Dead Med, page 4
If I were Mason, I wouldn’t worry either.
A throat clears, and I look up. It’s Abe. He’s standing at the other end of the table, holding his anatomy atlas and looking sort of peeved.
“I thought we were studying together,” he says to me.
I yank my hand away from Mason’s. “We are.”
Mason’s lips twitch. “Don’t worry, Abe,” he says as he stands up. “I’m not horning in on your action.”
Abe’s cheeks turn scarlet. It’s sort of cute how his complexion is so pale that it shows all his emotions.
“I’m not…” he stammers. “I mean, we’re not…”
“I have a boyfriend, you know,” I say to Mason, sticking out my chin. “At another school.”
“Is that so?” Mason doesn’t wipe that grin off his face. I wish Abe would slug him, especially since he looks like he’d like to.
“Get out of here, Mason,” Abe says to his roommate. He doesn’t lay a finger on him—it’s pretty clear that Abe isn’t the kind of guy who goes around slugging people.
Mason is still smirking as he relocates himself to a desk in the back of the library. I notice he’s one desk away from little Sasha, and he stops to talk with her for a minute before getting to work. I’ve yet to have a successful conversation with Sasha, so it’s surprising to see anyone talking to her, but especially Mason.
Abe sets down his books on the table and slides into the seat across from me.
“I thought we could start with the heart,” he says.
“Fine by me.”
“Or we could do the lungs, if you’d prefer?” he offers.
I don’t have a great understanding of the heart, but it’s probably no worse than anything else in the thorax. I’m equally confused about everything.
“Let’s just do the heart.”
Abe nods and pulls out a stack of index cards. He lays them down on the table, and I see that he’s drawn color-coded diagrams of the heart. I gasp.
“Wow,” I say.
“What?”
“I just…” I grin at him. “I didn’t realize you were such a huge nerd.”
Abe looks down at his nerdy index cards then back up at me. “I’m not a nerd! I’m organized.”
I shake my head at him. “That’s exactly what a nerd would say.”
He picks up a blank index card and flicks it in my direction. He obviously meant to hit me with it, but the card doesn’t even make it across the table. It just kind of flies into the air then flutters slowly to the ground. Abe and I both watch it then simultaneously bust out laughing.
“Pretty pathetic, huh?” he says.
“The trick is to form it into a plane,” I explain.
I grab another blank index card and form it into a little makeshift paper airplane. I aim it in Abe’s direction, and it hits him directly in the forehead.
“Ouch!” Abe cries, rubbing his forehead. He grabs himself another blank card. “Okay, you’re asking for it, McKinley…”
And then we spend the next thirty minutes making planes out of index cards. I am such a bad influence.
At some point, we get tired of acting like children and start studying for real. It’s intimidating that Abe knows his stuff so much better than I do, but at the same time, it’s motivating. Someone once told me that it’s always better to study with someone who knows more than you do.
If that’s the case, Abe is screwed.
It’s dark out by the time we decide to call it a day. We’re both carrying an armful of books as we head down in the elevator to the parking lot.
“Where’d you park?” Abe asks me.
“Second floor. You?”
“Third.” Abe steps out of the elevator. “It’s dark out. I’ll walk you to your car.”
I make a face and stand in the doorway to the elevator so the doors won’t close.
“I’ll be fine.”
“It’s safer if I walk you,” Abe insists.
The elevator starts to close on me, so I step aside. Fine. If Abe wants to waste his time walking me to my car, that’s his business.
“This is Connecticut, you know,” I say. “Not Detroit.”
Abe shrugs. “Still.”
“How are you going to protect me anyway?” I challenge him. “Are you carrying a weapon?”
He rolls his eyes. “I don’t need a weapon. Nobody’s going to attack me.”
“How come?”
“Heather, come on.”
Okay, I guess Abe is a pretty big guy. Still, he’s not some kind of Superman who can dodge bullets. (Can Superman dodge bullets? I’d assume so. As long as they’re not made of kryptonite.)
