Miracle Cure by Michael Palmer Read Free Book Online Page A

heart; and the other right next to it, into his femoral artery, then up the aorta, and into the two corresponding chambers on the
left
side of the heart. The separate catheters were necessary because, except in certain congenital and disease conditions, there was no direct connection between the right chambers, which pumped blood to the lungs, and the left, which received blood from the lungs and pumped it through the aorta to the coronary arteries and the rest of the body.
    Once the catheters were in place, as verified by a squirt of X-ray dye, blood pressures would be measured in the various chambers and vessels. Next, the left-side catheter would be repositioned inside Jack’s right, then left, coronary arteries, the two main vessels that branched off the aorta to supply blood to the heart muscle. X-ray contrast material would be injected into the arteries while a video camera recorded the flow and simultaneously projected it onto the monitor screen. The arteries would then be viewed from eight different angles.
    Grateful to be back in his milieu, if only as an outsider, Brian examined the mechanized table, the powerful X-ray camera, and the various types of catheters hanging in sterile cellophane packets from labeled hooks along one wall. He was looking over the crash cart when his father was wheeled into the room by the cath tech, a tall, rail-thin black man who introduced himself as Andrew.
    “Dr. Jessup left word to expect you,” he said. “She’ll be down shortly. Welcome to the lab.”
    “How about you put me down as a no-show and take me back to my room,” Jack said.
    “Is your father always like this?” Andrew chided.
    “Oh, no. Not at all. He’s probably this mellow because he’s been premedicated.”
    The room, which seemed quite spacious when Brian wandered it alone, began filling rapidly. The console-room nurse arrived next, took her place behind the glass wall, and began readying her monitoring and recording equipment. Moments later, the scrub nurse entered from the women’s dressing room, gowned herself, then pulled on a pair of gloves and began preparing her instrument tray. Brian helped Andrew move Jack from the gurney to the mechanized fluoroscopy table.
    “Jesus, Brian, this is like being set down on a slab of ice. There’s no reason they couldn’t put a little heating coil in these tables. None at all. A little cushioning, too. Don’t X rays go through cushioning? Hey, Andrew, how about a pillow. I can have a pillow, right?”
    Brian knew that Jack’s machine-gun speech and litany of complaints meant only that he was scared stiff. Andrew, apparently appreciating the same thing, put his hand reassuringly on Jack’s shoulder. Brian knew his assessment was right when Jack made no attempt to move it away.
    “Good morning, everyone.”
    Carolyn Jessup entered from the women’s lounge and took command of the room instantly. She wore a paper hair-covering and mask, loose scrubs, and tennis sneakers, and looked as engaging in that outfit as she did in her lecture suit. Her first stop was at Jack’s side.
    “Have you been behaving, Jack?” she asked.
    “Complaining, but behaving. You look very mysterious, with just your eyes showing like that.”
    Brian groaned inwardly. Suddenly, Black Jack Holbrook, the man whose glare set 270-pound linemen onto their bellies for twenty push-ups, was a puppy dog.
    “All women look alluring and mysterious in thisgetup,” Jessup said. “That’s why there’s such a clamor for jobs in the OR. Before we begin, do you have any questions?”
    “None, except what am I doing here?”
    “Without these pictures, we’re just about blindfolded in trying to figure out what to do to help you.”
    “As long as one of the choices isn’t surgery.”
    Brian had discussed with Jessup the aftermath of Jack’s catastrophic post-op course.
    “He’d probably be willing to go along with just about anything,” Brian told her that first night, “except repeat