The Patient in Room Nine Says He's God Page 4

  This simple guy went from national hero to a mistaken national villain to a forgotten cog in the media machinery. His whole life was scrutinized and torn apart by an overzealous media that, to this day, has offered very little in the way of apology. A good, honest man who lived and cared for his mother. I still choke up just thinking of him. He is a remarkable and tragic figure in American History.

  Well, I guess someone at the Carmel Council felt it was time to honor Richard Jewell for his heroism and somehow that whole bombing thing triggered memories of an earlier event in our city, another time and another bombing. My response was easy, “No way!” Then John called. By that time he had become a high-ranking official in the Carmel Fire Department. He was being pressured by ‘the suits’ to be in the parade.

  “Oh yeah, I remember them,” I told him. “I met them at the medical center about twelve years ago. What are they calling them these days; public relations, corporate communications?”

  “Something like that,” he laughed. He told me even though he was being strongly encouraged to participate, he wouldn’t do it if I didn’t. I thought on it for about a day then called and told the suit that I would take part in the parade, ride in the convertible and wave to the crowd on one condition. I wanted my wife and kids to ride with me. My kids had never even heard the story, and when I told them the ‘G-rated’ version, they thought it was kind of cool that I was there to help.

  It was obvious that they were proud of me and it kind of warmed my heart to know that I was a hero to them; much like my dad is to me. So we tossed out candy to the crowd, waved and said hello to our friends and answered the calls of children who had never heard of the event of years past and in the end it was great closure to a painful part of my life. Once again my world had started to come full circle. I was with my own children, holding them tight, watching them toss candy, oblivious to the real sequence of events that placed us in the convertible with the magnetic signs that read “Dr. Profeta, Carmel Hero”. It was a purely innocent and joyful experience, one that easily replaced my memories of that day. So now when I hear, “Hey…weren’t you the doc that…” my mind conjures up images of smiling children catching candy and waving to my family through the cobblestone streets of a small town, not a bad trade.

  In a newspaper interview, Richard Jewell related to the local media that when he first got the call to be the grand marshal for the parade of heroes, he thought it was a joke…no one had honored him like this. Well Carmel, Indiana did. I am proud of them for that.

  Richard Jewell will always be one of my heroes. He did his job and walked upright when the whole world was wrong. I’m grateful for the role he played to protect the lives of strangers. Richard Jewell restored my faith in humanity. I am grateful to God for giving me eyes to see that we are all linked, that we all have a responsibility to each other. If our deeds and our actions drum up images of heroism in others, then maybe it’s not so bad. People need heroes to remind them of the human potential and how our hearts and souls can truly shine at a moment’s notice.

  So now it seemed as if life had come full circle. The ends were linked. The ring was set. The finality was the parade, time with my kids, Richard Jewell. This door on my life was now closed and neatly packaged on a shelf somewhere in my memory cabinet. But once again, I was mistaken.

  The early version of this book had been in publication for about a year and it had done quite well. The reviews were beyond my expectations and I was thrilled that people seemed to connect to it. A friend of my folks approached me and asked if I could give him a copy to give to Erin. Erin is the name of the young girl in the bombing. I was hesitant to do this, I’m not sure why, but I gave over a copy anyway.

  Unbeknownst to me, the twentieth anniversary of the K-mart bombing had arrived. I was working in the ER on a not-so-busy shift. “Dr. Profeta, one of the local television stations is here to do a story, do you have some time?” The public relations representative, dressed in a fine pressed suit, politely asked. Over the years I had become somewhat of a local expert on community public health issues, things like falls, frostbite, heat exhaustion, etc, and appeared frequently on radio and TV, so this was not an odd request.

  Certain that it was about the impending swine flu epidemic I responded, “Yeah, sure…but give me a second to brush up on the CDC recommendations for swine flu so I don’t say anything stupid or incorrect.”

  “This is not about swine flu…it’s about the K-mart bombing.” He smiled knowingly. A shapely young anchorwoman appeared by his side. She clutched a copy of my book as she leaned over the counter and smiled at me.

  “Dr. Profeta,” she chimed in. “We are doing a story on the K-mart bombing, it’s the twentieth year anniversary of the event. We talked to the girl’s parents and they asked that we talk with you. You see Erin went to college and is now a physical therapist. She helps young children who are sick and disabled……” For a brief second I actually envisioned a five year old girl in college.

  “And…..” I interrupted, knowing another cosmic link in the chain was about to be added.

  “Well….and….Erin works in this very same hospital now…just two floors up. She just started in the children’s pavilion.” She calculated her pause to gauge my reaction.

  My heart seemed to hover between beats. I had really only one mental image of Erin and it was not one that I was anxious to revisit. But I really kind of wanted to see her, see what she had become and take a glimpse of where she was headed. So with cameras in tow, and with the blessing of her parents, we walked the corridor to where she worked. The lights flipped on and we surprised Erin at work.

  “Erin….this is Doctor Profeta.” This young shattered body had grown to a tall, beautiful, confident young woman, more whole with one arm than most are with two. I was humbled and proud all rolled into one slobbering idiot.

