Miracle Cure by Michael Palmer Page B

I’m here in his place. Go ahead, Jack, open it.”
    His hands a bit shaky, Jack tore open the envelope and extracted a small, wallet-sized card. He stared at it for half a minute at least, then said softly, “Oh, my God.” He looked up at Jessup. “This is for real?” She nodded. “Carolyn, this is going to do more for me than any operation or any pill ever could.… Here, son.”
    He passed the card through the side rail of his gurney. It wasn’t until Brian had it in his grasp that he realized what it was.
    COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS
BOARD OF REGISTRATION IN MEDICINE
David Connolly, Governor
ISSUES THIS LICENSE TO
    Brian’s name and address followed. There was an addendum printed at the bottom that the license was provisional, but that made no difference. Brian stared at the card, afraid that if he tried to speak he’d end up crying.
    “You start here as a postdoc fellow next Monday,” Jessup said. “Tuesday morning you’ll be assisting me herein the cath lab. Pass that test and you’ll be doing caths by yourself within the month. Just promise us all one thing.”
    “Anything,” Brian said. “Anything at all.”
    “Promise us you won’t show up the faculty with any more diagnoses like that thyroid storm.”
    Angus “Mac” MacLanahan had always prided himself on having a good attitude about life. As a machinist in Glasgow, then later, after immigrating to the States, as a mechanic fixing the upper crust’s Jaguars, he had always been upbeat—content with his lot, but willing and anxious to do what he could to improve it. Now, every step was an effort as he trudged up the hill from the clinic to an empty apartment, battling the consuming sadness that came from no longer being healthy.
    It had been great for him for a long time. He was a gentle bull, known for his strength and stamina. They had made him chief mechanic at Back Bay Jag. He had an angel of a wife and three terrific kids. Then Mary had gotten the bad news about the lump in her breast, and everything seemed to go sour—her surgery, the doctors appointments, the horrible, poisonous chemotherapy, and still, ultimately, the bone pain, weight loss, and at last, the merciful end.
    It wasn’t six months after Mary’s death that Mac had his first episode of chest pain. He was working under a hood when the pain hit—an ill-defined burning pressure that started beneath his breastbone, but seemed to be everywhere in the top half of his body at once—his shoulders, his neck, his jaws, his ears. Deep down inside, he knew it was his ticker. But his mind wouldn’t accept it. He simply got a glass of water, sat down, wiped the sweat from his forehead and face, and breathed slowly until the pain let up.
    He told no one about the episode—not his sons, not his coworkers, not his doctor. And for a couple of months, he paced himself and took a break the moment he sensed the fearsome ache coming on. But finally, his tongue loosened by a pint or two at The Tartan, he made the mistake of mentioning the symptoms to his friend, Marty Anderson. The very next day, with Marty at his side, he was at his doctor’s office.
    Now, two years later, he wondered whether or not he should have just said the hell with it and let them cut on him.
    The walk to his apartment was just five blocks, but Mac was only at the 7-Eleven store and he had already had to stop three times. The doctor at the clinic, a woman who looked to be in her teens, had brought in a dietician to go over the low-salt diet for the umpteenth time, and had bumped up the fluid pills to two twice a day. Mac reminded her that he already kept a bottle by the bed to pee in the three or four times he had to go each night, but the doctor just laughed and assured him that the ankle swelling and shortness of breath would be better if he would eat fewer chips and drink less beer.
    “Why not just give me the black pill,” Mac had responded, only half in jest.
    He shuffled into the 7-Eleven and picked up some