Doctored (23 page)

“Pharmaceuticals?” she asked, puzzled, trying to put the pieces together.

Deanna sighed again.  She had hoped to keep her anonymity as long as possible, but it was impossible with people like the one that had just left.  They considered her a feather in their cap and they would use her and her name to the hospital’s benefit if they could.  She began to tell Madison the truth.  “My family name is Kearney.  They own Kearney Pharmaceuticals.”  She heard the intake of breath from Madison and knew the reason for it.  The company was huge, well-known, and meant a lot of money.  “When I decided to work overseas, I asked to use my mother’s family name of Cooper.  It was less likely people would put two and two together.  It worked fine for the most part, and those who knew who I really was agreed to keep the secret.”

“Like Doctor Wilson?” she asked astutely, remembering some of the halted conversations.

Deanna nodded.  “Doctor Burton found out there was no Doctor Cooper in Doctors Without Borders and went on a witch-hunt.”  She grinned in remembrance at the double meaning of that.

Madison chuckled.  Deanna had been respectfully called a witch doctor, and with Hamishish to back it up, she had been well-liked.  Doctor Burton hadn’t seemed to like her youth, her sex, or the fact that the villagers accepted her so willingly.

“It was the pharmaceuticals that I was able to ask for and obtain that really bothered him though.  He was somehow getting kickbacks from Lakesh, I found out later.  That’s how Lakesh always knew what and where to steal, shipment-wise,” she explained.  “When I would go into Lamish myself to bring the supplies to Mamadu, it often screwed up their availability and they had to steal from the inventoried supplies.  It was easier to steal before they were in the camp.”

Madison remembered one trip that they had the boxes stacked pretty high on Deanna’s Rover from Lamish to Mamadu; it had been a memorable trip.  She blushed, hoping Deanna wouldn’t notice.

Deanna noticed, but ignored it.  “When I left Africa, the support died down from Kearney Pharmaceuticals until they were able to figure out some ways to combat the black market trade.  Hamishish helped put a few of them away; they targeted her for a while.”

“What happened after I left?” Madison asked.  She had always wondered.

“With the camp or…?”

“Both?” she asked, finishing her meal.  She signaled for an ice water to settle the meal and dilute the two beers she had drunk.  She would have to drive home after all.

“We were overrun a few days after you left.  For a while we were a mobile unit.  Our Red Cross status didn’t seem to keep the armies from coming at us.”  A look passed over her face, but it was so brief that Madison would have missed it if she hadn’t been watching the woman tell her tale.

“How long did you stay?”

“Another three months and then I needed to move on,” she explained without giving the reasons.  “When I got home, my father was ill and dying.  I stayed on during his illness.  He had a touch of dementia, but by then my sister Doreen had the company well in hand.  I was looking forward to her running things indefinitely for the family.  A year after I got back,” she deliberately skipped over that time, “she was hit by a speeding car in a crosswalk in front of one of our office buildings.  She was killed outright.”

“I’m sorry,” Madison stated sincerely, almost reaching out to comfort Deanna, but pulling her hand back before she could complete the gesture.  Deanna noticed it, but chose to ignore it.

“Yeah, my mom was pretty upset…first dad and then Doreen.  Doreen’s husband wanted to take over the company, but she left no will and he wasn’t qualified.  It got pretty contentious.  He began to drink and let their kids run wild, so my mom got a conservatorship and is raising them.  They are pretty unruly teens.  They seem to live for their trust funds and nothing more.  Selfish brats,” she commented bitterly.

“Is your mother running the company too?” she asked, concerned for this woman she knew nothing about.  It was obvious that Madison had some affection for the woman by the way her voice changed.

“No, my mother couldn’t be that brutal if she had to.  I’m technically the CEO, but I have a small group of people running it for me so I don’t have to be there in the day-to-day bullshit,” she put in succinctly.  “I hate the politics of it all.  I was advised to sell, or sell stocks, but my family owns it outright and I’ll be damned if all that hard work will benefit the sycophants like my brother-in-law who has done nothing to earn it.”  She sounded a little bitter.

“Nor should they,” Madison consoled.  “So you’ve been working there ever since?” she asked, curious.