  So the television ran the story with clips spanning the gap from that long ago time in K-mart to our not-so-by-chance meeting in the hospital. I watch myself age twenty years, go bald and get kind of fat. I saw the world flash in front of my aging eyes and I smiled at the thoughts of where I have been and where I am headed and what I have learned.

  This whole cosmic spiritual circle is nothing of the kind. It is an endless series of links of a chain that bind us all together. It is magical, mystical, often tragic and wondrous at the same time. It is everything. It is amazing and it is perfect.

  Chapter Five

  Buddy, Can You Spare a Liver?

  There is an old Yiddish saying: “No one with money deserves it.” Most physicians will extend that to: “No doctor deserves to be more respected or successful than me.” That feeling is especially pervasive in academic medicine, where the clashes of egos are fought with the enthusiasm of a full-blown jihad. But there is one person whom I can truly say I don’t, in any sense of the word, envy his success or his accomplishments. That person is my friend, Joe Tector. In his field of medicine, every operation he performs leaves someone dead.

  What if I told you that someone tossing dirty ashes from a charcoal grill in 1985 helped save the life of a small child some sixteen years later? Could you make the connection? I am constantly in awe of how a simple act, the turn of a dial, can have such a profound impact on our world. Albert Einstein hangs out a few more years in Nazi Germany, and as a Jew, he perishes in Auschwitz, and in all likelihood the very computer on which I type this story does not exist. You see, it was his basic work in math and physics that led to the invention of many everyday items such as personal computers, cell phones, and television. Or, Alois and Klara Hitler don’t meet, perhaps never go out for beer and a braut, and six million more people are contributing to the beautiful mosaic of this world.

  But . . . what if those two girls living upstairs had not chosen to empty their old grill over the balcony at the precise time that I was sitting directly below them and working on my Tandy 1000 home computer? What if they had not accidentally blanketed me with a heavy dose of Mount St. Helen’s a
sh that shorted out my two-tone screen and dot-matrix printer? Would that child still be alive sixteen years later? Because it was my rash of obscene expletives that made Joe to step out of his apartment to see what the commotion was about, and it was the friendship formed by that chance meeting that would work a miracle years later.

  After he helped dust me off, shook the soot from my stack of papers, and had a good laugh, Joe glanced down and noticed that I was working diligently on complex immunology homework from the quintessential textbook on the subject by Roitt. By then, I was a senior in college waiting to hear if I was going to be admitted to medical school. Joe was a junior pre-med student, and we hit it off immediately. There are those people that walk into your life who, after just a few moments, you know that you will be friends for life: Joe was one of them. We had absolutely nothing, while having absolutely everything, in common. He was Catholic; I was Jewish. He was quiet, calculating, and somewhat reserved in public, while quite the opposite in private. I was loud, opinionated, and impulsive. He grew up a son of privilege: private schools, tennis courts, and swimming pools. His father was a famous heart surgeon; in fact, he was one of the early pioneers of redo-cardiac bypass surgery, the artificial heart, and heart transplantation. My father sold insurance and was the first to graduate from college in his family. He had the benefit of his father’s experience in medicine. Me, I was just cruising through school by the skin of my teeth, hoping not to screw up while trying to find guidance where I could. However, I faced little expectation on the part of my parents to succeed. Joe had to walk in the footsteps of a giant.

  Having been a solid ‘C’ student in high school with an average SAT score, it was a miracle that I was even accepted into college. So, when I decided to pursue an honors biology degree and go pre-med, my parents did not hide their skepticism and suggested that I take business classes . . . just in case. Joe, however, was expected to carry the torch of the family, to set the stage for the ongoing family legacy of super-achievement. My folks would’ve been contented if I married a nice Jewish girl and didn’t do something stupid to get myself killed before giving them some grandkids. Joe was under much more pressure to succeed, though he would never admit it.

  I have to be honest; in the early years, I didn’t think Joe had what it took to be a physician. His quiet way and his calm public demeanor hid the fire, the overdrive inside of him. One day, we were sitting around and Joe mentioned how he planned to get a PhD in immunology, do a residency in general surgery, a fellowship in transplantation, and learn how to do liver and other organ transplants, while at the same time, pursue research into xenografts (animal organs transplanted into human recipients). He might as well have told me he planned to run for president, since it seemed as likely to happen from my perspective. I even notated his vision in an immunology book and gave it to him in 1985, fairly certain that little of his over-the-top plan would come to fruition. Well, he left out a fellowship in critical care, becoming the head of organ transplantation, being the first surgeon to do an intestinal transplant in the state of Indiana, and the first to do a multivisceral transplant in the state (liver, pancreas, and small and large intestines), and single-handedly to increase the number of liver transplants in Indiana from about 20 per year to more than 180. Thus, he was able to save the lives of hundreds of people who would otherwise have died awaiting organs in a state that was less than aggressive in this pursuit.

  Let me put time into perspective: I started medical school in 1986, Joe in 1987. I was in private practice by 1993; it took Joe until 1999. He spent nearly seven more years than me in school and fellowship programs. We were both so busy that we essentially allowed three years to pass without seeing each other, then another six until our next meeting. Sure, we would talk on the phone maybe once every six months or so, mundane stuff full of “how’s it goings?”

