Seizure (50 page)

“What exactly should I be watching for?” Carol asked.

“Any change in his health status or his behavior. I know you have no medical training, so you'll just have to do the best you can. I would have preferred he stay in the clinic tonight so his vital signs could have been checked through the night, but that didn't happen. He's a strong-willed individual.”

“That is an understatement,” Carol said. “I'll watch over him as I usually do. Am I supposed to wake him during the night? Anything like that?”

“No, I don't think that is necessary, with him doing as well as he is. But if there is any problem whatsoever or you have any questions, call me, no matter what the time.”

Carol opened the door for Daniel and then closed it behind him without another word. For a moment, Daniel stared at the carved mermaids. Trained as a hard scientist, he knew
psychology was far from his forte, and people like Carol Manning confirmed it. She confused him. One minute she seemed the perfect, dedicated assistant; the next she seemed as if she was mad about her subservient role. Daniel sighed. At least it wasn't his problem, provided she watched the senator through the night.

On the short walk to the suite he shared with Stephanie, Daniel's attention switched back to the shocking improvement in Ashley's Parkinson's. He was mystified on many counts but enormously pleased, and he couldn't wait to share the news with Stephanie. He opened the door and was surprised not to see her, especially when she wasn't in the bedroom either. Then he heard the shower going.

When Daniel entered the bathroom, he found himself enveloped in a fog as if Stephanie had been in there for a half hour. He put the toilet seat down and sat. With his line of sight at a lower level, he could now make out Stephanie's form behind the frosted and fogged shower door. It appeared as if she weren't moving beneath the full force of the spray.

“Are you all right in there?” Daniel yelled out.

“I'm better,” Stephanie answered.

“Better?” Daniel questioned silently. He had no idea what she meant, although it reminded him that she had been rather silent all afternoon. It also reminded him of her seemingly insensitive response to Carol's offer to ride with her, although he admitted if the situation had been reversed, he would have responded similarly. The difference was, in contrast to him, Stephanie ordinarily concerned herself about other people's feelings. Daniel didn't consider himself base or even rude, but rather he just couldn't be bothered. People had to understand that there were too many more important things for him to think about than social niceties.

Daniel debated with himself whether or not to go out to the minibar to get something to drink. In many ways, it had been one of the most stressful days of his life. Ultimately, he decided to stay put. He was eager to tell Stephanie about Ashley; the drink could wait. But Stephanie didn't budge.

“Hey, in there!” Daniel yelled at length. “Are you coming out or what?”

Stephanie cracked open the door, and steam billowed out. “I'm sorry. Are you waiting to get in here?”

Daniel waved the vapor away from his face. The bathroom had become a Turkish bath. “No, I'm waiting to talk to you.”

“Well, maybe you shouldn't wait. I'm not sure I'm up to talking much.”

Daniel felt a wave of irritation course through him. Stephanie's response was not what he wanted to hear. With the day's events, he needed and deserved a bit of support, which he certainly did not believe was asking too much. Abruptly, he stood up, left the bathroom, and slammed the door. While he got himself a cold beer, he brooded. He didn't need any more aggravation. He plopped himself down on the couch and concentrated on sipping his beer. By the time Stephanie appeared, wrapped in a towel, he had recovered.

“I can tell by the way you slammed the door you're mad,” Stephanie said in a calm voice. She was standing in the doorway to the bedroom. “I just want to let you know I'm emotionally and physically exhausted. I need some sleep. We did wake up at five this morning to make sure everything was ready.”

“I'm tired too,” Daniel said. “I just wanted to tell you that Ashley is doing unbelievably. Most of his Parkinson's symptoms have already mysteriously improved.”

“That's nice,” Stephanie said. “Unfortunately, it does not alter the fact that the implantation went awry.”

“Maybe it didn't go awry!” Daniel responded. “I'm telling you that you will be amazed. He's a different man.”

“He certainly is a different man. We've inadvertently crammed a horde of aberrant dopamine-producing cells someplace into his temporal lobe. An experienced neurosurgeon strongly believes he'll be saddled with the hell of temporal lobe epilepsy. For Ashley, that will be even worse than the Parkinsonism.”

“But he's not had a seizure since the one in the OR. I'm telling you, he's is doing marvelously.”

“He's not had a seizure
yet.
”

“If he has a problem, we can deal with it the way I suggested to Dr. Nawaz.”

“You mean with the cytotoxic agent attached to the monoclonal antibody?”

“Exactly.”

“You can do that if you are so inclined and if you can talk Ashley into subjecting himself to such a foolhardy experiment, but it is not going to be ‘we.' I'll have no part of it. We haven't even tried it in cell culture, much less animals, and as such, it is a quantum leap more unethical than what we have already done.”

Daniel stared at Stephanie. He could feel his irritation sweeping back over him. “Whose side are you on, anyway?” he demanded. “We decided on a goal to cure Ashley to save HTSR and CURE, and by God, we are going to get there.”

“I'd like to think that I am crossing over to the side less motivated by self-interest,” Stephanie said. “Today, when we realized the OR was not equipped with the necessary X ray, we should have stopped the procedure. We were gambling with someone else's life for our own benefit.” Then she held up her hands as Daniel's face flushed and his mouth opened to respond. “If you don't mind, let's cut it off right here,” she added. “I'm sorry, but this has become exactly the kind of discussion I did not feel capable of having tonight. I told you I'm drained. Maybe I'll feel differently after a night's sleep. Who knows?”

“Fine!” Daniel said sarcastically, with a wave of his hand. “Go to bed!”

“Are you coming?”

“Yeah, maybe,” Daniel said angrily. He got up and went to the minibar. He needed another beer.

