It Was Going Around

I took a friend to Kaiser emergency the other night because he had severe and unbearable pains in his lower abdomen. His name is Mark and he’s a hypochondriac.

I had already settled in for the night when Mark telephoned for help. He described the pain in throbbing superlatives, which he does quite well, and informed me that even as we spoke it was getting worse.

“I’m lying on the floor,” he said, with agony creeping into his voice, “writhing.”

“Damn,” I said, “Dustin Hoffman is on in ‘Death of a Salesman.’ ”

“How ironical,” he said. “I’m a salesman, too. Do you think that means anything?”

He described the pain again and I said, “Well, I guess it could be appendicitis.”

I was thinking it would be on my conscience forever if I refused him a ride and his appendix burst and he died as I watched “Death of a Salesman.” Ironical indeed.

I should have been suspicious, however, when Mark failed to reply to my suggestion that his pain may have been due to a rotting appendix. Normally he would grab at that kind of an opening and run with it like a dog with a bone.

This time, however, only silence.

It wasn’t until we pulled into the parking lot of Kaiser that he said, “I’m pretty sure it isn’t appendicitis.”

He was doubled over clutching his stomach with both arms at the time he said it.

“You’re not a doctor,” I said. “Let them decide.”

“I’m not a doctor,” he said, “but I do know that my appendix was taken out eight years ago.”

“You did it to me again,” I said.

He threw back his head and moaned.

Mark checked in at the emergency room desk. I could hear him describing the symptoms of his pain in great detail and so could everyone else in the waiting room.

Al Martinez

When he sat down, an elderly lady at the end of our row said to him comfortingly, “It’s been going around.”

“Not this,” Mark said, shaking his head. He repeated the symptoms.

“I had that,” a big-bellied man across the room said. “It’s diverticulitis, no question. You been eating peanuts?”

“What kind of peanuts?” Mark asked, a worried expression on his face.

“Any kind,” the fat man said. “Peanuts get caught in this little outcropping in your gut and then get infected.”

A thin, nervous woman who had been listening said, “I’ve been eating Spanish peanuts.”

“That’ll do it,” the fat man said with authority. “They’re the worst.”

“I still say it’s been going around,” the old lady insisted.

“Diverticulitis,” the fat man replied indignantly, “does not just go around. “

The waiting area was painted pale green, and department store prints hung on the walls. At one end of the room, a television set played a World War II retrospective. A very young Dinah Shore sang, “I’ll be around, no matter how you treat me now . . .”

Hardly anyone was watching the show, however. They were more interested in the medical knowledge being exchanged across coffee tables piled with 1972 copies of architectural magazines and periodicals devoted to air-conditioning repair.

“What do they do for diverticulitis?” Mark wanted to know.

The fat man rubbed his chin thoughtfully, the way a doctor might.

“Well,” he said, “they give you antibiotics for the infection. You been throwing up, by the way?”

“No,” Mark said, then added hopefully, “but I’ve felt like it.”

“Good,” the fat man replied. “Probably some diarrhea too.”

Mark nodded eagerly.

“That’s part of what’s going around,” the old lady said. “Pain, vomiting and diarrhea. Sometimes there are dizzy spells.”

“Maybe you’re pregnant,” the fat man said. Everyone laughed.

The fat man turned back to Mark.

“If the antibiotics don’t take,” he said, “they have to go in.”

“Surgery?” Mark said. Fear crept into his voice.

The fat man shrugged.

“It’s no big deal anymore,” he said. “You ever have a gynecomastic tumor?”

Before Mark could answer, a nurse poked her head out from behind a door and called “Robert?” The fat man, whose name must have been Robert, got up and went in.

The old lady instantly said Robert was crazy, Mark didn’t have diverticulitis, he only had a bug. But by that time I am certain Mark was convinced he did have diverticulitis and said nothing in response.

An athletic-appearing man who had limped in a moment before said, “Maybe it’s colitis.”

That was a whole different kettle of pain, however, and Mark displayed only passing interest. By the time his name was called, he was ready to accept that there was an outcropping on his gut.

He was with the doctor a surprisingly short time, and when he emerged he glanced at the old lady with admiration.

“What did the doctor say?” I asked.

“He said not to worry, it was going around.”

The old lady nodded her head triumphantly. Mark felt better already. I got home just as they were burying Willie Loman.

DR