Free Doing Harm by Kelly Parsons Page A

placidly staring off into the distance, as still as a statue.
    Kidney failure.
    Shit, I think to myself, absently massaging my sore shoulder.
    I hate kidney failure.

 
    CHAPTER 4
    Friday, July 24
    I’m changing out of my scrubs in the OR locker room, getting ready to head out after a long day. By now, our team has settled into a well-oiled routine. Luis continues to do a great job. And as for GG … well, GG is a bona fide superstar. Enthusiastic and effusive, her knowledge and skills are years beyond her level. She makes other University Medical School students—some of the best in the country—look like complete slackers.
    But she’s more than just a great med student: She’s a machine. Absolutely fanatical. I’ve never seen anyone, med student or doctor, with such an all-consuming passion for medicine. Starting IVs, drawing blood, writing orders, checking lab and radiology results, helping out with operations—she’s seemingly everywhere at once; always in a good mood, always with a serene smile on her face. Every morning, she’s the first one through the hospital door; every night, she’s the last one to pack up and head home. That is, when she even bothers to go home. Most nights, she’ll stay in the hospital to help out the resident on call, catching a few hours of broken sleep in one of the doctor sleeping rooms.
    Since her comment to me in the OR, she hasn’t said anything even remotely flirtatious. But, every so often, I catch her looking at me just a beat too long; and once, sitting in the cafeteria opposite her, I could have sworn she deliberately rubbed her leg against mine: up one side, then down the other. It was probably just my imagination; but in my own mind, at least, it’s enough to make me uncomfortable.
    Meanwhile, after running a bunch of tests, the kidney specialists announced yesterday (rather pompously, I thought) that Mr. Bernard’s kidney failure was caused by a rare condition called allergic interstitial nephritis—brought on, unfortunately, by the antibiotic he accidentally received during his operation. That one stupid medication, Cefotetan, set in motion the molecular chain of events leading to his present state. The kidney guys told us that it’s only a temporary problem and that his kidneys should recover completely. Eventually. Luckily, he won’t be needing dialysis.
    But compounding Mr. Bernard’s problems, and my own frustration, is that he’s now also suffering from a condition called ileus. Ileus is what happens when the intestinal muscles shut down, like gears freezing up in a machine. Soon after his kidneys had started to fail, Mr. Bernard’s abdomen became swollen and tense, simultaneously expanding like a balloon and tightening like a drum in grotesque disproportion to the rest of his body, like he had swallowed a basketball. Then he started puking his guts out.
    There’s very little we can actually do to make ileus better. It’s frustrating as hell. The treatment for it is practically medieval. First, we keep the patient from eating or drinking, a treatment euphemistically referred to as bowel rest. Then we snake a plastic tube through the patient’s nose, down the esophagus, and into the stomach. Which pretty much sucks—for both the patient and the nurse or doctor putting down the tube. Then we wait for the intestines to start working again.
    So now, with a plastic tube stuck down his nose, and a thick IV line plugged into his chest to pump liquid nutrition directly into his veins, Mr. Bernard sits in bed, patiently waiting for his kidneys and intestines to start working again. Meanwhile, as the days have dragged on, Dr. Andrews has been getting increasingly pissed off, looking for someone to blame. I’m at the top of the list. So, my job prospects on the line, I’ve been quick to deflect Andrews’s ire every chance I get toward the anesthesiologist who gave Mr. Bernard the antibiotic in the OR. I don’t think it’s working.
    I decide to pay Mr.