Just Here Trying to Save a Few Lives by Pamela Grim

Author:Pamela Grim [GRIM, PAMELA]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BIO017000
ISBN: 9780446555050
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2008-12-20T16:00:00+00:00

Two Dr. Daiquiri patients in one day, I thought sourly as I stomped back down the hall. And one an aspirin overdose no less. Back in the acute room my overdose lady was lying there in all the glory of an ER washout. She had an enormous lavacuator tube sprouting from her nose and there was charcoal everywhere. Charcoal is given as a sort of generic absorbant: it will bind many toxins and cause them to pass out of the gut harmlessly. It is also black and syrupy and it gets all over everything. Marilyn had already vomited some back up, not unusual for the stuff. It was all down the front of her hospital gown, matted in her hair, on the sheets, on the floor. Beside her sat her immaculate-looking husband. He was leaning back, arms folded, just staring at his wife as if he didn't recognize her, which, considering how she looked, was probably not a bad thing.

I thought she was asleep, but she opened her eyes when I walked up to the bed.

“What's the matter with me?” she asked.

“You take too many pills,” I told her.

“But my doctor prescribes them.”

“I know,” I said. “It doesn't matter.”

She started crying, great tears tinted gray with mascara. “I tried to hurt myself,” she said sobbing, shoulders shaking. “But I don't want to die. It's not that. It's just that I don't want to be alive.”

“Have you thought about a drug treatment program?” I asked her gently.

She looked up at me, too shocked to keep crying. “What do you mean? What are you saying?” she sputtered. “I'm not some kind of,” she spit it out, “drug addict.”

The husband signaled me for another talk outside the room. He stood in the hallway, arms folded, glaring angrily toward the nurses' station. “All she does anymore is take those pills. I've tried to get her to see a real doctor, a psychiatrist, anybody, but that quack has her strung out on so many pills she doesn't have any idea what's she's doing. She lives for those damn pills.” He took a deep breath and then asked the obvious. “Why don't they prosecute that man?”

I shook my head. Dr. Daiquiri was one very smart guy. He knew what he could prescribe and how to do it so that he stayed on this side of the law. And he knew how to defend himself. He had threatened several doctors with legal action after they complained to the hospital administrators that he was prescribing too many narcotics. He was very slick.

But I was sure that there was more to this story than just Dr. Daiquiri.

“And you?” I said, looking at him.

He looked away. “I'm moving out,” he said. “I want a divorce.” He cleared his throat. “That's why she's doing this.” He looked back down at me, frowning deeply. “I can't take this life. I can't take all the pills. She can let them ruin her life, but I'm not going to let them ruin mine.”

I could see his wife from where we were standing.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.