“So what would you do if some guy attacked you?”
Abe shrugs. “I don’t know. Sit on him?”
Actually, that would be pretty effective.
I have to admit, it is pretty dark out, and the parking lot isn’t particularly well lit. It’s late enough that the lot is completely silent aside from our footsteps echoing on the pavement. As I walk by a white Lincoln Continental I had thought was empty, I detect movement from within the dark car. Like someone is sitting there, waiting. But when I peer through the vehicle’s tinted windows, I can’t make out a face.
“Hey.”
I nearly jump out of my skin at the voice coming from behind me. I reach for Abe’s arm and grab onto it for dear life. But when I turn around, it’s just a kid from school. A second-year, whose name is Gerald or Harold or something along those lines. He’s standing behind us, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jeans.
“Hey,” Abe says back, although he sounds as confused as I feel.
“You’re Abe, right?” Gerald/Harold says.
Abe’s brow scrunches up. “Uh, yeah…”
Gerald/Harold looks me up and down, frowns, then looks back at Abe. “Well, I just wanted to say hi.”
“Okay.” Abe gives him a little wave. “Hi then.”
Gerald/Harold stands there for another few seconds, like he’s got something else to say. But then he turns on his heel and scurries off in the other direction, casting glances over his shoulder at the two of us.
“What the hell?” Abe says, which is exactly what I’m thinking.
“Friend of yours?”
“Not even close.”
That whole interaction was seriously strange. A shiver goes through me, and I’m suddenly very glad Abe insisted on coming with me. I was joking around with him before, but he could clearly defend me if he needed to.
“This is me,” I tell him, gesturing at my scratched-up Ford.
Abe waits until I’m inside the car and have started up the engine before he turns around and heads in the opposite direction. I’m guessing he had a good study session, too, because there’s a bounce in his step as he walks away.
8
Mason is staring into the chest cavity of our cadaver, a perplexed look on his irritatingly handsome face.
“That’s odd,” he says.
I look at where Mason’s staring. He’s looking at the spleen, I think. “What?”
Mason dives into the chest cavity with his gloved hands and pulls out the heart.
“Look at this heart,” he says.
I look at it. I have no idea what he’s talking about. “Um…”
Mason’s hazel eyes meet mine. “It’s perfect.”
“You think I did a good job on the coronary arteries?” I feel a little burst of happiness. I really thought I butchered them.
“No, that’s not what I’m saying.” Mason shakes his head. Damn. “I mean, look at Gladys at the next table. Her heart is the size of a cabbage. Bernie at Table Eight has black lungs. We know why practically all these people died.” He pauses. “But not Frank.”
“So?”
“So don’t you think that’s a little strange?” Mason asks.
I never thought about it before. I guess he’s right, though. Frank seems healthier than most of the other cadavers in the room. He’s a big guy and seems like he’d been strong as an ox. But even if there isn’t an obvious cause of death, there must have been a reason. After all, he’s dead.
Abe joins us at the table, getting close enough to me that I can smell the coffee on his breath, which I actually sort of like. That guy drinks more coffee than I do, and that’s saying a lot, but I guess that’s the only way to manage both med school and a part-time job. At this moment, he’s practically levitating with caffeinated energy.
“You need to lay off the coffee, Abe,” I say.
“Look who’s talking.” He snorts. “When I said we were dissecting out the fascia lata yesterday, you asked if I said fascia latte, and you almost started salivating.”
“No, you’re way worse,” I say. “I think you’re developing a tremor.”
Abe holds out his left hand, and we both lean in to inspect it. He’s definitely shaking a bit—more than I would have expected.
“I need coffee, though,” he says. “It’s my drug of choice.” As soon as the words leave his mouth, he freezes. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It’s okay—it’s not like it’s a secret that there’s a drug problem at the school.” I drop my voice, glancing at Mason, who is too entranced by the dissection to pay attention to us. “Do you have any idea where all the pills are coming from?”