Deanna shook her head.  “No, once it was set up to my satisfaction, I got the hell out of Dodge and back in the field.  I had to make adjustments of course.”  She didn’t illuminate just what adjustments, but Madison made assumptions regarding the running of an international pharmaceutical company, and Deanna didn’t correct those assumptions.  “I only came back last year when Mom asked me to,” she explained.

“Did she need help with your sister’s children?”  She was really interested in this side of Deanna.  She hadn’t spoken often about her family and now she realized why.

Deanna shook her head.  “No, I think my mom finally realized I would have stayed in the jungles forever…” she began, but Madison interrupted.

“You went back to South America, the Amazon?”

Deanna nodded.  “For a while, but wherever I went, nothing was the same.  I learned so much though,” she shook her head as the memories of the last years assailed her.  Some of it was too much to relate in one sitting.  She knew she couldn’t have explained the beauty of what she had seen, not adequately, or the healing that she had needed.   “I did, however, make an incredible discovery,” she bragged with a bit of pride.

“What did you discover?” Madison smiled at her.

“You know what an aloe vera plant is, right?”

Madison nodded, wondering at the turn the conversation had taken.  She was more interested to know if Deanna had found that woman she had been in love with back in the Amazon.  Her heart twisted a little knowing there had to be others who had known this incredible woman.  She’d let her go long ago, knowing she couldn’t have her.  She’d given up that right.

“Well, it’s a succulent and it helps with burns,” she explained.  She went on further to explain how many species of it were found all over and they had discovered that certain types went beyond helping with burns.  “It also creates a second skin.  It works with the body’s own natural ability to grow skin.  The platelets that form from a scab, along with these specific aloe vera plants, combine to help heal and regrow skin.”

“Wait, are you talking about the Cooper-Aloe procedure?” she asked.  She had heard about this and she began to realize why Deanna had brought this up, and the correlation of the name.

Deanna nodded.  “Yes, I figured it out.  We can propagate these wild aloes, but in the fifth generation it deteriorates for some reason and we need to get the wild species back in and start over.”  She sounded disgusted at her own human frailties.  “We found that the best of the wild species are in the Amazon.  God, that place hides more in its lush foliage than we have found.  Logging and forestry have really made a dent in the jungle.  We had to buy so much land to keep it in its original state.  We worked with the natives to ensure that no one trespasses.  It’s been a nightmare as we try to keep the land in its natural state and the loggers salivate after the trees and woods that make them so much money.  I bought enough land that they can’t get to the deep reaches.  They can’t come on privately owned land, but still they try; it’s a constant war.  The aloe plant is the least of it.  The way of life of those natives will be preserved as long as I can manage it!”   Her fist thumped on the table and it was obvious she was passionate about this.

Madison had no idea that Deanna could look so impassioned.  It was rather…arousing and she wasn’t immune to it.  It was also fascinating.  Deanna had made a separate fortune from the Cooper-Aloe procedure in burn products.  It was all under Kearney Pharmaceuticals, but she was rich in her own right, much less her family fortune.  It was obvious it hadn’t affected her in the least.  She was still brilliant, still down-to-earth and charming.  Madison resented some of that, wanted to dislike her.  “No wonder they want you on the board,” she commented.

Deanna nodded.  “I won’t though.  I hate being in boardrooms,” she said adamantly.  “I want the freedom to treat people, to actually help them.  Do you know, when I requested to work in the emergency room they wanted to deny it to me because I was more ‘useful’ elsewhere?  I disabused them of that notion pretty damn quick.”

Madison didn’t doubt it.  With that much power behind her, the hospital should be grateful for her presence and probably were afraid she would walk.  That reminded her of the funky shoes that Deanna wore.  As they chatted on, she mentioned them. 

Deanna held one out beyond the table, nearly tripping someone who was walking by.  “Oh, excuse me,” she apologized profusely.  Laughing, she turned back to Madison.  “I have a bunch of these in different styles.  They are so much more comfortable than the patent leather they would like us doctors to wear.  We are on our feet most of the day.  I’ll be damned if I’ll wear something uncomfortable like that!”

“You don’t think that gives you away?”

“What?  That I love sports shoes?”

“No, that you are…into women?”  She felt uncomfortable bringing that up and wondered if Deanna was still gay, maybe bringing it up was wrong...

