Plague

Chapter 5 Day 1, 9:15 PM

Chapter 5
Day 1
9:15 PM
Jacob reached the hospital cafeteria in time to see Stephan Johns sit down at the table with Tom. He got some coffee, double cream and sugar, and sat down.
“Where’s Joan?” he asked Tom.
“She was paged and had to go up to the pediatrics unit.”
“Hi, Jake,” Stephan said. “I realize I’m nowhere near as pretty as Dr. Armitridge, but you could say hello!”
Jacob nodded and smiled. “Hey, big guy. Thanks for coming in.”
While no where near Jacob’s six feet in height Stephan acted taller and had the academician’s sense of purpose and false sense of security in knowledge for its own sake. He was a bit paunchier than Jacob, but hid it better behind expensive three piece suits. He also possessed an air of formality that seemed to prohibit anyone from calling him Steve.
“Well, Jacob, what’s all the secrecy for? Tom won’t say a word about why you guys wanted me in here tonight. He said you would explain it all.”
Jake took a deep breath and told him the story, mostly as Tom had originally told it, with the few embellishments he had learned from the boy’s family. He finished and summarized the salient neurological facts as he knew them.
He finished, stating that “the problems with his movements would be supported by the image in the CAT scan which shows a lot of destruction of the cerebellum.”
“Jacob,” Stephan said, “You know I’m not a neuropathologist. How would the cerebellum cause this problem?”
“Simply, the cerebellum is in charge of coordinating and refining body movements, sort of a fine tuner. If your cerebellum were knocked out on one side by a stroke, every time you used the hand on that side to pick something up you’d find that you couldn’t. Every time you put your hand out, it would begin oscillating back and forth with increasing amplitude. If you tried to pick your nose, you would end up scratching the hell out of your forehead.”
“Gee, thanks for that information. Let’s go do the autopsy and see if we can find this Indian relic of yours,” Stephan said.
“I must say, you neurological types really do try to make simple things complicated. I’m certain we’ll find a very common reason for whatever it is you saw on the CAT scan,” Stephan added.
The physicians stood up and began walking to the door, lost in their thoughts, when the loud speaker squawked out Jacob Wright’s name.
“Guys, I’ll meet you in the autopsy room,” Jacob said before he went to answer his page.
“Operator, this is Dr. Wright,” he told the operator via the white phone on the cafeteria wall.
“Please call Dr. Armitridge on the Pediatric Unit, extension 8376.”
Jacob’s mind whizzed along trying to guess what could be so important while the phone crackled before the connection was made.
“This is Dr. Wright. There was a call for me from Dr. Armitridge.”
A few moments later, Jacob heard, “Jacob, thank God you’re still here. Could you come right up to Pediatrics and see this new patient of mine? He was admitted from the ER with tonsillitis, with no other medical history. He just had the damnedest seizure I’ve ever seen. Could you please see him before you get tied up with anything else?”
“What was so strange about his seizure?” Jacob asked. “Kids have fits all the time. Is his temperature high?”
“No, its normal. He has a slight increase in his white cells and that’s about all,” Joan said.
“Again, Joan, what was so strange about his seizure?” Jacob asked.
“It wasn’t the typical major motor seizure with generalized tonic-clonic movements. He seemed to throw himself around in a jerky uncoordinated way. His mental state seems clouded, or post-ictal now. He’s just lying quietly staring at the ceiling. He’s also stiff all over. Do you think he might still be seizing?”
“I’ll be right up. Have some intravenous valium handy,” Jacob told her.
He hung up the phone and stood for a moment thinking crazy thoughts. Of course, this sounded similar to the Mexican boy’s so-called seizure, but how could that be? Best to be sure, Jacob thought.
He called Tom Brighton and told him and Stephan to start the autopsy without him.