Love In The Time Of Apps (20 page)

“Your wife’s ratio is 7,000,000: 1 and we all believe that her unusual ratio is somehow the cause of her anatomical abnormality. To be perfectly candid, we don’t understand the mechanism of the abnormality,
but we have no other viable theories. What we propose, assuming you sign all of these release and indemnity forms, is a procedure designed to get her ratio back to near normal, if not back to normal. If we do that, we think the swelling will stop and perhaps diminish and even reverse itself.”

“How do you to propose to do this?”

“Our best guess is that her high ratio is due to an internal buildup of electricity from the lightning which probably has fused with the cells in her body. That might account for the cocoon of light as well. Somehow the electrical charge is affecting her tissues and causing them to grow. What we would attempt to do is to flush out the fused electrical charge by infusing her body with enormous amounts of electricity.”

“You mean,” Goodwin replied, “Sheila is electrically constipated. And to fix her, you have to give her sort of an electric enema.”

“That is correct, although we can’t call the procedure an “electric enema.” As doctors, particularly doctors on television, we need to give the procedure a name that no one understands. We’ve dubbed it a ‘Modulating Polarity Shunt.’”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Who knows? We called the Medical Linguists hot line and this is was their best suggestion. It actually sounds kind of impressive, though it really is just an electric enema. I know you must think that this is bizarre, but we simply can’t appear on television and say we are giving your wife an electric enema. On the other hand, if we say we are going to give Mrs. Goodwin a Modulating Polarity Shunt, most people will not have a clue to what we are doing and because we are doctors, or in my case a PhD, people will be impressed.

“But,” Goodwin said, “You don’t know what will happen with this experiment.”

“That’s absolutely right, but let me stress again, while the experiment might not work, there is virtually no down-side risk. On the other hand, if we do nothing and her trend towards mega-obesity and beyond continues your wife could well be at risk. Take a look at her now. I think you’ll agree that the procedure is absolutely required.”

Goodwin glanced at the small television set on Wang’s desk and realized that Wang was correct. Sheila’s swelling had increased dramatically over the last half hour. The woman he saw hardly resembled Sheila or for that matter any woman. It was as if Sheila was pumped up with an enormous amount of helium. She looked like the Hindenburg with mascara.

“Mr. Goodwin?” Wang asked gently.

Goodwin blinked back to his environment. “Where do I sign?”

Several hours later, Goodwin was summoned to a completely transformed Med-TV Room. It no longer resembled a hospital room, but looked more like the interior of the control room of a nuclear power plant, one disturbingly reminiscent, in Goodwin’s view, of Chernobyl immediately before its disaster. Sheila, within her cocoon of light, rested on a large metal platform suspended 10 feet in the air by thick metal chains that hung from a large mini-crane. The raised platform diffused some of the light emanating from Sheila’s cocoon and created a slightly hazed effect within the entire room. Wires and electrical cables of different sizes and shapes were affixed to the metal platform or to Sheila’s body, though the precise location of the wires on her body was difficult to discern through the cocoon of light. A silver tarpaulin with electrical wires and cables of varying diameters connected to it hung just above the cocoon of light.

All of the wires led to large and somewhat ominous- looking generators and other types of machines. Four enormous magnets, each measuring five feet long and three feet wide, hung above Sheila at spaced intervals. Monitors of every conceivable type took up the walls of the room. Some were flashing blue and green lights; some were spewing out little printouts, while others were printing various measurements. Goodwin now swears that he saw one screen that had “Play Station 2” on it, but cannot verify this.

“What are all of those mechanisms, Doctor Wang?”

“No one really knows. They were here when the hospital opened; don’t work at all, but they will look terrific on television.”

Goodwin was so engrossed with the equipment that he had not noticed until that moment that the entire amphitheater was empty
except for a security guard posted to prevent anyone from entering. He had an uneasy feeling about this and asked Wang, who was sipping from a large bottle marked “Liquid Prozac,” “Where are all of the reporters?”

Wang was remarkably calm, probably from his latest drink, replied matter-of-factly, “Just a safety precaution.”

“Safety precaution? What safety precaution? Safety against what?”