Deanna shrugged.  “It’s Los Angeles for Christ’s sake.  If they have a problem with my sexuality that is their problem, not mine.  If I can survive my mother and her disapproval over that, I can survive anything.”

“She accepts it now?”

“Let’s just say she values her only surviving daughter being in her life
now and then
enough to keep it under wraps.  Her grandchildren aren’t what she thought she would get and she thinks there might still be hope for me,” she shook her head and grinned unrepentedly.  “I live my life as I see fit and I will continue to do so.  What’s the point of living in someone else’s world by someone else’s standards?”

Madison wondered if that was a dig at her and her decision to break up with Deanna so long ago.  She had wanted children and couldn’t see how they could have them at the time.  This was before in vitro-fertilization had become so common.  She’d thought of all of this over the years.  She still couldn’t get past the gossip and stigma of being a lesbian.  What people would say and think still bothered her.  She could see that with Deanna, it wasn’t an issue and never had been.  “Not all of us have that luxury,” she said coldly.

Deanna was surprised at the tone and didn’t really understand it.  Before she could ask, the bill came.  She pulled out a credit card and handed it to their server.  Madison didn’t seem to want to talk anymore as she gathered her things and said she had to get home to her children.

“I’m hoping we can be friends while I’m here,” Deanna held out the olive branch hopefully as they waited for her credit card to be returned.  She signed the slip and left a generous twenty-percent tip without really looking at the total. 

Madison saw the total and realized how many groceries that type of meal would have bought for her small family.  No, Deanna had no clue of the realities of someone in her position.  She did, however, have no problem being friends with her.  It couldn’t hurt.  They had, at one point, loved each other, or, at least she had loved Deanna.  She had wondered about that years ago.  Deanna had never actually said the words.  What Madison had assumed hadn’t been said to her…ever.  She wanted to ask about it now, but felt it inappropriate.  Perhaps dragging up the past wasn’t a good idea.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Deanna was explaining the Cooper-Aloe product to a group of doctors involved with burn victims.  “It helps burn victims up to 80% more often than previous therapies.”

“And you profit, right, Doctor Cooper?  Oh yeah, it’s Kearney of Kearney Pharmaceuticals, right?  They, or rather
you,
make money off of this product you’re pushing?” someone called out viciously.

Deanna nodded.  “Yes, I’ve never hidden that I discovered it after the locals in
Mário Terezena taught me.  They benefit as well as the rest of their tribe.  They have a stake in this, it is not just me.  I simply had access to the company to commercialize it,” she admitted defensively.  She shrugged.  “Don’t use it if you don’t see an improvement, but don’t let your attitude towards me personally or Kearney influence you.  The product itself should sell you on its viability.  With laser surgery later on, the scars that develop from this procedure are less noticeable.  They are less likely to die from the scar tissue that used to build up in the victims.”

Madison was watching from the balcony, hidden in the dark.  She should really be on rounds with the other doctors’ patients she had worked on, but she was fascinated to see how Deanna was contending with those who thought her an elitist.  She had heard the rumors around the hospital.  While most liked her, there were some who were jealous of her brilliance and her money, or suspicious of her genuine need to help victims of so many things.  The burn unit was the least of the areas where her knowledge of other procedures was questioned.  She watched as Deanna convinced some of her sincerity, her slides and other visual aids assisting her in persuading some to at least give it a try.

* * * * *

“I swear!  They gather the beans after the cats poop them out,” she was enthralling her audience with the gross tale about how the coffee beans for one of the most expensive coffees in the world were gathered.

“C’mon, that’s too gross to be true,” someone objected, laughing at Deanna’s tale.

Madison, listening at another table, knew it was probably true.  Deanna wasn’t one to spread a story like that unless it was true.  She had a full table enthralled.  People loved the doctor’s personality and she always had a new story to share.

“I tell you, look it up. 
Kopi Luwak is like thirty-five to a hundred bucks a cup.”

“Have you had some?”

“Hell, no!  Do I want to drink coffee that is also known as cat poop coffee?  They get the cats, these civets, to eat these beans.  The beans go through them, they collect feces, and sell it as Kopi Luwak,” she explained.  Those who didn’t want to believe her would be looking it up later.  Others were amused by the story.

