Showdown with Billie the Kid

I can’t think of a worse place to die than a hospital. So I tend to avoid them. After getting punched in the face on Saturday night, though, I wasn’t much surprised when Riley drove me straight through the pelting rain to the hospital Monday morning instead of to the office.

“I don’t need to see a doctor. I just got punched in the face. It’s not like I had a heart incident or anything,” I complained.

“Dag,” Riley said patiently, “if you want to play punching bag for guys who are half your age and in twice your condition, that’s your business. I’m not going to interfere. But you’ve got an appointment with Dr. Roberts this morning.”

“Newel? Why?” I asked.

“This is the first Monday of the month. It’s your regular monthly appointment.”

“Damn, Riley. How could I forget that?” I’d been seeing Newel Roberts, one of Seattle’s finest heart surgeons at least once a month since my heart attack last may. I must be getting pretty pre-occupied with this case. I didn’t even realize it was Monday. “Well, I’m glad you remembered. Thanks, Riley.” I looked at her. She was still a little ticked off at me for the whole Saturday night affair.

Scratch that word. It was not an affair.

Anyway, she seemed to believe that if she’d been there I wouldn’t have gotten hurt, but if she had been there, I wouldn’t have gotten the information I did. Of that I was certain. She dropped me off at the hospital and I went in for my appointment.

“Dag,” my heart doc was speaking to me. “This just isn’t looking good to me. The wall of the left ventrical is so thin you could see through it. We’ve got to accelerate you on the program. If we don’t get you a new heart soon, I can’t guarantee that you’ll be around for Christmas.”

It was even more bleak than I’d anticipated. Different symptoms had been telling me that things weren’t exactly all right, but I ignore them if I can. I’m following all the routine he’s given me. Eat right, stay trim, get as much light exercise as I can, lots of liquids, don’t get stressed. Well, that last one was a little harder to live by. I suppose getting clocked on Saturday night isn’t exactly avoiding stress. Remind me to apologize to Riley.

I suppose my cup of espresso each morning wasn’t exactly on the program either.

“What do I need to do?” I asked.

“There’s not a lot you can do that you haven’t been doing, though I’d try to quit running into things if I were you.” He looked at the cut and bandage job Riley did on me Saturday night. “I’m moving you onto the active list. We’ve got to try to find a match for you and get you a new heart.”

“When do you think?”

“You know the donor situation. There’s probably a heart in a morgue someplace in Seattle right now that would have been a perfect fit if the corpse had been a donor. But you know we’ve got to watch a couple of other things with you as well. Your blood type is not the easiest to match and we’ve got to get you on the right anti-immune drugs before we put someone else’s heart in your chest. That means you are going to be more susceptible to illness, which means you’ll have to be even more careful about your health.”

“Well, it’s not like I’m planning any big illnesses this month,” I joked. “I’ll be sure to wash my hands.”

“Okay, smart aleck. I’m prescribing the drugs and I want to see you once a week now. And if I call, be here in 30 minutes or the heart will go somewhere else.” Newel Roberts scrawled out the prescription and I took it a little shakily.

“Don’t worry, Dag,” he said. “Our success rate with this is pretty remarkable now. In all likelihood you’ll live to be eighty if we get this taken care of.”

“Thanks, Newel,” I answered. “I’m looking forward to getting old.”

“You will,” he said. He put a hand gently on my shoulder before he left and I got dressed.

Damn.

I’ve known it was coming. According to the reports I’d been going through a gradual deterioration of my heart muscle most of my life, caused by a childhood disease. But until recently it had been so gradual that no one noticed until my jackpot heart attack in Las Vegas last spring. Since then the assessment was that the deterioration was accelerating. This old ticker was headed for the grave with or without me. It scared the crap out of me, but I was frankly willing to let it go first.

Out in the waiting room I stopped at the reception desk to make an appointment for next Monday. When I’d finished I turned and almost stepped on a small person.

“You got a bad ticker, mister?” she asked. Maybe nine years old, my little assailant was dressed in jeans, cowboy boots, and a red bandana. “Dr. Roberts says mine’s gonna kill me if I don’t get a new one soon.”

“Billie!” An exasperated mother rushed to her side from the other receptionist. “I’m sorry, sir,” she said. “Sometimes she is so blunt.”

“That’s okay,” I answered and squatted down until I was about her height. “It’s a tough life, isn’t it Billie?” I asked the little girl.

“Not so bad once you learn to live with it,” she answered. “It’s really hard getting anybody else to understand though, don’t you think?” This was a precocious youngster, I thought.

“Yes,” I said, “unless you’ve got it there’s really no way to understand it. What happened to yours?”

“Dr. Roberts says its con…” she looked quickly at her mother, closed her eyes and concentrated, then spit out the word, “congenital. I was born with a bad heart and it’s been going downhill ever since. How about you?”

“I got sick when I was a bit smaller than you and it damaged my heart somehow. Now I’ve got to get a new one.”