  Understand this about residency: we, just like all residents, were damn busy. We essentially knew what the other was doing during these years: Like every resident physician, we were locked away in some rotation, doing scutt work, reading, studying for boards, and finding our way through the labyrinth of resident training. So, unless something spectacular or out of the ordinary happened, like growing a third eye, or hitting the lottery, we knew exactly what the other was doing, because a thousand miles away, we were doing the same damn thing.

  “Hey, Joe . . . how’s it going?”

  “Hey, Louis . . . what’s up?”

  “Finished residency . . . and you?”

  “Getting a PhD in immunology, right now. Can I give you a call back after I’m done?”

  “Yeah, no problem.”

  So it did not surprise me that out of the blue I got a call from Joe.

  “Hey, what’s up?”

  “I’m in Jacksonville, Florida.”

  “What are you doing in Florida?”

  “A fellowship in transplant surgery.”

  “Did you just start?”

  “No, finishing up . . . I’ve been here two years.”

  “Oh.”

  “Hey, I’m coming to Indiana to interview for a job.”

  “Why? You’re not from here.”

  “Because you Hoosiers aren’t using your livers. I keep flying in from Jacksonville and taking them. I figured I might as well look at the possibility of setting up shop. Can I stay with you for a few months while the kids finish school and Kelly sells the house?”

  “No problem. Give me a call when you get here.”

  So, Joe moved in and I made sure the kitchen was stocked with plenty of popcorn and Mountain Dew, staples for most busy surgeons. My rambunctious and moderately distracting sons were at times a burden, especially after a heavy day of organ harvesting. Joe entertained them by playing games. His favorite was Coma. Whoever played coma the longest was the winner. The rules: you had to hold really still, not make a sound, and not move; it was brilliant. Anytime I want some peace and quiet, I play it with my kids. The winner gets a dollar.

  My home was a dose of reality for Joe, a chance to be brought back to earth, whether he liked it or not. One second, he is saving the life of a dying child and the next, my second son is telling slightly portly Joe that he looks like ‘Fat Bastard’ from Austin Powers. He would go from praise and accolades from an envious medical establishment only to get trash talk from a first-grader. But Joe put up with my kids’ ribbing. After all, it’s hard to laugh hysterically and discipline a child at the same time. Eli now shows him the respect Joe deserves—he calls him ‘Uncle Fat Bastard’ behind his back.

  You have to have a sense of humor to be an ER physician, and more so to be a transplant surgeon, or else the death will overwhelm you. Joe once devised a good-natured revenge plot on a lactation consultant who embarrassed him during the birth of one of his kids. Unbeknownst to the innocent nurse, he recommended her to consult on a cross-dressing male transvestite who wore a pink tutu and was trying to breast-feed a plastic doll. Her surprise was understandable, as was her indignation upon walking in to see the patient. He had to go before the surgery chief on that one. I always wonder how someone does the type of job Joe does, how horrible and wonderful at the same time. I once asked him about how he closes the body of the deceased child who has donated the liver; he dropped his head and you could see the pain in his face. “I close that wound with more care than a plastic surgeon, and care for the body as if it were my own living child. I am well aware of the profound despair on the part of the dead child’s family, and the responsibility and the gift they have given my patient.”

  Therein lies the character of Joe and why I am so fortunate to have him as my friend; it is also why the world is that much better to be treaded by the likes of him.

  Months passed, and Joe’s wife and kids moved to Indianapolis and took refuge in a small apartment until his house was built. They spent many a night at our home, so as to avoid their cramped quarters filled with three dogs, two birds, three kids, and a pile of medical books, dirty clothes, and journal articles. />
  It was usual, then or now, for Joe to be gone thirty-six to forty-eight hours straight, maybe catching one or two hours of sleep here and there between cases. His wife and kids, as well as many husbands and wives of physicians (including mine), are the unsung heroes. In all practical sense, she is a single mother forced to share her partner with so many sick and needy people. In many instances, it is with him being there and not being there at the same time—lost in a world of organ procurement, cell phones, pagers, and 24-hour phone inquiries. In Joe’s case, his wife Kelly has the very important job of helping her husband stay focused during the long and grueling cases. It is usual for him and the other transplant physician to go untold hours operating on the same patient; one will break scrub and the other will continue, each giving the other a break as the hours drag on.

  It has become somewhat of the norm for Joe and me to spend many hours talking on the phone, picking each other’s brain for advice on medicine, on parenting, and on how just to live sanely. Since we are keenly aware from whence each of us came, we don’t have much of a problem figuring where each of us is headed, so we try to make sure each other’s airbags are operational and our seatbelts are fastened. So, when Joe stopped by the ER around two in the morning to wind down from one of his cases, just to say hello, neither of us had any idea that it would save the life of a small child a few months later.

  “Hey, Josh . . . Josh!” I shouted. Josh Careskey is a pediatric surgeon who works in our community hospital, and a damn good one, too. “I want you to meet a friend of mine that stopped by to say hello.” He glanced at his watch, confused for a second.