 

Daniel wasn't sure how many times the phone had rung since his exhausted mind had incorporated the jangle into the nightmare he was having. In his dream, he was a medical student again, and the phone was something to fear. Back then, it was often a call to an emergency he was untrained to handle.

By the time Daniel's eyes popped open, the ringing had stopped. He sat up and looked over at the now silent phone on the side table and wondered if it had rung or if he'd just dreamed it. Then his eyes darted around the room to orient himself. He was in the living room, still in his clothes, with all the lights on. After two beers, he'd fallen fast asleep.

The door to the bedroom opened. Stephanie appeared in
her silk shorty pajamas, squinting and blinking in the bright light. “Carol Manning is on the phone,” she said, in a voice thick with sleep. “She's upset and needs to talk with you.”

“Oh, no!” Daniel said worrisomely. He swung his legs off the coffee table. He even still had his shoes on. Without standing up, he leaned across the length of the couch and picked up the phone. Stephanie stayed in the doorway to listen.

“Ashley is acting strangely,” Carol blurted into the phone after Daniel identified himself.

“What's he doing?” Daniel asked. The old medical school fear of incompetence in the face of an emergency came flooding back. With as many years as Daniel had been away from clinical medicine, he had forgotten most of his doctoring skills.

“It's not so much what he is doing, it's what he's complaining about. Excuse my language, but he says he smells pig shit. You told me that if he smelled something strange, it might be important.”

Daniel felt his heart skip a beat and the optimism he'd felt earlier vanish. Immediately, there was not a modicum of doubt in his mind that Ashley was having an aura heralding the onset of another temporal lobe seizure. At the same time, the last vestiges of clinical confidence Daniel was holding on to crumbled as he acknowledged he was about to face handling an episode of what Dr. Nawaz predicted would be worse than the first. “Has he been aggressive or is he acting out in any way?” Daniel asked nervously. Frantically, he looked around the room for the black pouch containing the sedative and syringes. Thankfully, he spotted it on the table in the foyer.

“Acting out is a little strong, but he has been irritable. Then again, he's been irritable for the last year.”

“Okay, be calm!” Daniel said, as much for his own benefit as for Carol's. “I'll be right down to the room.” He looked at his watch. It was two-thirty in the morning.

“We're not in the room,” Carol said.

“Where the hell are you?”

“We're in the casino,” Carol admitted. “Ashley insisted. There was nothing I could do, and I tried. I didn't call you because I knew there was nothing you could do either. When he makes up his mind, that's it. I mean, he's a senator.”

“Good God!” Daniel complained. He slapped a hand to his forehead. “Did you try to get him to come back to the room when he smelled the pig poop?”

“I suggested it, but he told me to go out and jump in the shark tank.”

“Okay! Where in the casino are you?”

“We're at a bank of slot machines on the ocean side of the room, beyond the roulette tables.”

“I'll be right down. We've got to get him back to the room!”

Daniel got to his feet and glanced at Stephanie, but she had disappeared back into the bedroom. He dashed over and looked in. Stephanie was tearing off her pajamas and pulling on her clothes.

“Wait!” she called out. “I'll come with you. If Ashley is going to have a seizure anything like what he had in the OR, you'll need all the help you can get.”

“Okay,” Daniel said. “Where's the cell phone?”

Stephanie nodded toward the bureau as she hastened to button her blouse.

“Bring it along! Where are the numbers for Newhouse and Nawaz?”

“I've got the numbers already,” Stephanie said, stepping into her pants. “They're in my pocket.”

Daniel ran to the medical pouch. Just to be sure, he pulled open the zipper. He felt some reassurance after seeing the vial and the syringes. The trick was going to be getting the medicine into Ashley before all hell broke loose.

Stephanie appeared at the bedroom doorway, still struggling to get into her loafers and tuck in her blouse. By the time she got over to Daniel, he had the door to the hall open. Together, they flew toward the elevators.

After hitting the down button, Daniel took the cell phone from Stephanie, handed her the medical pouch, and dialed Dr. Nawaz's number.

“Come on!” Daniel urged, as the phone rang and rang. Just as the elevator arrived, Dr. Nawaz answered sleepily.

“It's Dr. Lowell,” Daniel said. “We might get cut off. I'm stepping into an elevator.” In response to Stephanie pressing the lobby button, the doors closed. “Can you still hear me?”

“Just barely,” Dr. Nawaz said. “What's the problem?”

“Ashley is having an olfactory aura,” Daniel said. He was watching the floor indicator. It was supposed to be a high-speed elevator, but the numbers seemed to be decreasing agonizingly slowly.

“Who is Ashley?” Dr. Nawaz questioned.

“I mean Mr. Smith,” Daniel said. He glanced at Stephanie, who rolled her eyes. For her, it was another small episode in the continuously unfolding and unfunny comedy.

“It will take me about twenty minutes to get to the clinic. I advise you to call Dr. Newhouse. As I said earlier, I suspect this seizure might be worse than the first, especially considering where those cells are. We might as well have the same team.”

“I'll call Dr. Newhouse, but we are not at the clinic.”

“Where are you?”

“We're at the Atlantis resort on Paradise Island. At the moment, the patient is in the casino, but we are going to try to get him back to his room, which is registered under a Carol Manning. It's called the Poseidon Suite.”

There was a silence that lasted for several floors.

“Are you still there?” Daniel said into the phone.

“I'm not certain I'm believing what I am hearing. This man had a craniotomy some twelve hours ago. What the hell is he doing in the casino?”

“It would take too long to explain.”

“What time is it?”

“It's two-thirty-five. I know it sounds like a lame excuse, but we had no idea Mr. Smith would go to the casino when we brought him back here, but he is extremely strong-willed, with a mind of his own.”