“Against your wife exploding.”

“Exploding? You assured me that there was no down- side risk!” Goodwin shouted.

Wang now, droopy eyed from his totally consumed bottle of liquid Prozac, did not respond to Goodwin’s charge. “Here,” Wang said quietly, “put on this helmet.”

“I’m sure I don’t need a helmet, Dr. Wang.”

“Suit yourself, but you are paying for it. Actually, you’re paying for all of the helmets and the equipment rental and the technicians and the safety uniforms and the closed-circuit television time, to name a few of the hundred items involved in this procedure.”

Wang turned away and made some adjustments to the closed circuit television monitor on his desk. The image Goodwin saw was that of a doctor dressed in heavy protective gear, generally worn by members of a bomb squad. The doctor signaled a technician positioned at the opposite end of the room. Despite the complexity of the equipment, the actual execution of the procedure appeared remarkably simple. A switch was pushed down. The lights flickered. Goodwin heard an electrical “zzzzz,” one identical to the “zzzzz” in the old Frankenstein movies when Dr. Frankenstein and his staff were trying to bring the monster back to life. For several minutes, there was silence and no movement whatsoever in the Med-TV room. In this quiet hiatus, Goodwin dwelled briefly on Dr. Frankenstein and wondered how his life would be different today, for example if the doctor had to deal with an HMO. (“What do you mean that you’re only going to reimburse me a total of $40? I put together lots of body parts and created life...I don’t give a damn that you have a $40 cap on ‘Miscellaneous Procedures.”)

Technicians from around the room began to read off numbers, to which other technicians appeared to respond “check.” Midstream into this activity, Sheila began to levitate slowly to a height of about five feet above the platform. Cables affixed to her body began to split and hit the floor causing sputtering electrical sparks. Sheila stayed motionless for a good 10 minutes. Just about the time that physicians in the room began to peek out from behind their sandbags, she began to vibrate violently and as she did so expand rapidly like a balloon infused with a great rush of air. One doctor screamed, “She’s going to blow! Take cover!” Reflexively, Goodwin grabbed his helmet and put it on. He glanced at Wang, who was praying, and heard him say, “Please, God, don’t let her go nuclear.”

There was no explosion, however. Sheila’s body gradually lowered to the platform and contracted to her pre-levitation size. The vibrating slowed and then stopped. The doctors and the technicians, sensing that the danger had passed, emerged cautiously from behind their sandbags and approached their stations. One doctor was standing by a meter not far from Sheila and speaking into the television camera as a means of reporting back to Wang: “Ratio now at 1000:1...900:1; 800:1...500:1; steady...20:1…cutoff...good, excellent…it worked. She’s stabilized.”

The last thing Goodwin saw on the monitor was the doctors, still dressed in their protective gear and helmets, the ones over 30 giving themselves high fives, the ones under 30 giving fist bumps.

“Well,” said Wang, “we did it.”

“What? She looks the same, like one giant amoeba.”

“Yes, but her ratios are normal, and no explosion. Most importantly, we no longer have to worry about any adverse reaction to the procedure.”

“Are you absolutely certain?”

“I’ll stake my reputation on it. Why don’t you go home get a good night’s sleep? We will monitor Sheila’s condition and if any changes occur, I will call you. No one knows if she will now revert back to her former self, but we are confident that she will. Trust us, we’re doctors.”
While Goodwin was well read, he was not familiar with the book
How to Avoid Jinxes
, where the author points out that there is a 100 percent correlation between a doctor uttering “Trust us, we’re doctors,” and a medical mishap of some proportion.

Physiological Schizophrenia

T
he last time Goodwin received a phone call at four in the morning it was from his former golfing buddy, Doctor Alex LaRue, Grace Harbor’s famed blind gynecologist. “Doctor Golden Touch,” as he was known at Harborside, caused a minor scandal when it was discovered that he was neither blind, nor a licensed doctor. The good ex-doctor was summarily dismissed from Harborside, not so much for the fraud perpetrated on his patients, but because he used his blindness to gain certain advantages in golf tournaments. Many of his former patients, however, were devastated, particularly because he had such a wonderful touch. “It was almost as if he could see,” patients used to say. The discovery of his deceit did clear up the mystery of how LaRue putted so well. Some members had found his putting skills so remarkable they began to close their eyes when putting to emulate his style. More infuriating and the tipping point for the members’ unbridled rage at him was that when La Rue posted his handicap for a tournament, he always wrote “blind” instead of an appropriate number. This always assured him of a trophy.

