. “Karen Terrio’s.”

  That’s when Abby understood exactly what she had to do. She nodded. “I’ll talk to Joe Terrio now.”

  “It has to be in writing. Make sure he signs it.”

  “What about the harvest? We can’t use the Bayside team.”

  “Tarasoff likes to send his own man for the harvest. We’ll assist. We’ll even deliver to his doorstep. There can’t be any delay. We have to do it fast, before anyone here can stop us.”

  “Wait a minute,” said the other nurse. “You can’t authorize a transfer to Mass Gen.”

  “Yes I can,” said Vivian. “Josh O’Day is on teaching service. Which means the chief residents are in charge. I’ll take full responsibility. Just follow my orders and get him ready for ambulance transfer.”

  “Absolutely, Dr. Chao,” said Hannah. “In fact, I’ll ride with him.”

  “You do that.” Vivian looked at Abby. “Okay, DiMatteo,” she snapped. “Go get us a heart.”

  Ninety minutes later, Abby was scrubbing in. She comp
leted her final rinse and, elbows bent, backed through the swinging door into OR 3.

  The donor lay on the table, her pale body washed in fluorescent light. A nurse-anesthetist was changing IV bottles. No need for anesthesia on this patient; Karen Terrio could feel no pain.

  Vivian, gowned and gloved, stood at one side of the table. Dr. Lim, a kidney surgeon, stood on the other. Abby had worked with Lim on previous cases. A man of few words, he was known for his swift, silent work.

  “Signed and sealed?” asked Vivian.

  “In triplicate. It’s in the chart.” She herself had typed up the directed-donation consent, a statement specifying that Karen Terrio’s heart be given to Josh O’Day, age seventeen.

  It was the boy’s age that had swayed Joe Terrio. He’d been sitting at his wife’s bedside, holding her hand, and had listened in silence as Abby told him about a seventeen-year-old boy who loved baseball. Without saying a word, Joe had signed the paper.

  And then he’d kissed his wife good-bye.

  Abby was helped into a sterile gown and size six and a half gloves. “Who’s doing the harvest?” she asked.

  “Dr. Frobisher, from Tarasoff’s team. I’ve worked with him before,” said Vivian. “He’s on his way now.”

  “Any word about Josh?”

  “Tarasoff called ten minutes ago. They’ve got his blood typed and crossed and an OR cleared. They’re standing by.” She looked down impatiently at Karen Terrio. “Jesus, I could do the heart myself. Where the hell’s Frobisher?”

  They waited. Ten minutes, fifteen. The intercom buzzed with a call from Tarasoff at Mass Gen. Was the harvest proceeding?

  “Not yet,” said Vivian. “Any minute now.”

  Again the intercom buzzed. “Dr. Frobisher’s arrived,” said the nurse. “He’s scrubbing now.”

  Five minutes later, the OR door swung open and Frobisher pushed in, his hefty arms dripping water. “Size nine gloves,” he snapped.

  At once the atmosphere in the room stretched taut. No one except Vivian had ever worked with Frobisher before, and his fierce expression did not invite any conversation. With silent efficiency, the nurses helped him gown and glove.

  He stepped to the table and critically eyed the prepped operative site. “Causing trouble again, Dr. Chao?” he said.