Under the Knife(77)

The pulse oximeter on Rita’s finger whined in a slow, steady tempo, like a truck backing up, as she remembered that ill-fated Sunday night. She’d been on call, from home, and she’d been alone. It’d been a slow night—not much going on, not a single call from the hospital for hours. She’d figured a few drinks would be okay. One glass of wine, maybe two. No big deal. So she’d pulled out some Chardonnay.

First time she’d ever had a drink on call. She’d known other doctors who drank on call routinely. She’d seen them at parties and book clubs, phone in one hand, a glass of wine or beer in the other, chatting on the phone with another doctor, or a nurse, or maybe even a patient. How might one of those docs responded if she’d asked them about boozing on the job? Probably that it was no big deal, like driving home after having a drink or two with dinner. One just had to be responsible. Discreet.

Which is what she’d told herself that night, as she’d poured herself the second glass. No big deal. Just be responsible. Right? She’d once overheard a surgery professor claim to another, only half-jokingly, that he thought he operated better with a buzz on. Sipping the Chardonnay that night, she’d wondered if that was true.

She’d never been much of a drinker: too focused on school, and cross-country, and work. And then there was Darcy. Rita had learned in med school that drug dependency was hardwired in the genes, passed from one generation to the next. Their parents hadn’t had any such problems, as far as she’d known; but after watching Darcy go down in flames, she’d worried that she and Darcy might both be carrying some recessive gene, and that she might well be destined for a similar fate if she wasn’t careful. Besides, doctors were especially susceptible to drug and alcohol problems. Statistics showed it. So, other than an occasional drink during the holidays, Rita had avoided alcohol.

Then Darcy had stayed in Portland.

The night she called to tell Rita she wasn’t coming back, Rita had been sitting at her kitchen table after getting home late from the hospital. She’d put the phone down and stared out the window into the night, then gotten up to rummage around in a cabinet in the living room. She’d pulled out the fine Cabernet a grateful patient had given her, and a dusty wineglass. She’d uncorked the wine and washed out the glass.

After the first glass, things hadn’t seemed so bad. After the second, they’d seemed downright agreeable. After all, she didn’t need Darcy. Right?

The headache she’d woken up with (After only two glasses—jeez, had I really been that much of a lightweight?), one that had plagued her through morning clinic and the two routine operations that had followed, hadn’t dissuaded her from stopping off at the Costco on the way home to pick up a case of Chardonnay. Much cheaper to buy in bulk, and she’d once read that white wine was less likely to cause morning-after headaches than red. Not true, it turned out, at least not for her—but her alcohol tolerance soon increased, which helped.

She always remained in control. She’d told herself that repeatedly, night after night. Besides, studies showed you lived longer with a daily glass of wine, right? The health benefits were scientifically proven.

One drink a night after work had become two, occasionally three. She drank alone, which the sensible part of her tried to point out was not okay. In fact, it was pretty far away from okay. But she was in control. Always. She could stop anytime; she just didn’t feel like it. And she never drank on call. Ever. That was a line she would NEVER cross.

Until that Sunday night, a few weeks after Darcy’s call, when she’d crossed it.

Spencer.

It had been all about Spencer.

Not that it was his fault. She didn’t blame him. They’d run into each other in a hallway at Turner that morning, each of them on weekend rounds. She hadn’t seen him for a few weeks. They exchanged awkward hellos; and then Spencer had just looked at her. Just for a moment. He hadn’t said anything. He hadn’t needed to. Had just gazed at her—

(Like a sad puppy I’d kicked.)

—with those big blue eyes, and walked on past. In her mind, as she went about her day, his eyes floated in front of her. Like that book she’d read in high school, The Great Gatsby, and his eyes were like that billboard near the road where the lady got hit by the car. The eyes of God, their English teacher had told them.

When she’d gotten home that night, Rita had kept seeing his eyes. She couldn’t get them out of her head. So she’d poured herself a glass. Then a second. She’d been reaching for the third when the ER called: an appendix in need of emergency removal.

She’d panicked because she’d definitely had a slight buzz on. Frantic, she’d brushed her teeth hard enough to make her gums bleed, then driven, carefully, to the hospital, well within the speed limit, hands at ten and two on the wheel the whole way. Dismissed the chief resident who would have otherwise assisted in the OR. Loaded up on enough coffee and Red Bull to keep her jacked up for a week.

I was stone-cold sober by the time I operated on her, Rita thought. Insisted to herself. It had been a rare complication that had killed her. Even if I hadn’t been drinking earlier, it wouldn’t have made a difference. Jenny Finney would still have died.

And that was that.

Was it, though?

It had been one tough case. One of the worst Rita had ever seen, the woman’s abdomen a mess: appendix ruptured, pus everywhere. Rita had to all but chisel the appendix out, so inflamed were it and the surrounding organs.