LaRue was in a deep depression and in a state of great panic when he called Goodwin. He feared that he was in fact losing his eyesight. When Goodwin told this to Sheila the following morning, she replied, not intending it as a rather black joke, but as a statement of fact, “Well, if that happens, maybe he can get back into the Club.” LaRue never had the malady he thought, however. He simply went to sleep with his sunglasses on and thought the dim light from his bathroom was
a symptom of failing eyesight. In the every clouded vision has a silver lining department, however, since he could no longer play golf, nor play doctor, he wrote a best-selling golf book entitled,
Putting With Your Eyes Closed.

This time, the caller was Wang whose voice trembled significantly more than La Rue’s. “Sorry to wake you, but we’ve had a complication. Can you come down immediately?”

“What do you mean complication?’ You promised no contraindications; said that you would stake your reputation on it. To trust you; you’re doctors. What the hell is going on?”

“Well, it’s difficult to explain. But let me tell you the good news, the swelling has all but disappeared and the light surrounding your wife is gone.”

“So, doctor, what’s the downside, or the complication?”

“Well, your wife seems to have developed an extreme case of physiological schizophrenia.”

“What in God’s name is that?”

“It’s much easier for me to explain when you get here.”

“Why?”

“Because.” Wang hung up before Goodwin could extract an answer.

There was just a crack of sunlight in the sky when Goodwin arrived at the Meditainment Center’s parking lot. It was not in its usual pre-dawn dormant state, just the reverse. The lot had the character of a staging area for a small invasion, but the troops in this case were reporters. Enormous flood and Klieg lights illuminated close to 100 news vans. News reporters were setting up initial shots for a story that was to follow. A separate area of the lot was roped off for helicopters, several of which were circling above and waiting to descend. A helicopter with the word NEWS upon its door had just landed several yards away from Goodwin’s car. Within seconds of landing, the door of the helicopter swung open and a bevy of reporters ran full tilt towards the Host-Pital. Goodwin thought he spotted the senior reporter, the Barbara Walters type that had criticized him earlier. Despite her age she was well ahead of the pack, probably because she was wearing Nike’s Sheila brand “Shopper’s model.”

As Goodwin entered the waiting room of the Meditainment Center, he could see Wang pacing and talking on his iPhone. Usually a fastidious dresser and always well groomed, Wang was unkempt and in need of a shave. There was no offer of a handshake or the usual small talk. Without looking at Goodwin, Wang led him to an elevator. The only access to the floor to which they were traveling was via a key placed in the panel of the elevator. Wang, still avoiding eye contact and looking spent, said quietly and with no modulation in his voice, “We’ve changed your wife’s location to a hospital suite reserved for VIPs, and at no extra charge.”

Goodwin wanted to press him for more information, but Wang seemed preoccupied with the task of wiping rather large beads of sweat from his brow and mumbling some words that sounded like “Hippocratic oath” repeatedly. Those words, Goodwin thought, might have been Wang’s transcendental meditation mantra, though they clearly did not calm him. The elevator opened into a large, luxurious, living room furnished with expensive antiques.

Wang escorted Goodwin into one of the bedrooms off of the living room, a stylishly furnished, but fully functional, patient’s room. Sheila was lying comatose in a single bed near the window and was no longer surrounded by the cocoon of light. A Spa IV was attached to her arm. The swelling had completely disappeared. Her complexion was pinkish. She looked remarkably well, though the broad smile on her face continued to disturb Goodwin. Several doctors were discussing her case, but Goodwin could not hear what they were saying. The doctors who heretofore were giving high-fives and fist bumps appeared to be quite subdued. None of them seemed to rejoice in the success of their experiment. They were in a state of total shock.

“Well, Doctor Wang, I guess your instincts were right. Congratulations. My apologies for doubting you.”