“Or you’ll be sorry,” she chimed like the ad on the radio. “You know what, though?” she asked innocently. “Somebody else has to die in order to get a new heart. That’s not fair is it? I want to grow up to be president of the United States, but it’s not fair for someone else to have to die so I can grow up.”

“That’s true, Billie,” I said, “but people die every day. People have accidents or get sick. We don’t have to kill someone to get a new heart. We’re not going to take anything that they need.”

“I know,” Billie looked straight in my eyes. “I just want them to be proud in heaven when they see who got their heart.”

I was near tear when the nurse called, “Billie Martin.”

“Oops, gotta go.”

“Come on, Billie,” her mother said reaching for a hand. I could see that our conversation had affected her as well.

“I need a few minutes alone with Dr. Roberts, Mom.” She turned to me. “What’s your name?”

“Dag Håmar,” I said.

“Mr. Håmar, would you keep my mother company for a few minutes so I can ask the doctor some questions? Thank you.” She marched over to the nurse and called back over her shoulder, “I’ll call for you in a few minutes, Mom.” Then she left with the nurse.

I stood and looked at Billie’s mother and decided to introduce myself.

“I’m Dag Håmar,” I said holding out my hand. She took it hesitantly.

“Wanda Martin,” she responded. “I’m really sorry if my daughter bothered you Mr. Håmar.”

“Not at all. She seems very mature for her age.”

“She had to grow up fast,” Wanda said. “Even faster than I did. I never wanted my baby to go through this.” Her lip was quivering and I led her to a chair and sat with her.

“No parent should ever have to watch her child suffer,” I said. “You should be very proud of her.”

“She’s adjusted to it much better than I have.”

“Well, I’m sure there will be a heart donor soon,” I said, thinking in part about my own position in the waiting line for donors. I’d have to do a little research to find out how low on the list I was.

“It won’t make a difference,” Wanda said. “She won’t get it. We don’t have insurance. I’m trying to raise the money, but I might not be able to make it in time.” That was a gut-punch.

“There are assistance programs available, aren’t there?”

“Oh yes. On the condition that I give up custody of my child and make her a ward of the State. And that is no guarantee that she’d get a heart. They’d evaluate her case and determine the urgency. Then in a couple of months when they decide, they’ll put her on a list with all the other children who are sick and give her a number. Then maybe she’ll still be alive when her number comes up. And maybe if she is, I’ll still be allowed to visit her once in a while, if the State deems me fit to be near her. I won’t let them take her away from me. Not now.”

The impassioned plea set all kinds of ideas in motion for me. Heart transplant will cost in the neighborhood of $100,000 but care and medication after surgery can cost double that.

“Can’t Billie’s father help?” I asked.

“I don’t even know who Billie’s father is,” Wanda said bitterly. “I wasn’t exactly a model teen. Billie’s all I’ve got. I’m not even employed right now because I have to take care of her.”

This looked bleak, but I was sure there must be a way to help her. I didn’t have $300,000 to give her. My own transplant was going to cost me my life savings after the insurance ran out. No matter what they tell you, good health in this country is the privilege of the rich. I didn’t know what to say to Wanda, and was spared the necessity when the nurse came back out and called for her to join her daughter.

“Good luck to you, Mr. Håmar,” she said as she rose to leave.

“And to you and Billie, too,” I answered.

Damn.

I called Riley and told her with a little more force than was necessary not to bother coming up to pick me up, I’d take a cab to the office. She told me that she was already waiting at the front door.

Damn.

I needed to walk. I needed to run and fill my lungs with air. I needed to go to a gym and pump iron, play basketball, and work up a sweat. None of that is going to happen. It’s all I can manage to walk the mile downhill from home to office with one or two rest stops on the way. I couldn’t bear to think of a nine-year-old who couldn’t run and play and was willing to tell a perfect stranger that her heart was going to kill her if she didn’t get a new one. Not fair didn’t even begin to describe it.

I ducked through the rain and got in the car next to Riley and sat in silence. She pulled away from the curb. She looked at me in a way that nearly melted what was left of my heart and asked, “Do you want me to take you home instead of to the office?”

“Don’t patronize me, Riley,” I said more sharply than I intended. “I have work to do.”

“Yessir,” she responded sharply and drove the rest of the way to the office in silence.

I closed the door to my office and sat staring out my window at the rain-swept sound. Once before I die, I’d like to see Mount Rainier again.

Damn!

I flicked on my laptop and connected to the network. The reports that I’d set to run and compile on Saturday were ready and waiting. I scanned through them, not expecting much. I figured now that Simon had set up the laptop to get me involved, but finding him wasn’t going to come by way of the laptop. I was much closer when I talked to Angel.

But something in the report caught my eye. There were 42 fuzzed documents on the drive. I chuckled. Then I laughed out loud.

Riley knocked softly on the door and opened it a crack. “Are you okay?” she said softly.

“Riley, what is the answer?” I asked, still laughing.

“The answer to what, Dag?” she wasn’t sure yet that I wouldn’t bite her head off.

“The answer to life, the universe, and everything,” I said. I watched Riley puzzle it out as I continued to laugh.