Heartsounds by Lear Martha Weinman

Author:Lear, Martha Weinman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2014-09-16T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 24

They sent him home dried out. Dry as a bone down there.

But now it required far more to keep him dry. Now he took six diuretic pills a day, 240 milligrams, double his former dose—enough, the corner pharmacist assured me cordially, to knock a horse on its ass. He took more potassium to replace what the diuretics washed out of him, and this gave him stomach pains. He took antacids to relieve the stomach pains. He took digoxin to strengthen the heartbeat. He took Sorbitrate to ease the heart’s work. He took Allopurinal to inhibit certain actions of the diuretics, which could produce uric acid, which could produce gout. He took aspirin as an anticoagulant. He had been taking a supplementary diuretic that helped the body to retain potassium. Then his right breast had grown slightly enlarged, a condition which in men is called gynecomastia, and can lead to cancer; and he had become totally impotent. He had consulted his P.D.R—Physician’s Desk Reference—which describes every drug on the market, to check out the side effects of this medication. There it was: Possible side effects: Gynecomastia; loss of libido; impotence. No one had told him of the possible side effects. Imagine, he thought, if I weren’t a doctor. To Moses he had said, “I’ve developed a unilateral gynecomastia and I’m impotent. Don’t you think we should stop that supplementary diuretic?” “Absolutely,” Moses had said. And they had switched to a drug that was thought to be somewhat less effective but hadn’t these side effects; compromises must be made. His potency and his breast returned to normal.

The diagnostician in him nagged. “No matter how we go around in circles, they’re still not explaining it. How in winter I could walk a half-mile to the gym, swim, exercise, come home, eat, take another walk and say, ‘I feel fantastic.’ And now I need twice as much of that crap”—jerking a thumb toward his bureau top, where the vials stood in rows—“just to keep me out of failure, and I can barely walk around the block.”

“It’s rotten,” I said.

He arched an eyebrow. “It could be better.”

“Yes.”

“On the other hand”—with that sweet shrewd smile, pointing a Talmudic forefinger in the air—“it could be worse. L’chaim.” Raising his glass.

On the other hand. It became another fragment of our shorthand.

“I’m so sick of being sick,” he would say. A pause. And then: “On the other hand …”

We would go out walking, and he would begin to gasp, and my eye would begin to twitch; and he would reach out a finger to still my twitching lid and say, “On the other hand …”

It worked wonders for us both. Usually.

“What happened? Why did I go into failure?” he asked Silverman. He had been home from hospital a week.

“You were trying to do too much.”

The old It’s Your Fault again. Why could no doctor ever say, “It’s my fault?” (Had he himself ever said it? He couldn’t remember.) Or at least a Maybe. Listen, Hal, maybe it’s our

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