Strong Medicine [antikvár]

1 Dr. Jordan said quiedy, "Your wife is dying, John. She has a few hours more, that's all." He added, conscious of the pale, anguished face of the slight young man before him, still dressed in his factory work clothes, "I wish I could tell you something else. But I thought you'd want the truth." They were in St. Bede's Hospital in Morristown, New Jersey. Early evening noises from outside—small-town noises—^filtered in, barely disturbing the silence between them. In the dimmed light of the hospital room, Andrew watched the Adam's apple of the patient's husband bob twice conwilsively before he managed to get out, "I just can't believe it. We're just beginning. Getting started. You know we have a baby." "Yes, I know." "It's so . . ." "Unfair?" The young man nodded. A good, decent man, hardworking from the look of him. John Rowe. He was twenty-five, only four years younger than Dr. Jordan himself, and he was taking this badly—not surprisingly. Andrew wished he could comfort the other man more. Though Andrew encountered death often enough and was trained to know the signs of death's approach, he still was uncertain about communicating with a dying person's friends or family. Should a doctor be blunt, direct, or was there some subtler way? It was something they didn't teach in medical school, or afterward either. "Viruses are unfair," he said, "though mostly they don't act the way this has with Mary. Usually they'll respond to treatment." "Isn't there anything? Some drug which could . . . ?" Andrew shook his head. No point in going into details by answering: Not yet So far, no drug for the acute coma of advanced infectious hepatitis. Nor would anything be gained by saying that, earlier today, he had consvilted his senior partner in practice, Dr. Noah