First to Die

Chapter20

NINE THE NEXT MORNING, I was in the office of Dr. Victor Medved, a pleasant, smallish man with a narrow, chiseled face, who, with a trace of an Eastern European accent, scared the hell out of me. "Negli's is a killer," he stated evenly. "It robs the body of its ability to transport oxygen. "In the beginning, the symptoms are listlessness, a weakening of the immune system, and some light-headedness. Ultimately, you may experience similar brain dysfunction to a stroke and begin to lose mental capacity as well." He got up, walked over to me, cradled my face in his gentle hands. He stared at me through thick glasses. "You're already peaked," he said, pressing my cheeks with his thumbs. "Always takes me a while for the blood to get hopping in the mornings," I said with a smile, trying to mask the fear in my heart. "Well, in three months," Dr. Medved said, "unless we re verse it, you will look like a ghost. A pretty ghost, but a ghost all the same." He went back to his desk and picked up my chart. "I see you are a police detective." "Homicide," I told him. "Then there should be no reason to go forward under any delusions. I don't mean to upset you. Aplastic anemia can be reversed. Up to thirty percent of patients respond to a regimen of biweekly transfusions of packed red blood cells. Of those who do not respond, a similar percentage can be ultimately treated through a bone marrow transplant. But this involves a painful process of chemotherapy first in order to boost up the white cells." I stiffened. Orenthaler's nightmarish predictions were coming true. "Is there any way to know who responds to the treatment?" Medved clasped his palms together and shook his head. "The only way is to begin. Then we see." "I'm on an important case. Dr. Orenthaler said I could continue to work." Medved pursed his lips skeptically. "You may continue as long as you feel the strength." I meted out a slow, painful breath. How long could I hide this? Who could I tell? "If it works, how long before we see improvement?" I asked with some hope. He frowned. "This is not like popping aspirin for a headache. I'm afraid we're in this for the long haul." The long haul. I thought of Roth's likely response. My chances at lieutenant. This is it, Lindsay. This is the greatest challenge of your life. "And if it doesn't work, how long… before things start to…" "Start to get worse? Let us attack this with optimism and hope. We'll discuss that as we go along." Everything was thrown open now. The case, my career, all the goals of my life. The stakes had changed. I was walking around with a time bomb ticking in my chest, tightly wound, incendiary. And the slow, disappearing fuse was all that I thought I might be. I asked quietly, "When do we start?" He scribbled out the location of an office in the same building. Third floor. Moffett Outpatient Services. There was no date. "If it's all the same to you, I'd like to start right now."