Page 87 of Her Only Hero

“I can’t let you do that.” I reconsidered his offer. “Thank you, Aram. I’ll camp out on the sofa, if that’s okay?”

“It absolutely is.”

My catnap had left me wide awake, and I began pondering incessant details of the case. I’d have no complete peace of mind until I had answers.

“Aram, could I please borrow your laptop?”

“Of course.” He retrieved it from the kitchen.

“Would you like to sit?” I said and patted the cushion next to me.

He didn’t hesitate.

I turned on the computer. The same list of names appeared that I had seen so many times before.

Think, think, think.

“Aram, how about we dig deeper?”

“Deeper how?”

“Into the cases. As a doctor, could you look at the illness of each patient, and the course of treatment?”

“I could give it a try,” Aram said, punching in a series of keys.

I started reading. “The first person is a fifty-three-year-old woman. Her initial appointment with Dr. Crawford was four years ago. She presented with a low white blood cell count and was prescribed a course of medication from clinical trials.”

“Now that’s strange right off the top,” Aram said.

“What is?”

“It’s been a while since I was in medical school, but I would have tried Vitamin C therapy. It’s the tried-and-true initial treatment for low white counts. And it’s vastly less expensive and less risky than jumping straight to an unverified drug.”

“Could this be malpractice?”

Aram scrunched his brow in thought. “It may not be the usual treatment protocol, but I wouldn’t call it malpractice.”

I read on. “The next person is a twenty-two-year-old male, presenting with low-normal platelets and bruising. A bone marrow transplant was performed. Over the next few months, he was treated with platelet transfusions, and told to decrease drinking, and advised against taking aspirin.”

“What the hell?” Aram leaned closer to the screen.

His face was only inches from mine, and I inhaled his scent. My heart beat harder, and I suddenly acquired the attention span of a housefly. “Ah, Aram, what am I missing?”

“Sorry, June, I was just looking at the treatment dates to make sure they were in chronological order.”

“Do they sound out of order?”

“Yes, completely. From a treatment perspective, Crawford put the cart before the horse. The patient was a heavy drinker and took large quantities of aspirin. His thrombocytopenia was probably caused by his alcohol and aspirin consumption. The first course of action should have been advising against ingesting those substances. A bone marrow transplant should have been a later option.” Aram ran a hand over his hair. “That was a risk-filled treatment that may not have been necessary.”

“Not to mention expensive,” I said.

He sat back. “You are very right.”

He read about the next patient. “Seventy-year-old male. Differentials with blast cells. Received the same immune therapy attempts twelve times. Holy crow. Again, these were clinical trials,” Aram said.

“Twelve rounds sound like a lot,” I said.

“If I was Crawford, I would have switched to another course of therapy after, say, three rounds, especially since there was no notable improvement after any of the treatments. Unfortunately, this patient passed away.”

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