“No.” His answer comes quickly. “No idea. Not my thing.”
I crack a smile. “Who needs drugs when you’ve got extreme-caffeine coffee?”
“Exactly,” he says. But he doesn’t smile back.
9
Our first anatomy exam is today. I didn’t sleep at all last night.
I meant to sleep. Believe me, it wasn’t my intention at the beginning of the night to stay awake for twenty-four hours straight and leave myself feeling like I’m about to collapse.
I went to the library yesterday after spending several hours in the lab, going over anatomy. Abe insisted that I leave with him at midnight, and I did it only because I knew he wouldn’t go until I did. But when I got back to my room, I continued studying. My room looks like an anatomy tornado hit. Every time I even contemplated closing my textbooks, it just seemed like there was too much that I didn’t know. By four in the morning, it just felt pointless to try to sleep.
I’m pretty tired.
At eight a.m., I change into my green scrubs and join the large group of my classmates in front of the anatomy lab, waiting for the practical portion of the exam to begin. I can almost see the nervous energy radiating from the group. I showered this morning, but it’s obvious many of my classmates didn’t bother. We’re a pretty scruffy crew.
You could probably fill a small lake with the amount of coffee we’ve had to drink this morning. Several dozen of us are clutching identical white Styrofoam cups. This is my fourth cup in the last two hours, and I’m starting to have palpitations. And there’s a very real chance I might wet my pants.
“Hey, Heather.” It’s Phil, the boy with the messy ponytail that I’d spied on the first day. “You nervous?”
Obviously.
“I’m just really tired from staying up all night,” I say.
Phil reaches into his pocket and produces a small container filled with tiny white pills.
“Want one?” he asks.
I can’t even conceal my horror. Oh my God. He’s offering me drugs. Phil is the kid in our class who’s dealing! And he just offered them to me—in front of everyone!
“Um, are those…?”
“Mint-flavored caffeine tablets,” Phil says. “Got ’em at the gift shop.”
“Oh.” My heart slows to a less frightening speed. “No, thanks.”
“Are you sure?” Phil asks. “It’s like drinking a cup of coffee, but you don’t have to pee!”
I shake my head and wander off in search of Abe. Instead, I find Rachel leaning against the wall, her long dark-brown hair hanging loose around her shoulders and obscuring the lettering on her T-shirt. She’s tapping her toes against the floor impatiently, and every few minutes, she lets out an irritated sigh.
Mason is standing next to Rachel, looking fresh as a daisy. He’s also staring so blatantly at her chest that I can’t help but say something.
“What are you looking at?” I bark at him.
Boy, I’m irritable today.
Mason lifts his eyes and looks at me in surprise. “I’m trying to read her T-shirt.”
Oh. I guess that could be true.
Rachel smiles at him. “It says, ‘I am the doctor my mother wanted me to marry.’”
Mason starts to laugh. He looks Rachel straight in the eyes and says, “Not yet you’re not.”
The doors to the anatomy lab open, and the students file in like we’re on some kind of death march. The first part of the exam is the practical, where various structures on different cadavers are tagged with pins, and the students are given a sheet of paper and clipboard on which to record their findings. I have to confess, the clipboard makes me feel very professional.
I whip out my lucky pen, a black ballpoint with a rubber handgrip that I’ve been using since college. I used my lucky pen for every big exam in college, and on the one occasion I forgot the pen, during an exam on electricity and magnetism, I got a big fat F.
I choose my own cadaver as my starting point and uncap my lucky pen. Our cadaver’s insides are nearly perfect, thanks to Mason’s immaculate dissections and the fact that Frank was inexplicably healthy when he died. I clutch my clipboard to my chest, trying to stop shaking, although it’s hard after all that coffee. My breaths are coming too fast, and my fingertips start to tingle. I’m hyperventilating. I need a paper bag.
“Are you okay, Heather?” Abe has materialized at my side, looking concerned.
