Devil's Waltz Read Free

milk,” I said.
    She wiped her mouth with a napkin. “Nothing can save this.”
    “Least it doesn’t cost anything.”
    “Says who?”
    “What? No more free coffee for the docs?”
    “Them days are gone, Alex.”
    “Another tradition bites the dust,” I said. “The old budgetary blues?”
    “What else? Coffee and tea are forty-nine cents a cup now. Wonder how many cups it’ll take to balance the books.”
    She ate some grapefruit. I fiddled with my pen and said, “I remember how hard you guys fought to get the interns and residents in on the freebie.”
    She shook her head. “Amazing what seemed important back then.”
    “Money problems worse than usual?”
    “Afraid so.” She frowned, put her spoon down and pushed the grapefruit away. “Anyway, back to the case. Where was I?”
    “The baby screaming at you.”
    “Right. Okay, again things start to look good, so again I taper off and terminate, set up an appointment in two months. Three days later, back in the E.R., two A . M . Another croup thing. Only this time the mother says the kid
did
pass out — actually turned blue. More CPR.”
    “Three days after you terminated,” I said, making a note. “Last time it was two.”
    “Interesting, huh? Okay, I do an E.R. checkup. The baby’s blood pressure is up a bit and she’s breathing rapidly. But getting plenty of oxygen in. No wheeze, but I was thinking either acute asthma or some sort of anxiety reaction.”
    “Panic at being back in the hospital again?”
    “That, or just the mother’s distress rubbing off on her.”
    “Was the mother showing a lot of overt distress?”
    “Not really, but you know how it is with mothers and kids — the vibes. On the other hand, I wasn’t ready to rule out something physical. A baby passing out is something to take seriously.”
    “Sure,” I said, “but it could also have been a tantrum gone too far. Some kids learn young how to hold their breath and pass out.”
    “I know, but this happened in the middle of the night, Alex, not after some power struggle. So I admit her again, order allergy tests, complete pulmonary functions — no asthma. I also start thinking of rarer stuff: membrane problems, an idiopathic brain thing, an enzyme disorder. They’re up on
Five
for a week, real merry-go-round, consults by every specialty in the house, lots of poking and probing. Poor little thing’s freaking out as soon as the door to her room opens, no one’s coming up with a diagnosis, and the whole time she’s in, there are no breathing difficulties. Reinforcing my anxiety theory. I discharge them and the next time I see them in the office, I do nothing but try to play with her. But she still won’t have anything to do with me. So I gently raise the anxiety issue with mom but she’s not buying.”
    “How’d she take that?” I said.
    “No anger — that’s not this lady’s style. She just said she couldn’t see it, the baby being so young. I told her phobias could occur at any age, but I clearly wasn’t getting through. So I backed off, sent them home, gave her some time to think about it. Hoping that as the baby approached one year and the SIDS risk dropped, mom’s fears would diminish and the baby would start to relax too. Four days later they were back in the E.R., croup, gasping, mom’s in tears,
begging
for an admit. I put the baby in but ordered no tests. Nothing even remotely invasive, just observation. And the baby looked perfect — not even a sniffle. At that point I took the mom aside and leaned more heavily on the psychological angle. Still no sale.”
    “Did you ever bring up the first child’s death?”
    She shook her head. “No. I thought of it but at the time it just didn’t seem right, Alex. Overloading the lady. I figured I had a good feel for her — I was the attending doc when they brought the first child in dead. Handled the whole post-mortem… I carried him to the morgue, Alex.”
    She closed her eyes, opened them but focused