Killer Pancake

“Marla, for crying out loud. There must be ways they can tell whether you’ve had a heart attack. There’s your EKG—”

Her eyes closed. “It’s a mistake, Goldy. Leave it to the medical profession to screw things up. What is going to give me a heart attack is thinking about all the piles of dough I’ve given this hospital.”

“But you know it’s better to be cautious—” I started to protest, but she would have none of it and shook her head. The CCU nurse signaled my ten minutes were up. Reluctantly, I released Marla’s hand and checked her chart. Dr. Lyle Gordon, cardiologist, and I were going to have a chat. After a quick kiss on Marla’s plump cheek, I backed away from the cubicle.

When I returned to the reception desk and asked where I could find Dr. Gordon, the red-haired woman glowered, then shrugged. Very calmly, I told her I wanted to have Dr. Gordon paged. Now, please. Twenty minutes later, a chunky fellow wearing thick glasses and a white lab coat pushed through the doors of the CCU waiting room. Lyle Gordon had a high premature fluff of gray hair that did not conceal a bald spot.

“Don’t I know you?” he asked, squinting at me. “Aren’t you … or weren’t you … married to—?”

I tried to look horrified at the idea. Dr. Gordon scowled suspiciously. “I’m Marla Korman’s sister,” I told him. “Could we talk?”

He led the way and we sat in a corner grouping of uncomfortable beige sofas.

“Okay, does your mother know about this yet?” he began.

I had a quick image not of Marla’s mother, but of my own mother, Mildred Hollingwood Bear. Perhaps she would be at an Episcopal Church Women’s luncheon, or a New Jersey garden club brunch, when she was told that her daughter, the divorced-but-remarried caterer, had been arrested for impersonating the sister of her ex-husband’s other ex-wife …

“Well, no—”

“Your sister said your mother was in Europe and that finding her would be tough,” Dr. Gordon said politely, nudging his glasses up his nose with his forefinger. “Father deceased by heart attack at the age of forty-eight. Will you be able to find your mother?”

“Er, probably.” Maybe, perhaps, hopefully, I added mentally. I imagined a lie detector needle etching out mountains and valleys of truth and deception.

“Any other family history of heart disease?”

“Not that I know of.”

Dr. Gordon adjusted his glasses again and succeeded in smearing his fingerprints on their thick lenses. “Your sister’s had a mild heart attack. She’s only forty-five. And unfortunately, she’s—”

“She seems to think she hasn’t had a heart attack.”

“Excuse me. Her first EKG indicated she was having extra heartbeats, one of the warning signals. We also saw her STs were way up—”

“STs?”

He sighed. “A portion of the electrocardiogram that shows the recovery of the heart between contractions is abnormal. If the STs are up, a person’s having a heart attack, okay? The paramedics called in the copter, put her on oxygen, put nitroglycerin under her tongue. It’s a blood vessel dilator.”

“Yes … I do know about nitroglycerin.” I also knew that if the vessels could be dilated close enough to the beginning of an attack, blood could get to the heart and prevent damage, sometimes even abort the attack. I said tentatively, “Maybe—”

“We think that the nitroglycerin actually thwarted a more severe attack. Her blood tests have come back, her enzymes are up, so no matter what she says now, she was having a heart attack. Do you believe me?”

Blood rang in my ears. I felt despair closing in and weakness taking over. “Yeah, sure. Just … could you tell me if she’s going to be all right? What’s next?”

“She’s scheduled for an angiogram first thing tomorrow morning. It depends on what that tells us about blockage. If an artery is badly blocked, we’ll probably schedule an atherectomy for the afternoon. Do you know what that is?”

I said dully, “Roto-rooter through the arteries.” But not for Marla. Please, not for my best friend. I tried not to think about catheters.

Gordon quirked his gray eyebrows at me, then continued: “Has she been under the care of a physician? She gave the name of a general practitioner in Aspen Meadow. We called him: He said he hadn’t seen her in five years. That’s why her phone call to him came as such a warning signal.”

“Marla hates doctors.”

“She claims she’s a hospital benefactor.”

“My sister is superstitious, Dr. Gordon. She thinks if she gives a lot of money to a hospital, she’ll never actually have to spend any time in one.”

“And she’s not married.”

It was sort of a question. If an unknown sister turns up, a spouse may be next. “Not married,” I said curtly.

“Well, then, I need to tell you this. As I said before, her blood tests show she’s had what looks like a very minor heart attack. If all goes well tomorrow, and barring any complications, I think we’ll be able to discharge her in three or four days. If the attack had been more severe, we would have to keep her in the hospital for a week or more. But when she does go home, she’s going to have to have care.”