“What’s the matter, Weasel, don’t your handlers at the Mutt want to pay the piper?” Junior retorted. He never trusted these big companies, even if the clients were defrauding them. The companies were none too innocent themselves. He took the case. It beat boredom.
The hospital was a rickety old building on South Main. It didn’t seem like the type of facility that would have perfect utilization numbers, but looks can be deceiving.
The medical records office was in the basement. A grumpy woman directed him to a pile of charts and disappeared. Junior spent the next six hours sitting in the cramped cubicle, sipping lukewarm, weak coffee and marveling at the perfect records. They were all written by the same physician with the perfect handwriting. There was something familiar about the writing, but Junior couldn’t make the connection.
The records were meticulous. Every patient with an MI had been given an ace inhibitor, a beta-blocker, aspirin, and a statin. But every patient was identical; the EKGs identical; the lab values identical—even the vitals were the same. Something was very wrong with these charts. By day’s end Junior was ready to go back to his cheesy motel room and make some phone calls. He had lifted some phone numbers from the charts. (Junior didn’t let a little thing like confidentiality stand in his way.) He tried to call several patients, but every single one of them had a disconnected phone.
The next morning Junior returned to the record room and knocked on the door. There was a different clerk today. A lilting voice said, “Come on in, honey.”
Junior started to get chills up and down his spine. He knew that voice … from somewhere. He felt her brush against his back. The smell of jasmine filled the air as she place a cup of coffee on the desk before him. As he finished off the foul morning brew it came to him. He knew her voice and her handwriting.
He stood quickly and turned toward her, but his head began to swim. Suddenly she was joined by a man whose photo he had seen before. It was Dr. Rock and his “wife.” Junior took a step toward them and then hit the ground, drugged into oblivion.
Fluorescent lights. Movement though a hallway. Junior found himself strapped on a gurney. He heard the orderly talking, maybe to a nurse.
“Is this Mr. Johnson?” asked the nurse. She checked his arm band; the ID was correct.
“He doesn’t say much does he?” the orderly commented.
“He’s going for resection of a huge brain mass,” the nurse replied.
Junior wondered who they were talking about as his stretcher was wheeled into the operating room. He felt the IV go into his hand. They checked his arm band again: “This is Hugo Johnson, birth date Oct. 5, 1957? OK.” They started to put the mask over his face, and Junior summoned all his strength and whispered, “Not me.”
The anesthesiologist shook his head, ”Sorry I know you’re scared but these things happen to everyone. You’ll be fine, Hugo.”
Junior tried again: “Not Hugo.”
The anesthesiologist nodded again, “I know we all feel immortal, but anyone—even you—can get sick.”
The mask came toward Junior again. He knew this was his last chance before his skull was cut open and his brain dissected in a hunt for a tumor that was not there.
Summoning his last reserve of energy, he yelled, “Sentinel event.” Everyone in the room stopped cold.