“Dr. Balding was with a patient … I can’t remember what the procedure was, but it wasn’t something he could simply drop. Nick had ordered tests, and so we were waiting on them. She wasn’t in distress. In fact, she hadn’t said anything about chest pains or difficulty breathing until about thirty minutes after he left.”
“Did you request he return or to another doctor at that point?”
“Nick was delivering a baby, but I did request another doctor. By then Dr. Balding was available, but it was too late.”
I wrote down Peggy’s account on my legal pad. “As far as you’re concerned, was there anything that could have been done differently?”
“We did everything as usual. If she’d come in sooner or told us she had trouble breathing, maybe we’d have done something different.”
“If Dr. Foster suspected an embolism, why not start treating it?”
“Because maybe it was a heart attack or the flu. You don’t want guess in medicine. Treating her for something she didn’t have could be deadly too.”
I knew this, but I wanted to hear Peggy’s assessment.
“We still didn’t know what the problem was until it was too late.” She wiped a tear. “I’m sorry. It’s not like we haven’t lost someone before, but Ms. Mason, she was such a part of all of us.”
I reached out and put my hand on hers. “I know this is hard, and I’m sorry for having to put you through it again.”
She shrugged. “I get it. The hospital needs to protect itself. But from where I stand, we did everything right.”
The truth was, sometimes people couldn’t be saved. My mother couldn’t, and not because the hospital messed up. Her injuries were too severe to overcome. It appeared that Ms. Mason waited too long to come to the hospital.
I hoped my report would help alleviate any guilt Nick had over her death. Not that it wouldn’t still linger. It couldn’t be easy to lose a patient, especially after doing all you could to help them. But I hoped that if he worried that he might have done something differently she’d have survived, that it wasn’t likely the case.
9
Nick
Even with the sleeping pill, I had a long night. It had been a while since nightmares had invaded my sleep as much as they did now. As wrong as it was, I wished I had erotic dreams of Mia instead of the nigh
tmares. But instead of seducing me in my sleep, Mia had become a part of the horror, telling me I messed up and how she shouldn’t have fucked me.
The next day, I vowed to enjoy my day off because when I went on rotation again, I would be on long shifts. First, though, I called the pathologist to see if there were any results on Ms. Mason’s autopsy. Pulmonary embolism. It was on my list of possibilities during her evolution. It was why I ordered the tests. Tests that hadn’t been done. Why not?
I showered and dressed for a day outdoors. There was nothing like clean mountain air to help cleanse the mind and soul, and get into a mindset that allowed clarity. I was glad that I had the day off to spend getting my head and heart right again.
I drove up further into the mountains to a trail that was known to locals, but not by many tourists. I started up the steep incline, sucking in the clear air, and letting my heart pump away the negative energy. After an hour, I reached the top that had a spectacular view of the Goldrush Lake. I sat and drank my water, and only then did I reflect on what the fuck went wrong.
I played out the entire encounter with Ms. Mason, wondering what I’d missed. Had I not gone to deliver the baby, would I have figured out the problem sooner and been able to help her? The tests weren’t done. Had I been there, I’d have called to find out about the hold up. That might have changed things.
A voice inside me told me all this rumination wouldn’t change anything. The end result was that Ms. Mason was dead. She died on my watch. I’d forever be the one known as the doctor who let her die. I took a long swig of my water as I determined I’d probably deserved that. I still hadn’t listened to my phone messages, but I’d checked to see how many I had. More than I wanted to go through, especially since I suspected many would be rude. They’d blame me.
I probably needed to do something beyond have a pity party, but what? Should I visit her family? Maybe I needed to make an official statement. I’d need to check with Dick about that. Or maybe Mia.
Thinking of Mia made me wish she was here with me. That was a dangerous thought. It wouldn’t be good to want or need her. That would only lead to disaster. Her career came first. I’d learned that four years ago when she’d chosen to leave me to pursue a life in Los Angeles. Not that I blamed her or felt like she should have chosen me, although I wished she had. The truth was, I hadn’t chosen her either. What if I had? I shook my head of that thought. After three years of residency in a large city hospital, I knew it wasn’t for me. I liked the busyness and challenge of emergency medicine, but in a large city hospital, it often felt like I was under siege. The flow of emergencies was constant, and many were life and death. Too many were violent, including domestic abuse, gunshots and knife wounds. That had been one of the most shocking things I’d learned; the horror people could inflict on others.
I headed back down the mountain. Back in my car, I thought about going to pick up some sandwiches to bring to Jim, but didn’t want to be asked about Ms. Mason by the deli owner or any patrons. Instead I drove to his house, knowing Eli would be at the store.
“Nick,” Jim said as he opened the door to me. I could see by the concerned expression that he’d heard about Ms. Mason.
“It’s my day off, so I thought I’d have that chess rematch.”
“Come in, come in.” He waved me in. “What can I get you to drink? Beer?”
“Beer would be great.” The doctor in me watched him as he made his way to the kitchen. He was moving slower these days, but he appeared to have his balance.
He got the beer and then he set up the chess board on the dining room table. “I just want to say that I’m sorry to hear about Ms. Mason.”