Strong Medicine
Authors: Arthur Hailey
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Fiction - General, #Medical, #drugs, #Fiction-Thrillers, #General & Literary Fiction, #Thrillers
Strong Medicine
by
Arthur Hailey
Novels by Arthur Hailey
STRONG MEDICINE
OVERLOAD
THE MONEYCHANGERS
WHEELS
AIRPORT
HOTEL
IN HIGH PLACES
THE FINAL DIAGNOSIS
RUNWAY ZERO-EIGHT
(with John Castle)
COLLECTED PLAYS
CLOSE-UP ON WRITING
FOR TELEVISION
STRONG
MEDICINE
PERSONAL
The Author to His Readers
In 1979, with publication of Overload, I announced my retirement. I was
tired. My life had been full. I was, and still am, grateful to those
millions of readers worldwide who have enriched my life in many ways,
including making retirement possible.
In whatever years remained I wanted to spend more time-and travel-with my
dear wife Sheila, go fishing, read more books, relax with music, do other
things a working writer can't.
What I did not know was that I was near death from six blockages in the
coronary arteries-a condition diagnosed soon afterward by my friend and
physician, Dr. Edward Robbins of San Francisco, who urged immediate
surgery. This was done-a quadruple bypass-by Dr. Denton Cooley and his
associates at the Texas Heart Institute, to where my gratitude flows
strong.
Sheila was supportive, as she has been through our long and loving
marriage. It is more than coincidence in this novel that the names Celia
and Sheila come similarly off the tongue.
The aftermath of everything was my revived good health and an abundance of
energy-so much of the latter that Sheila said one day, "I think you should
write another book."
I took her advice. Strong Medicine is the result.
April 5, 1984 A.H.
Diseases, desperate grown, By desperate appliance are reliev'd, Or not
at all.
SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet
We are overwhelmed as it is, with an infinite abundance of vaunted
medicaments, and here they add a new one.
THOMAS SYDENHAM, M.D. (162"9)
PROLOGUE
1985
In the 747, up forward in first class and half an hour out from London, Dr.
Andrew Jordan reached for his wife's hand and held it.
"Stop worrying," he urged her. "Nothing may happen."
"Something will happen," she said. "Dennis Donahue will see to that. "
Andrew grimaced at the mention of New England's populist U.S. senator. "I
was looking forward to lunch," he objected. "Did you need to spoil it by
making me nauseous?"
"Be serious, Andrew. Remember there have been deaths. Drugrelated. "
"You were a long way removed from them."
"Just the same, if there are criminal proceedings, I'll be included. I
could go to prison."
He tried to buoy their sagging spirits. "It hasn't happened yet, but if you
do I promise to visit every day and bring cakes with hacksaw blades
inside."
"Oh, Andrew!" She turned toward him, her smile a mixture of love and
sadness.
9
After twenty-eight years of marriage, he thought, how good it was to see
your wife, with admiration, as beautiful, intelligent and strong. And,
he told himself, he wasn't being sentimental either. He had seen all
those qualities, and more, exhibited a thousand times.
"That's nice," a female voice beside them interjected.
Andrew looked up. It was a bright, young, cheerful stewardess, observing
them holding hands.
He told her, deadpan, "Love can happen to the elderly, too."
"Really?" The stewardess matched his mocking tone. "That never occurred
to me. More champagne?"
"Yes, please."
He caught the girl inspecting him and knew, without being vain, that he
still looked good, even to someone young enough to be his daughter. How
had that London newspaper columnist described him last week'? "ne
white-haired, handsome and distinguished physician husband of . . .
etcetera, et cetera." Though Andrew hadn't said so, at the time he'd
rather liked it.
The champagne poured, Andrew sat back. He enjoyed the perquisites which
went with first-class travel, even if today they seemed less significant
than usual. It was his wife's money which provided those embellishments,
of course. While his own income as a busy internist was more than
comfortable, he doubted if he would splurge on first-class fare between
London and New York, and certainly could never afford the private jet in
which his wife, and sometimes Andrew, traveled around North America.
Correction, he reminded himself: had traveled until now. What changes lay
immediately ahead were far from certain.
Money, though, had never been any kind of issue in their marriage. They
had never had the slightest argument about it, and right from the
beginning his wife had insisted that what they had, they had together.
Their bank accounts were always joint, and though Andrew's contribution
nowadays was by far the smaller, neither bothered with comparative
arithmetic.
His thoughts drifted and they continued to hold hands as the 747 thrummed
westward above the Atlantic far below.
"Andrew," his wife said, "you're such a comfort. Always there. And always
so strong."
"That's funny," he replied. "Strong is what I was thinking about
YOU."
"There are different kinds of strength. And I need yours."
The usual airline bustle was beginning, preparatory to service of
10
their meal. Stowaway tables were being released, white linen and
silverware appearing on them.
After a while his wife said, "Whatever happens, I'm going to fight."
"Haven't you always?"
She was thinking carefully, as usual. "Within the next few days I'll
choose a lawyer. It must be someone solid but not flamboyant. Too much
showmanship would be a mistake."
He squeezed her hand. "That's my girl."
She smiled back at him. "Will you sit beside me in court?"
"Every day. Patients can fend for themselves until it's done."
"You'd never let that happen, but I would like you with me."
"There are other doctors. Arrangements will be made."
"Maybe," his wife said, "maybe, with the right lawyer, we can pull off
a miracle."
Andrew dipped a knife into a helping of caviar that had just been placed
before him. However acute their troubles, there was no point in passing
up that.
"It could happen," he said, spreading the caviar on toast. "We started
with a miracle, you and 1. And there've been others since, which you've
niade happen. Why not one more? This time just for
YOU."
"It would be a miracle."
"Will be," he corrected gently.
Andrew closed his eyes. The champagne and the altitude had made him
sleepy. But in his sleepiness he remembered the first miracle.
Long ago.
I I
ONE
1957-1963
I
Dr. Jordan said quietly, "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 convulsively 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 badlynot 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 . . . T'
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 hepatiti&
Nor would anything be gained by saying that, earlier today, he had
consulted his senior partner in practice, Dr.
15
Noah Townsend, who also happened to be the hospital's chief of medicine.
An hour earlier Townsend had told Andrew, "You've done all you can.
There's nothing I'd have done differently." It was then that Andrew sent
a message to the factory, in the nearby town of Boonton where John Rowe
was working on the swing shift.
Goddam! Andrew's eyes glanced at the elevated metal bed with the still
figure. It was the only bed in the room because of the prominent
"ISOLATION" notice in the corridor outside. The I.V. bottle on its stand
stood behind the bed, dripping its contentsdextrose, normal saline,
B-complex vitamins-into Mary Rowe through a needle in a forearm vein. It
was already dark outside; occasionally there were rumblings from a storm
and it was raining heavily. A lousy night. And the last night of living
for this young wife and mother who had been healthy and active only a
week ago. Goddam! It was unfair.
Today was Friday. Last Monday Mary Rowe, petite and pretty, though
clearly unwell, had appeared in Andrew's office. She complained of
feeling sick, weak, and she couldn't eat. Her temperature was 100.5.
Four days earlier, Mrs. Rowe told him, she had had the same symptoms plus
some vomiting, then the next day felt better and believed the trouble,
whatever it was, was going away. But now it had returned. She was feeling
terrible, even worse than before.