The Conspiracy Club Read Online Free PDF Page B

Rios.
    Over the past few weeks, the beautiful young resident had tried to catch his eye during at least four chance walk-bys in hospital corridors. Angela had a fine, quick mind and a soft heart, and she was as pretty as they came. Exactly the type of woman Jeremy would go for, if he was interested in a woman.
    Careful not to be hurtful, he’d smiled and walked on.
    Now this.
    He answered the page, and Angela said, “I’m glad you’re on service. I’ve got a problem patient — thirty-six-year-old woman with lupus in apparent remission but now her blood work’s looking scary, and we need a bone marrow aspiration.”
    “Leukemia?”
    “Hopefully not. But her counts are off in an ominous way, and I’d be derelict not to pursue it. The problem is, she has real difficulty with procedures — scared out of her wits. I offered to sedate her, but she says no, with the lupus receding she’s worried about taking any drugs and messing up her system. Could you help me? Hypnotize her, talk to her, whatever calms her down? I heard you do that.”
    “Sure,” said Jeremy.
     
     
    The first patient he’d “helped” with a procedure had been a twelve-year-old girl with a resected brain tumor — a malignant glioma — about to undergo a spinal tap. The Chief Psychiatrist had given Jeremy’s name to the neurosurgeon who’d put in the consult, and there was no turning back.
    He showed up at the procedure room wondering,
What am I supposed to do?
Found the girl in restraints, kicking and screaming and foaming at the mouth. It had been six months since the tumor had been shelled out of her skull, and her hair had grown back as three inches of fuzz. Ink lines across her face and a yellowish tan said she’d been radiated recently.
    Twelve years old and they were tying her up like a felon.
    A frustrated second-year resident had just ordered a gag. He greeted Jeremy with a furrow-browed grunt.
    Jeremy said, “Let’s hold off on that,” and took the girl’s hand. Felt the shock of pain as her nails cut into his palm and drew blood, looked into her panic-poisoned eyes, tried not to wince as she shrieked,
“Nonononononononono!”
    Sweat poured from his armpits, his bowels shuddered, and his equilibrium started to go.
    He stood by the gurney, frozen, as the girl’s nails cut deeper. She howled, he swayed. His left foot began to slide out from under—
    Blacking out–oh, shit!
    The resident, staring at him.
Everyone
staring at him.
    He braced himself. Breathed deeply and, he hoped, inconspicuously.
    The girl stopped screaming.
    His colon felt ready to explode and his back had gone clammy but he smiled down at her, called her “Honey” because he’d forgotten her name though they’d just been introduced, and on top of that he’d just read the damn chart.
    She stared up at him.
    Oh, Lord,
trust.
    The room fish-eyed and shimmered, and he felt his knees give way again. Drawing himself up, he began talking to the now-silent girl. Smiling and talking, intoning, droning, uttering Godknewwhatjibberish.
    The girl commenced screaming again.
    The resident said, “Shit, let’s just
do
it.”
    “Hold on,” ordered Jeremy. The violence in his voice silenced the room.
    The girl, too.
    He concentrated. Suppressed the shakes that threatened to betray him.
    Talked her through it.
    Within moments, the girl’s eyes had shut and she was breathing slowly and able to nod when Jeremy asked if she was ready. The resident, now looking off-balance himself, did his thing with merciful skill, extracted the lumbar puncture needle, filled a vial full of golden spinal fluid, and left the procedure room shaking his head.
    The girl cried, and that was okay, that was good, she had every right, poor thing, poor poor thing, just a child.
    Jeremy stayed with her, endured her whimpers, stuck with her until she was ready to smile and he got her to do so. His full-body sweat was foul-smelling, but no one seemed to notice.
    Later, out in the hall, one of the