I look him over and am relieved that his short red hair seems as disheveled as the rest of my classmates’, and he has familiar dark circles under his eyes.
“I’m fine,” I reply.
And I mean it. Now that Abe is standing next to me, I feel about one hundred percent better. There’s something about his presence that calms me down. Don’t laugh, but I sometimes feel like he’s my guardian angel.
Dr. Conlon limps to the front of the room. All eyes are on him, waiting for his instructions. He smiles, his blue eyes twinkling, “Why does everyone look so nervous?”
Nobody laughs. Just start the exam, you asshole.
Dr. Conlon clears his throat: “As I went over with you before, you’ve got one minute to identify each pinned structure and one minute for each X-ray. When the time is up, I’ll call out ‘next station.’” He looks around the room. “And don’t worry. The test really isn’t that hard. Any questions?”
No hands go up.
He holds up a stopwatch in his left hand, “Okay, then, begin!”
I look down at the first structure to identify. It’s my own cadaver that I’ve been working on for a month, so I should know the answer. The pin is secured into a blood vessel that seems to be running into the back of the heart. Or is it the front of the heart? I suddenly feel disoriented. If only I could pick it up and examine it… but no touching is allowed on the exam.
I think it’s the pulmonary vein. I’m like ninety percent sure.
Maybe eighty percent sure.
I poise my lucky pen over the sheet of paper on my clipboard, printing the words “pulmonary vein,” but nothing shows up on the paper. I try again, but all I can see is the indentation of the words I had tried to write.
My lucky pen is out of ink.
You have got to be kidding me.
The clock is ticking. I have less than twenty seconds left at this station. I shake the pen, trying to coax the last bits of ink into the point. I only need the pen to last for about fifty or so words. You can do it, pen! Please, pen! Don’t let me down…
“Psst… Hey.” Abe is nudging me. I look at him, and he’s holding out a pen to me. “I always bring a spare.”
Like I said, Abe’s my guardian angel.
I nod gratefully at him and take the pen. I scribble down my answer just as Dr. Conlon calls out, “Next station!”
I think I’m going to be sick.
The second the exam is over, I run to the ladies’ room near the anatomy labs and lean over a toilet. My stomach is churning, and I fully expect to see the bagel I forced down this morning regurgitated before my eyes—but nothing comes. I lean forward, gagging. I want to throw up. It’s the only way to get rid of this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach.
I’m starting to understand why a first-year med student might start taking drugs. Because I’m desperate for anything to get rid of this horrible feeling.
Finally, I give up on my attempted vomit and collapse onto the bathroom floor, not even caring about the mysterious yellow puddle right next to me. I lean my head against the door to the stall and let out a dramatic sob. I don’t care anymore who hears me. It’s not like I’ll be in medical school much longer after that performance.
The exam was a bona fide disaster. Dr. Conlon called the test “easy.” Easy? The test could have been written in Ancient Hebrew and I probably would have scored equally well. Even my lucky pen (now in the trash, having betrayed me) couldn’t have rescued me from that train wreck.
But maybe Dr. Conlon was right. Probably the test really was easy, and I’m just too dumb to cut it in med school.
More and more, I’m beginning to think that’s the case.
I don’t even know how long I sit on that filthy bathroom floor, wallowing in self-pity, replaying all the events that led up to my stupid, stupid decision to go to med school. I should have known when I took the MCATs and had to leave to pee four times during the exam that I didn’t have the stamina for med school. The fact that I had admired the hell out of my childhood pediatrician, Dr. Marsha Stoltz-Humberg, with her kind eyes and the smiley face sticker on her white coat, wasn’t enough of a reason to put myself through this.
When I finally struggle to my feet, the first thing I do is stumble over to the bathroom mirror. I look awful. My face is blotchy, my eyes are bloodshot, and my dirty-blond hair is everywhere. I make a half-hearted attempt to clean myself up, but really, what’s the point?