“Why would their poop…?” began someone trying to trip up the brilliant young woman.

“Some sort of fermentation goes on as it goes through their digestive juices,” she explained in anticipation of the question.

Madison, listening in, was amused.  It was probably all true too…she Googled it later only to find out it was.

* * * * *

“Look, I was brought in on this…this is what I
do
.  Use me, use my expertise!  Don’t dismiss it because of your prejudices…”

Bonnie was hearing yet another confrontation between Doctor Kearney and another, more senior doctor.  The hospital was rife with stories about this doctor who had come in and shaken up the establishment.  She was well-liked by the staff and patients, but not so much by older doctors who felt she didn’t have the experience that she so obviously did.  She still looked too young, had started too early.  They felt she was confrontational, but Doctor Kearney wasn’t afraid to take them on.  Later, Bonnie would relate the story in the nurses’ lounge and Madison, who had heard this sort of thing time and again, shook her head, wondering if Deanna would stay.  For all the accolades they wanted from this highly sought-after doctor, the headaches might outweigh her highfalutin connections and name.

* * * * *

“But the insurance only covers so much pain medication,” a younger doctor was clarifying to Deanna as though she wasn’t bright and needed to have it explained to her.

“So we should let them cry in pain when we have the means to alleviate it?”  Deanna shook her head at the stupidity of it.

Madison, coming across the after-surgical follow-up, watched as Deanna gave the medication she felt the patient should have, insurance be damned.  She was amused.  Today, Deanna was wearing sneakers that lit up like a child’s when the heel of them came in contact with the floor.

“Where in the world did you get those?” Madison asked her when they had a chance to chat alone, the only time she would be familiar with Deanna.

Deanna looked down at the high-tops in surprise, forgetting what she had been wearing.  “Oh, these old things?” she said turning her feet sideways and back to front.  “I had them specially made.  Why should kids get all the fun?”

“Maybe you should have them made and market them,” Madison teased.  She wouldn’t mind such shoes herself, but knew she wouldn’t be able to get away with it.  Other doctors, much less nurses and staff, had tried and been admonished for copying this doctor.  Deanna was a bad influence.

“I have,” Deanna said with a smirk and moved off to help another patient in the emergency room.

Later, looking for Deanna to update her on a case they had shared, Madison found her sewing up a little old lady, something any intern could have done, but Deanna was doing it herself.

“Mrs. Gabriola,” she rolled her Rs causing the delighted lady to laugh, “I’d prescribe laughter because it is the best medicine.”  The patient and doctor shared a conspiratorial laugh together.

Madison couldn’t help but smile.  Deanna was terrific with everyone it seemed.  Her mastery of several languages had helped time and again with patients that came in from all over.  Her general surgery skills allowed her to take on a variety of cases that kept her interested, and her specialty of tropical diseases made her skillset unique.

* * * * *

After an unusually bad day, Madison came upon Deanna looking at babies in the maternity ward.

“Are you lost, Doctor Cooper?” Madison asked with a tinge of bitterness.  “Oh wait, that’s Doctor Kearney now isn’t it?”

Deanna ignored Maddie’s sarcasm as she answered, “You know, I’ve delivered dozens of babies over my career.  The miracle of life still amazes me.  Babies struggle and survive in the most…unlikely of places.”

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.  Was this the same woman who had vehemently stated she didn’t want children…
ever
?  “Maybe you should have had one of your own,” she jibed.

Doctor Kearney turned to look at her with a strange look.  “Maybe I did,” she said quietly as she turned and walked away, leaving Madison gaping after her.

* * * * *

Deanna was talking about a case and the intern she was talking to referenced a popular TV show.  “You got that off of GSP,” she stated, disbelieving.

“GSP?”

“General Surgical Procedures.”

“What is General Surgical Procedures?” Deanna asked, curious.

“It’s a TV show…” she began.

Deanna shrugged, blowing it off.  “I don’t watch TV much….”

Several people who knew Deanna’s propensity for stories had found them all to be true.  They believed her, and yet the intern wanted to argue that Deanna couldn’t possibly know this information herself.

“Doctor Campa, if you spent more time reading up on procedures and less time watching the boob tube, you would know that this is true.  It is not off some drama on that idiot box,” Deanna finally finished irritably.

