Dr.
Paige Barrett bit her lower lip nervously and then started back in. “That was the first time I’d ever seen him,”
she said. “That day in
the office. I recognize all of
our patients, and I’d never seen him before. “Connie had a new file made up - I
could tell because we use these color-coded tabs to distinguish between new
patients, regulars, and ones who haven’t been back in a couple of years.” Then she nodded to emphasize the fact. “He was new.” She took her mug off the desk,
fidgeted with it, and looked down into the coffee as if it might hold an
answer, but she didn’t take a drink. Dr. Barrett’s shoulder-length blond hair
curled slightly in at the ends, framing a face that was free of makeup. She wore dark-green slacks,
and a matching tie over a charcoal-gray dress shirt. It was a warm day in August and she wasn’t
wearing a jacket. On her feet were brown
penny loafers over white ankle socks, and on her ears, tiny emerald earrings. She
took a breath, recrossed her legs, and
continued. “God, he was such a nice man,
my age, forty or forty-one, I think.”
Delicate eyebrows furrowed over her brown eyes for a moment and then she
put her coffee cup back on the desk.
“This thing is killing me.” She pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of
her slacks as tears welled in her eyes.
“First I looked at his medical history...I always do that with a new
patient. Connie circles and highlights
anything that isn’t checked no, so I
won’t miss it. He’d had a broken arm a
couple of years before, but nothing else.
On the line where it asked for allergies he’d written none. “He was from Latvia or Lithuania, one of the Baltic States, and
he could barely speak any English. His
name was Andre Matulis.” Paige smiled bravely. “It was kind of fun in the operatory trying to communicate with him. We used hand signals, pantomime, and with the
few English words that he recognized we managed to get out of him that he was
having some temperature sensitivity in one of his teeth. “When I examined him I
found a lot of decay in one of his molars, number eighteen. My explorer stuck so deep it almost wouldn’t
come out. That was it, though. He really looked pretty good otherwise. I had Vi ready a
syringe of Novocaine and after the injection he seemed fine, so I went to look
in on another patient while I waited for the anesthetic to take effect. I hadn’t even washed my hands when Vi yelled from the other room. I was so glad she hadn’t screamed. “When I
came back to the operatory, he was breathing rapidly
and sweating. He looked so
frightened. I could tell he wasn’t
getting enough oxygen, and when I felt for a pulse there wasn’t one. Jesus, that scared the living hell out of me. I knew then that it was anaphylactic
shock. I asked Vi
if she’d called an ambulance and she said that Connie already had. Then he stopped breathing altogether.
“While
I was trying to get a syringe of epinephrine ready he jumped out of the
chair. He was in a panic. Luckily, Marcy came in a second later, and
between her and Vi they were able to get him to sit
back down. But before I could even
inject him he grabbed for his chest and passed out. He had a heart attack. “I gave him the
epinephrine anyway, and then we lowered the chair all the way back and I
started CPR. Marcy was doing the
breathing, but she wasn’t able to get any air down his windpipe. We were about to do an emergency tracheotomy
when the paramedics finally arrived.
They did what they could but I’m pretty sure that he was already dead. “Ten
minutes,” she said, and the tears started again. “The fucking hospital’s right next door and
it took them ten minutes to get here.
“The medical examiner said that the heart attack was brought on by stress, and
that’s what he listed as the cause of death, secondary to the allergic
reaction. The inquest was
yesterday. The police had taken the
medical history as evidence...it had Mr. Matulis’s
signature on the bottom, and on that basis I was exonerated. Now I’m just waiting for the malpractice
suit. “He had a family, you know, a wife - I don’t know how many kids. He worked at a bottling plant. He was an electrical engineer. He was taking English lessons so he could get
on at Boeing. God, I feel like shit.” Paige
used the fingers of both hands to pinch the bridge of her nose. More tears came, and she dried them. “I’m so
sorry, Paige,” I said. “I wish there was
something I could do.” “There is.” She
looked across the desk at me with red-rimmed eyes. “His whole family had appointments. They hadn’t had dental treatment in
years. Needless to say, they won’t come
near my office now - not even to see Marcy or Jeanette, but I have their phone
number. Is there any way you could call
them up and offer your services? I don’t
want them to have to go without.”“Sure,” I said, as
she slid me a folded p