Miracle Cure Read Free Page A

Instead, he had preached patience and rehabilitation, and had prescribed hundreds of Percocets and other painkillers. Finally, a repeat MRI had disclosed a previously undiagnosed fracture. A cast and three months of rest took care of the cracked bone, but by then Brian had acquired a string of harried doctors, each willing to dash off a prescription in exchange for not having to listen. His addiction was full-blown and well-fed years before he violated the law and his own principles by writing the first prescription for himself.
    “Jack, do you really think you’re up for a trip into the city?” Brian asked now.
    “I don’t know. I think so. I’m going slightly stir-crazy, son. And beating you at gin isn’t what I’d call the most challenging activity in the world.”
    “I’ll tell you what. I’ll cut cards with you. You win, it’s Jean-Claude and the restaurant of your choice.”
    “And if I lose?”
    Brian could tell his father knew what was coming.
    “You lose and we still go into Boston. But you’ve got to promise me you’ll go back and see Dr. Clarkin.”
    “I’m fine.”
    “You’re not fine. It’s been six years since your operation. Clarkin can revise those grafts or replace them.”
    “No more Clarkin, no more surgery. I’ve told you that a thousand times. I’ve had my last catheter and my last tube.”
    As often seemed to be the case with a physician or a physician’s kin, everything that could have gone wrong postoperatively for Jack did. Heart failure, infection, graft revision, reinfection. A total of eight miserable weeks in the hospital which, in the era of managed care, spoke volumes as to how spectacularly ill he was. For many of those weeks, he literally begged to die. True, Black Jackwas more stubborn than most. But having seen the man every one of those fifty-six days, Brian could hardly blame him for taking such a hard line against any return to the OR.
    “All right,” Brian said. “But I’ve never seen you chicken out of a friendly wager before.”
    “That’s because I have a reputation for always paying up on my losses. And I know I’d end up welshing on this one. Tell you what. How about one cut: the seventy-one bucks you owe me versus you treating for dinner and the movies.”
    “Deal.” Brian turned over the queen of clubs. “Hey, maybe my luck is changing.”
    Jack cut the three of diamonds. He stared at the card for a few protracted seconds.
    “Maybe mine is, too,” he said.
    He pulled on his favorite sweater, a frayed orange cardigan Brian’s mother had given him just before her death nearly thirteen years ago.
    “You gonna be warm enough if I put the top down?” Brian asked.
    “Sure.… Um … son, there’s something I gotta get off my chest before we leave.”
    “Go ahead.”
    “I … I was out of line saying what I did this morning about you not being a cardiologist.”
    “Don’t worry about it. Besides, I never paid any attention to anything you ever said before. Why should I start now?”
    “I’m frustrated, that’s all. And I don’t understand how you could have let this happen.”
    “I know, Pop. I know. Sometimes we have to hit bottom before we figure out how to really enjoy life.”
    “I’m sure something will come along.”
    Brian looked away.
    “I’m sure it will,” he said.
    Actually, he was reasonably certain it
wouldn’t
. The Board of Registration in Medicine had determined six months ago that he was in good recovery and ready to resume practice, but it was their policy in drug and alcohol cases to insist on a physician having a work situation in place with tight on-the-job monitoring and random urine testing before a license would be issued. No job, no license. It was the board’s immutable law. Brian had argued that in Boston, with three medical schools and a plethora of teaching hospitals, cardiologists were more plentiful than cod. Why would anyone take a chance on hiring someone without an active license?
    Two children