Later, Madison ran into her once again.  “Bad day?” she asked seeing Deanna’s face.

“This place is too structured,” she said, annoyed.  “How can anyone get anything done if you have to fill out insurance papers or get an opinion from an idiot or, or, or…” she ran her fingers through her hair.  She had cut it in a style that allowed her to have it stand on end in an attractive feathered look.  It was cut above her ears, showing off the double piercings in both lobes and today, instead of the stud at the top of ear, she was wearing an ear cuff with a chain down to one of the piercings.  She looked hip, stylish, and an antithesis of the other doctors in the hospital.

“Are they pressuring you to get out?” Madison wondered.

Deanna look at her.  “No, I am.”

Madison looked worried.  She had only just begun to get to know her again and if she left, maybe to go back to Boston to her family’s holdings, there was no way they could remain friends.  They would both be too busy.

Later Madison texted her, a common form of communication between them with their busy schedules.

‘How was the rest of your day?’

‘You wouldn’t believe the day I had.’

‘What hap?’

‘I devoured a baby.’

‘Damn phone...delivered.’

‘Good, because otherwise…gross.’
  She waited a moment and then sent,
‘Boy or Girl?’

‘Gorilla.’

‘That was either hysterically funny or extremely racist.’

The phone rang then and Madison picked it up, “Hello?”

“They call these
smart
phones?”

Madison couldn’t help but snort-laugh through her nose.  “It’s technology,” she tried to console her.

“I can’t believe that people put up with these things.  I wanted to throw it!”

“Uh oh, sounds like phone rage!”

“Phone rage?  Is that a
real
thing?”

“You’re the doctor, you tell me?”  Madison could almost hear Deanna shaking her head.

“Why does anyone use these things?  It doesn’t matter whether I type it or speak it, it gets it wrong!”

“Convenience?”

“Embarrassing!”

“You know, there is a way to turn off some of those features.”

“You better show me the next time I see you,” she sighed angrily.

“How did you cope when you were traveling?” she asked, amused.

“I waited until I got to a phone, none of these ‘conveniences.’”

Madison chuckled wondering how such a brilliant doctor could be so technologically inept.

* * * * *

“How is it possible that a general surgeon can be off every weekend?”  Beth overheard and duly reported, to spread the gossip among the nursing staff.

“Well, you know
who
she is.”

“That doesn’t excuse it.  It’s not fair and she hasn’t been here long enough that she should have such privileges.  I heard that she wanted to breed maggots in one of the laboratories to debride wounds.”

“I heard she did that on a patient already.”

“Yeah, but we don’t have the facilities.  It’s called
debridement therapy and I guess someone was thinking what would happen if they evolved from maggots to actual flies and got in the duct work or something….”

* * * * *

“You know, you aren’t making friends with some of the senior staff,” Deanna was warned.

“I didn’t come here to make friends.  You asked me here when I expressed an interest to share my knowledge elsewhere.  It’s not my fault I’m ruffling feathers.”

“Can’t you at least try to get along?”

“If you haven’t noticed, they aren’t really trying either.”

“Look, I agree with you about that painkiller tolerance case,” the doctor argued with her.

“Did you hear about that already?” she laughed.

The patient had come in and been labeled drug-seeking.  Deanna had disagreed.  The patient had merely built up an immunity to the drugs.  Since being labeled drug-seeking, they had been unable to handle the pain from their existing condition and this led to more hospitalization.  Doctors had begun to refer him to substance abuse programs.  Then he met Deanna, who not only listened
to
him, but worked
with
him.  She explained to him that it wasn’t his fault.  “You’ve built up a tolerance for these,” she indicated the prescriptions he had on file for pain.  “As your body adjusts to them, you need more and more to get the desired effect.  If you’ve been on them for years, you need five or ten times the amount you once did and that could kill you.  Your liver, for one, would have trouble processing such copious amounts.”

She went on, “Now, if you were addicted to them, you would be irrational about the need for these medications.  You’ve been completely honest, something an addict would not be, to get out of pain.  From what you told me, you never take it unless you have no choice and you aren’t justifying the dosage because,” she lifted her hands to make quotation marks in the air, “you had a ‘hard day.’  Instead, you take it because the pain has simply become intolerable.”