Natural Causes by Michael Palmer Read Free Book Online Page B

Han. She had first encountered Han, a Chinese-born Christian missionary, while teaching with the Peace Corps in the Meo villages north of Chiang Mai, Thailand. Until his death nearly three years later, he was her mentor in the healing arts. The inscription on the box, elegantly carved in Chinese by Han himself, read: T HE H EALING P OWER OF G OD Is W ITHIN Us A LL .
    The moment Sarah stepped back into Room A, she sensed things had changed for the worse. A tube inserted into Lisa’s stomach through her nose was carrying a steady stream of blood into the suction bottle on the wall. Her urinary catheter was also draining crimson. Randall Snyder, his face ashen, stood by the fetal monitor, where the heartbeat of Lisa’s unborn child had dropped below the rate necessary to sustain life.
    “What’s happening?” Sarah asked, moving beside him.
    “I think we’ve lost him,” Snyder whispered. “We could go for a section right here and now, and maybe we’d still be in time for the baby. But Lisa would never survive.”
    “Is she going to anyhow?”
    “I don’t know. It looks bad.”
    Sarah hesitated for a moment, and then worked her way to where Helen Stoddard and Eli Blankenship were standing.
    “Can I please speak with you both?” she asked.
    For an instant, she thought Stoddard was going to dismiss her. Then, perhaps remembering Sarah was one of Blankenship’s hand-picked residents, the hematologist moved to one side of the room. Blankenship followed.
    “I’d like to try to stop Lisa’s bleeding,” Sarah said.
    “And exactly what do you think we’re trying to do?” Stoddard asked.
    Sarah felt the muscles in her jaw tighten. She had never forced her abilities and techniques on any resident or faculty member who didn’t request them. But Lisa was her patient, and conventional therapy did not seem to be working.
    “Dr. Stoddard, I know you don’t have a great deal of regard for alternative healing,” she said, struggling to keep her voice steady. “But I only want the same thing you do. I want Lisa to make it. For the last four or five months, while we were getting ready for her home birth, Lisa and I have been working on some self-hypnosis and internal visualization. I think she’s really gotten quite good at both.”
    “And?” Stoddard’s expression was ice.
    “Well, combined with acupuncture, we might be able to use Lisa’s own power to slow her bleeding down. Provided, that is, you are willing to give her enough protamine to neutralize the heparin.”
    “What?”
    “If we succeed in slowing her bleeding enough to be able to C-section her, you can start the heparin again to work on dissolving her clots.”
    “This is ridiculous.”
    Sarah took a calming breath. Over four years of medical school and two years of training, she had never had a clash of this sort with a professor. But there could be no backing down. “Dr. Stoddard, Lisa’s pressure is dropping, her bleeding is getting worse, and it may already be too late for the baby.”
    “Why, you arrogant, ignorant—”
    “Just a minute, Helen,” Blankenship cut in. “You can say anything you want when this is over, but right now we have a girl who is going down the tubes, and we’ve got to focus on her. Dr. Baldwin is right. The heparin’s not doing anything for the clots yet, and it’s sped the bleeding up to the point where we’re falling behind in our transfusions.”
    “Do this and I’m off this case,” Stoddard said.
    “Helen, you’re one of the best hematologists I’ve ever known, and one of the most dedicated doctors. I can’t imagine you ever allowing anything to get in the way of what’s best for a patient.”
    “But—”
    “And deep down, you know that the few minutes it will take Sarah, here, to try what she knows will make little difference to the outcome.”
    “But … all right, dammit. But after this is over, regardless of what happens, this hospital had better clarify its policy on medical quackery, or I