Journals of Eleanor Druse, The (Digital Picture Book) by Eleanor Druse Page A

Rounds. She was to be poked and prodded, tested and examined in an effort to determine if she had indeed progressed to a permanent condition the medical experts referred to as a persistent vegetative state, a diagnosis that would allow the family, in consultation with the hospital and its physicians, to discontinue tube feedings and withdraw nutrition.
    Mornings were Nancy’s worst time anyway, and this morning she seemed especially restless, banging her bound hands against the bedrails, pitching forward on occasion and making a gagging sound, then throwing her head back and searching the walls behind her head with the whites of her eyes. To me it seemed that as her brain damage progressed, her body operated almost of its own accord, like a headless chicken or a pithed frog.
    The nurses said that Stegman had specifically ordered that Nancy be given no medications or sedatives because he wanted her as “alert” as possible for the conference—a notion that made the nurses titter derisively. So Nancy’s random flailing and spastic gasping had gotten steadily worse since last night. No doubt Stegman was planning on bringing in his minions, clapping his hands, and seeing if the poor girl would sit up and bark like a seal. “There, you see?” he would say. “She’s responsive. How can we withdraw nutrition from a responsive patient with her whole life ahead of her?”
    I only hoped that the man whose personal demons had run amok and brought misery and ruin to Nancy and her entire family would have this pathetic creature’s image burned into his memory and then carry it foremost in his mind all the way to the grave.
    At eight sharp, Dr. Stegman marched in with twenty or so physicians, medical residents, and interns in tow. First they surrounded my bed. I had a terrible headache and my brain floated in the usual suspended animation.
    Dr. Stegman asked how I was tolerating the medications.
    I felt as if someone else was doing the talking, but a part of my brain had miraculously retained the ability to speak the truth according to the Gospel of St. Matthew.
    “The eye is the body’s lamp,” I said. “If your eyes are good, your body will be filled with light; if your eyes are bad, your body will be in darkness. And if your light is darkness, how deep will the darkness be!”
    Stegman turned to a pretty medical resident and said, “Religious ideations still prominent. Make a note of it.”
    Then he turned back to me and said, “Go on. Please continue. Don’t mind us.”
    “The pills cloud my eyes. They dim the light. When my eyes are bad, my body is in darkness.”
    Stegman fetched out his digital recorder and paced as he spoke into it. “Room 959, bed two, a Mrs.—”
    The pretty med student held up the chart, a candy-red fingernail on the name tag.
    “—Drusey. Complains that the Scyllazine 100 milligrams B.I.D. induces a state of semi-voluntary apraxia. Also complaining of vision problems. Refer to Dr. Burt in ophthalmology to rule out macular degeneration and cataracts.”
    Stegman smiled a tight one my way, then waved his troops over to the next bed for the main event.
    Tiffany tried to pull the privacy curtain shut, but she inadvertently left an opening between the curtain’s border and the wall, which meant I could still see Nancy’s head thrown back on the pillow, grimacing, making those terrible gagging and laughing sounds. She lurched spastically and her head lunged forward at nothing.
    Stegman presided over the ceremonies like a showman displaying a circus freak. He rattled off diseases, syndromes, and sequelae; lab values, diagnostic scan findings, and test results. He moved to the head of the bed, where he shined a penlight in each of Nancy’s eyes and said, “Oculogyric crisis.” He indicated her dead-bird claw hands and said, “Contractures.”
    The other doctors took careful notes and murmured “Interesting” or “Very interesting” upon hearing about her uremia or her white cell count or