The Society

the relief of being able to get in enough air made the breathing tube tolerable. But mostly, the discomfort was quite frightening, especially in the initial hours, before there was any chance to learn to cope.

Will knew he would never again have to ask a patient about the sensation.

He thrust his tongue against the hard rubber airway that had been slipped into his mouth next to the tube and then taped in place to keep him from biting down. Awareness was rapidly returning, along with swirling memories of becoming sick, terribly sick, in the OR. He must have stopped breathing, or come damn close. The fact that the discomfort and panic seemed manageable suggested he was being medicated. Was this the first time he had been awake? With no little effort, he forced his eyelids apart. Even before his focus sharpened, he knew that he was in the ICU. The fluorescent lights over him were midday bright. Across the cubicle, two nurses were talking.

Was it a stroke, he wondered? Is that what had happened to him? A cerebral hemorrhage of some sort? Methodically, he tested his hands and arms, then his feet and legs. No problem moving anything.

The incision! He had gotten horribly dizzy and toppled over into the incision. He could envision the blood and the coils of intestine as he pitched downward toward them. But there the images stopped.

How long had he been out? What happened to his patient?

He opened his eyes wider. As his consciousness grew, so did the suffocating discomfort in his throat. He also became aware of another unpleasant sensation-the desperate need to pee. Easy, easy, he told himself. There was no way he could have been unconscious on a respirator in the ICU and not have had a catheter inserted to drain his bladder. Easy. The pressure and urgency was almost as dreadful as the tube. He had never been a hospitalized patient before. Now he wondered if he had been sympathetic enough with those who were.

The nurses were two whom he knew well, Anne Hajjar and Donna Lee. He banged the back of his hand against the guardrail.

Donna rushed over, clearly pleased to see him awake. Sharp features and close-cut blond hair, she was a new wife in her late thirties and a hardened veteran of the ICU wars. Like the other unit nurses, she called all but the most unapproachable physicians by their first name.

“Will, hi there, it’s Donna. Welcome to the land of the living.”

Will nodded that he understood.

“Are you in any pain?”

He twisted his hand and pointed toward the tube.

“Ken Millstein is taking care of you. Your blood gases are looking pretty good, so maybe he’ll be able to pull that tube out after all the labs are back. Meanwhile we can keep you medicated.”

Will shook his head. No. No medication. I can handle this. . just not too long.

“Okay, but you sort of woke up a little while ago and started tearing at the tube. That’s why we medicated you and put those restraints on.”

I understand.

“Go after the tube again like that and we’ll have to beat you with a stick. Do you know what happened to you?”

No.

“Apparently, you had a seizure of some sort while you were doing a case. You immediately lost consciousness, and then a few minutes later you stopped breathing altogether. You were rushed down to the ER, and they put the tube in there. Your EKG is normal, so it doesn’t look like a coronary, and your chest X-ray doesn’t show any sign of aspiration. Is there anything you need right now?”

Will wriggled the fingers on both hands and pointed back at the restraints.

“Anne?”

Anne Hajjar, willowy, brown-eyed, and eternally lighthearted, materialized at the opposite side of the bed from Donna and squeezed Will’s hand. Of all the nurses in the hospital, she was his favorite.

“Hey, big boy, we’re glad you’re coming around,” she said. “We were a little worried when they dragged you in here.”

“He wants the restraints off,” Donna said. “I told him if he pulled that tube out it would not go well for him.”

“I suspect it would be the last thing that shape he ever pulled,” Anne said, undoing the Velcro cuff and strap on her side.

As soon as the restraints were removed, Will brought his hands together and pretended to be writing on an imaginary pad. Donna left and quickly returned with a stack of progress-note paper on a clipboard and a Bic pen. At that moment, internist Ken Millstein moved in next to Anne. He was a slight, Harvard-trained doc about Will’s age, but half a foot shorter, with a rapidly receding hairline and a penchant for baggy suits. He and Will and their wives had been friends from their earliest days at Fredrickston General, and the Millsteins had been one of the very few couples who hadn’t found it necessary to side with one or the other of them after the divorce.

“Eventful day,” Millstein said.

I guess, Will wrote. How long have I been here?

“Two hours, give or take. You had us worried for a while there.”

How is my patient?

“Gordon is still in the OR with him. I think he called Jim Katz in to help finish the procedure. Apparently you got a ten from the Russian judge for that dive you took.”

Very funny.

“Any idea what could have happened? Because I sure don’t.”

None. I have never passed out before.

“Will, you didn’t just pass out. You stopped breathing. Your blood pressure was heading south when Steve Edelstein in the ER decided to go ahead and intubate you.”

Good man.

“Any medical history we should know about?”

Asthma as a child.

“Meds?”

None.

“Feel okay now?”

Groggy.

“No surprise there.” Millstein checked Will’s pupils, then examined his heart and lungs. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “I’ve run so many labs that your HMO is probably going to put a bounty on my head. As soon as I have most of them back, I’ll get anesthesia in here and we’ll pull that tube.”

How about the catheter?

“First the tube. Sorry. You want the nurses to give you something?”

Just a little, Will wrote this time.

“Five of morphine, Donna. Repeat it as needed.”

Thanks.

“Just bear with us, my friend,” Millstein said. “We’re going to get to the bottom of this.”

With the help of the intravenous morphine, Will drifted in and out of a comfortable haze. At times he dreamed-a high-speed auto chase, a green-faced judge sentencing him to prison for something, swimming in perfectly blue Caribbean water alongside a woman who looked vaguely like Patty Moriarity. At one point, in the middle of a disturbing vignette in which his hands were about to be chopped off by someone, he awoke to see Gordo Cameron looming over him.

“Greetings, lad,” he said. “You sure gave me and the gang in the OR one hell of a fright there. I’m glad you’re coming around.”

How’d you do with the case?

“He should make it through the next few hours, but that’s all I can say at the moment. Jim came to the rescue and assisted. We had to repair a couple of torn vessels, then we went ahead and did the Whipple. He lost a fair amount of blood and dropped his pressure a couple of times.”

Did I tear the vessels?

“Your head hit the incision like a bloody meteor. Some vessels were bound to rupture. But, really, it was