“Your job is to pump me full of a mostly untested drug and see if it’s going to help cure me or if it’s going to make me worse, and that, somehow, makes you my primary physician,” I explain.
“It’s a double-blind study,” she says. “There can’t be anything shared that might jeopardize the integrity of the trial.”
“What did he say?” I ask.
“What did who say?” she returns.
“Dr. Churchill. What did he say when you told him what happened to me?”
“I’m not the one that told him,” she says. “To be frank with you, I don’t think it’s entirely appropriate that he be involved in any part of your current treatment.”
“Who told him?” I ask, but the answer couldn’t possibly matter. “Never mind. What happens now? Are you going to take me off the drug, or do we up the dosage or what?”
“First off,” she says, “we don’t know that you’re on the real drug. As I’ve told you a few times now, both in our previous meetings and in this conversation, that this is a double-blind study. I don’t know who’s on the drug and who’s not, and if I did know, I would have to recuse myself from the trial, as it would no longer be double-blind.”
“Okay,” I tell her, “I get it. You’re a whore for procedure, but if you could just answer my question-”
“I don’t think there’s any reason that we should change our approach,” she interrupts. “You’re still new in the trial and you haven’t exhibited any new symptoms, so the best course, in my expert opinion, is to proceed as before.”
What kind of person is so in need of validation that they refer to their own opinion as “expert?”
“Is there anything we can to do help prevent further seizures?” I ask.
“No,” she answers. “Are you feeling lightheaded, nauseated?”
“No. So we’re just going to do nothing and hope it doesn’t happen again?”
She sighs and rolls her eyes, saying, “It doesn’t seem to be a result of the trial, so it’s anecdotal.”
I’m preparing myself to beat a little humanity into this misanthropic freak when the door to my room opens and Jace bursts in.
“Grace!” he exclaims, before he sees Dr. Willis standing at the foot of my bed. He turns toward her, trying to act as if nothing were amiss. “What happened with my patient?”
Dr. Willis doesn’t answer him or look over or even acknowledge his presence, she simply continues talking to me.
“We’ll run some tests, but I’m confident we’ll be able to keep you in the trial. If you start having more frequent seizures, we can revisit it, but I think one outlying incident doesn’t mean that much,” she says.
“I’d like to get a copy of any tests you run,” Jace says.
“No deal,” Dr. Willis replies. “I know you’re relatively new here, but even you should know that we’re not going to disclose any kind of information about one of our trial patients until we publish the results of the trial itself.”
Jace holds his tongue.
“So, just so I’m clear on this: you’re not going to actually do anything about the fact I just had another seizure, huh?” I ask.
“I have other patients to deal with,” Dr. Willis says, and before I have time to ask her any more questions or call her a cunt, she’s out of the room.
Once the door’s closed behind her, Jace is at the side of my bed, holding my hand.
“How are you feeling?” he asks.
“I’m still a little out of it, but I’ll be all right. You on the other hand have really got to do some work on your poker face. If I didn’t know any better, I would start to think that something was going on between you and me.”
“You’re a strange woman,” he tells me, “but you have a point. I’m sorry. I was just worried about you.”
“Funny how you didn’t seem so worried about me the first time we met. I’d just had a seizure then, too. I think you want some of this,” I say and squeeze my boobs, “don’t ya?”
“They are pretty remarkable.”