Ethan looked at each of the three specimens carefully. It was too early to call them negative, but he could see no growth. He replaced the bottles and returned to the phone. “Doctor, they look negative. There’s no growth in any of them.”
“You’re sure?”
Of course I’m sure. I’ve been doing this for . . . Never mind. “Yes, sir.”
“Well, keep an eye on them.”
Ethan’s routine was the same followed by most, if not all, laboratories in the U.S.: monitor specimens for five days. If there was any indication of growth, he’d do a slide and Gram stain it. He could explain this to the doctor, but there was no need. The man was worried about his patient. Ethan could understand that.
After he hung up, Ethan wondered if he should follow through with making and examining another slide from the culture taken from Josh’s patient. Then he looked at the clock. It was already almost six, nearly an hour past time for him to leave. He decided to put that on the back burner until morning. It probably wasn’t important, anyway.
Chapter 6
6
The next morning, Josh stood in the bathroom of his temporary hospital office and studied his reflection in the mirror. Finally, he shook his head and looked away. A night spent at the hospital watching a patient wasn’t unheard of for him, but it had been a while. He decided he hadn’t looked this haggard since pulling his last all-nighter as a senior medical student. Eyes red, a day’s growth of beard, his clothes wrinkled, and developing a definite scent that told him he needed to shower soon. Josh was a mess. That’s not the way an ex-president’s doctor is supposed to look.
Maybe later this morning he could visit the surgeon’s lounge and clean up, perhaps put on a clean scrub suit. But for now, Josh needed to get going.
He splashed water on his face, finger-combed his hair, and took a deep breath. Josh might hate the way he looked, but even more he hated the way he felt. He moved out of the bathroom, through his office, and into the hospital corridor. He’d grab a cup of coffee, check one more time on Madison, look in on Rachel, then make a quick trip home to shave, shower, and change.
A vibration in his pocket told Josh those plans might have to be put on hold. He pulled out his cell phone and saw the call was from a number inside the hospital.
“Dr. Pearson.”
“Doctor, this is Ethan Grant in the bacteriology lab. I’ve got something here I think you’ll want to see.”
“Can it wait?” Josh said. “I need to—”
“Sir, if it could wait, I wouldn’t have called,” Grant said.
Josh recognized the hint of peevishness in the technician’s tone. Grant had turned up something important, and now Josh was ignoring it. This man is trying to tell me something. I should listen to him.
“I’ll be right there,” Josh said. “Thanks for calling.”
There’d been no need to ask who the patient was. Since Josh only had one patient—well, two, if you counted Rachel—anyway, this could only have something to do with the cultures he’d sent to the lab yesterday. Despite telling Grant he’d be there shortly, Josh decided to make a quick stop at Madison’s room before he headed for the bacteriology lab. True, he’d only been out of Madison’s room for less than half an hour, but he felt as though he needed to keep a close eye on the man. If Josh let something happen— No, he didn’t want to think about that.
As Josh moved toward the elevator, part of him was curious about what the bacteriology technician had found. However, since it probably wasn’t good, the other part of him dreaded finding out.
***
Rachel slowly emerged from a troubled sleep and started to stretch, only to discover that she could move her left arm only a short distance. She opened her eyes and looked around. It took a minute for her to orient herself, then it all came back to her. She was in a hospital, and the reason her left arm was restrained was to keep her from inadvertently pulling the IV out of the vein in the back of that hand.
Rachel’s eyes traveled to her left, up the IV tubing to the plastic bag of fluid, then to the smaller bag hanging next to it on the other arm of the twin pole. It was empty, which meant she’d received the full dose of diphtheria antitoxin. Were the proteins, at this moment, circulating through her body doing battle with the toxins released by . . . what was the name of the bacterium? She’d learned it in nursing school, but it danced just outside her memory. Was inability to remember another side effect, either of the infection or the treatment?
“Good morning. How are you feeling?”
Rachel was frustrated with having to look beyond the mask and face shield and depend on voice recognition to identify the speaker, but she hoped that wouldn’t last much longer. “I guess I’m all right, Dr. Neeves. Is everything looking okay?”
Rachel wished she could see the doctor’s expression. Instead, her answer came in the form of a shrug. “I’ll know more after I have a look at you,” Dr. Neeves said.
As she prepared to examine Rachel, Neeves said, “Look, Rachel, we both know this is serious. You’re a health care professional. I’ll level with you all the way. And in the meantime, why don’t you call me Allison?”
Rachel nodded and sat up straighter in bed in preparation for Allison’s exam.
First, the doctor used the flashlight and one of the tongue depressors from a jar sitting on Rachel’s bedside table. “Not so much exudate,” she said, “but the throat’s still pretty red—maybe a bit redder than before. And there seems to be a bit more swelling back there. Any problem breathing or swallowing?”
“Not really,” Rachel replied.
Allison picked up the stethoscope that hung at the foot of Rachel’s bed. “Let’s have a listen to your chest.”
Rachel went through the routine she knew so well—except she usually was standing by to assist the doctor instead of being the person following commands to take deep breaths. She watched the doctor’s eyes, which were about all Rachel could see of Allison’s expression over the mask, but there was no clue there.
“It’s probably too early to expect much change,” Allison said after hanging the stethoscope on the foot of Rachel’s bed again. “I’m troubled that your fever’s still hovering around a hundred and four. Every time we give you something to knock it down, it climbs right back up within a few hours.” She frowned—that expression was easy for Rachel to see. “But so far, even with increasing swelling in the throat, your airway seems okay. Let’s see if the diphtheria antitoxin makes some difference today.”
“How long will I have to be in isolation?” Rachel asked.
“Conventional wisdom is to isolate patients with diphtheria until they’ve been on antibiotics for at least two days.” Allison shrugged again. “I’ll see if Dr. Pearson agrees. If he does, maybe we can discontinue the precautions tomorrow.” She made a half-turn toward the door. “Any other questions?”
Rachel felt foolish for asking, but the question had been niggling at her since the doctor came in. “Just one,” she said. “What’s the name of the diphtheria organism? I can’t remember it, and it’s driving me crazy.”
***
“Mr. Madison, how do you feel?” Josh asked as he entered the ex-president’s hospital room.
Madison managed a smile, but it was evident to Josh it was a politician’s gesture, with no real emotion behind it. “I’m still here, so I guess that’s something.”
Josh moved quickly to the side of his patient. The main IV continued to drip at a “keep open” rate, but the smaller bag that had delivered the diphtheria antitoxin was empty and its line was turned off. “Let’s have a look at you.”
After