Free Coma by Robin Cook

to the bed that hissed to and fro, breathing for the patient. The patient’s body was covered by a white sheet; the arms were uncovered and positioned at forty-five-degree angles from the torso. An I.V. line ran into the left arm. Another I.V. line ran into the right side of her neck. Heightening the somber effect, a small spotlight directed its concentrated beam down from the ceiling above the patient, splashing over the head and upper body. The rest of the corner was lost in shadow. There was no motion, no sign of life save for the rhythmical hiss of the breathing machine. A plastic line curled down from under the patient and was connected to a calibrated urine container.
    “We also have to have an accurate daily weight,” continued Bellows.
    But for Susan his voice drifted in and out of her awareness. “A twenty-three-year-old woman . . .” The thought reverberated in Susan’s mind. Without the aid of an extensive clinical experience, Susan was instantly lost in the human element. The age and sex similarity struck too close to home for her to avoid the identification. In a naive way she associated such serious medicine with old people who had had their fling at life.
    “How long has she been unresponsive,” asked Susan absently, without taking her eyes from the patient in the corner, without even blinking.
    Bellows, interrupted by this non sequitur, turned his head up to glance at Susan. He was insensitive to Susan’s state of mind. “Eight days,” said Bellows, slightly vexed at the interruption of his harangue about fluid balance. “But that has little to do with today’s sodium level, Miss Wheeler. Could you kindly keep your mind on the subject at hand.”
    Bellows shifted his attention to the others. “I’m going to be expecting you people to start writing routine fluid orders by the end of the week. Now where the hell was I?” Bellows returned to his input-output calculations, and everyone except Susan leaned over to catch the expanding figures.
    Susan continued to stare at the motionless individual in the corner, racing through a mental checklist of her friends who had had D&Cs, wondering what really divided herself or her friends from the plight of Nancy Greenly. Several minutes passed as she bit her lower lip, as was her custom when in deep thought.
    “How’d it happen?” asked Susan, again unexpectedly.
    Bellows’s head popped up for the second time, but more rapidly, as if he expected some imminent catastrophe. “How’d what happen?” he countered, scanning the room for some telltale activity.
    “How’d the patient become comatose?”
    Bellows sat up straight, closed his eyes and put his pencil down. As if counting to ten, he paused before speaking.
    “Miss Wheeler, you’ve got to try to give me a hand,” said Bellows slowly and condescendingly. “You’ve got to stay with us. As for the patient, it was just one of those inexplicable twists of the fickle finger of fate. OK? Perfect health . . . routine D&C . . . anesthesia and induction without a ripple. She just never woke up. Some sort of cerebral hypoxia. The squash didn’t get the oxygen it needed. OK? Now let’s get back to work. We’ll be here all day getting these orders written and we’ve got Grand Rounds at noon.”
    “Does that kind of complication occur often?” persisted Susan.
    “No,” said Bellows, “rare as hell, maybe one in a hundred thousand.”
    “One hundred percent for her, though,” added Susan with an edge on the tips of her words.
    Bellows looked up at Susan without any idea of what she was driving at. The human element in Nancy Greenly’s case had ceased to be a part of his concern. Bellows was intent on keeping the ions at the right level, keeping the urine output up, and keeping the bacteria at bay. He did not want Nancy Greenly to die while she was on his service because if she did, it would reflect on the kind of care he was capable of providing, and Stark would have some choice