“Has it something to do with Robert?” asked Joan.

“Partly,” Cassi admitted.

“Cassi, listen to me,” said Joan. “It’s natural you’re upset. Your best friend has just died and you’ve undergone surgery. Your eyes are bandaged. You mustn’t let your imagination run riot. Ask the nurse for a sleeping pill.”

“I’ve already had a lot of drugs,” said Cassi.

“Either you had too little or the wrong kind. Don’t try to be a hero. Do you want me to call Dr. Obermeyer?”

“No.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Do you know if Robert Seibert was cyanotic when he was found or if there was evidence he convulsed?”

“Cassi, I don’t know! And it’s not the sort of thing you should be torturing yourself over. He’s dead. That’s more than enough for you to deal with right now.”

“I guess you’re right,” said Cassi. “Just a minute, Joan. Someone’s here.”

“It’s Miss Randall,” said the nurse. “Dr. Obermeyer is trying to call you.”

Cassi thanked Joan and hung up. The receiver was barely back in the cradle when it rang again.

“Cassi,” said Dr. Obermeyer, “I got a call from the nursing office staff that you were upset. I don’t know how to convince you that everything is fine. Your surgery went extremely well. I’d expected to find the usual diabetic pathology but I didn’t. You should feel relieved.”

“I think it’s the patches over my eyes,” said Cassi apologetically. “I feel terrified of being alone. I’d like to be transferred into a room with another patient. Now.”

“I think that’s asking a bit much from the nursing staff, Cassi. Perhaps tomorrow we can think about transferring you. For now I’m more interested in getting you relaxed. I’ve advised the nurses to give you another sedative.”

“The nurse is here right now,” said Cassi.

“Good. Take the shot and go to sleep. I guess I should have expected this. Doctors and doctors’ wives always make the worse patients. And you, Cassi, are both!”

Cassi allowed herself to be given yet another shot. She felt Miss Randall give her a final pat on the shoulder. Cassi was alone again, but it didn’t matter. Drug-induced sleep descended like a silent avalanche.

Cassi awoke from a violent dream filled with wild noise and clashing colors. Despite the heavy sedation, a faint throbbing pain in her left eye reminded her immediately that she was in the hospital.

For a moment she lay perfectly still, her ears straining to pick up the slightest sound. Behind the bandages wild colors continued to dance before her eyes, presumably caused by the pressure of the bandages. Cassi heard nothing save for the distant, muffled sounds of the sleeping hospital. Then she thought she felt something. She waited and felt it again. It was the plastic tube of her IV line. Her pulse quickened. Was it her imagination?

“Who’s there?” called Cassi, suddenly finding the courage to speak.

There was no response.

Cassi lifted her right hand and swung it over the left side of the bed. No one was there. Reaching down, she felt the tape that secured the IV to her arm. Quickly she traced her finger up the plastic tube and pulled gently. The sensation was exactly the same twitch she’d felt. In the darkness someone had touched her IV line!

Trying to control her mounting fear, Cassi groped on the night table for the call button. It wasn’t there. She touched the pitcher, the phone, the water glass, but nothing else. She felt over a larger area, moving her hand faster, feeling her sense of isolation and vulnerability mounting. There was no call button. It was gone.

Cassandra found herself frozen by the power of her own imagination. Someone was in her room. She could sense a presence. Then she smelled something familiar. Yves St. Laurent cologne.

“Thomas?” called Cassi. Pushing herself up with her right elbow, she called again. “Thomas!”

There was no answer.

Cassi felt herself break out in a profuse sweat. In seconds her entire body was drenched. Her heart, which had already been beating quickly, began to pound. Cassi knew instantly what was happening. It had happened before, but never with such devastating swiftness. She was having an insulin reaction!

Desperately she grabbed for the patches, trying to get her fingers under the plastered-down edges of the adhesive. Her left hand, previously immobilized because of the IV, also tore at the bandages.

Cassi tried to call out, but her voice had no strength. The bed began to spin. She threw herself to the side, against the raised rail. Thrashing wildly, she again tried to find the call button. Instead she inadvertently tipped over the bedside table sending the phone, the pitcher of ice water, and the glass crashing to the floor. But Cassi didn’t hear. Her body was already locked into the grip of full-fledged grand mal seizure.

Carol Aronson, the night charge nurse on seventeen, was in the medication room drawing up an antibiotic when she heard the distant tinkle of breaking glass. She hesitated for a moment, then stuck her head into the chart area where she exchanged a questioning glance with Lenore, the LPN. Together the two women left the nurses’ station to investigate. Both had the uncomfortable feeling that someone had toppled out of bed. They’d advanced only a short way down the hall when they heard the clatter of Cassi’s side rails.

The women rushed into the room. Cassi was still convulsing wildly, her arms jammed through the rails, banging them back and forth.

Carol, who was aware Cassi was diabetic, knew immediately what was happening.

“Lenore! Call a code and bring me an ampule of fifty-percent glucose, a fifty cc syringe, and a fresh bottle of D5W.”

The LPN ran out of the room.

Meanwhile Carol managed to pull Cassi’s arms from between the rails. Next she tried to get a tongue depressor between Cassi’s clenched teeth but that was impossible. Instead she stopped the rapidly running IV, and concentrated on keeping Cassi from hitting her head against the top of the bed.

Lenore returned and Carol took the D5W and immediately changed the IV bottle. She put the old bottle aside, knowing the doctor would want to check the insulin level. Then she opened the IV all the way and transferred the fifty-percent glucose from the ampule to the large syringe. When she finished, she debated using it. Technically she was supposed to wait for a doctor to arrive, but Carol had spent enough time in crisis medicine to know that under the circumstances the glucose should be the first thing tried and that it certainly couldn’t hurt. She decided to give it. The amount of perspiration on Cassi’s body suggested a severe insulin reaction.

Carol stuck the needle into the IV and depressed the plunger. Even before she’d injected the last few cc’s, the result was dramatic. Cassi stopped convulsing and seemed to regain consciousness. Her lips opened and sounded as if she were trying to say something.

But the improvement didn’t last. Cassi sank back again into unconsciousness, and, although she did not convulse again, the isolated muscles continued to contract.

When the code team arrived, Carol reported what she had done. The senior resident examined Cassi and began issuing orders.

“I want you to draw blood for electrolytes, including calcium, arterial blood gases, and a blood sugar,” he said to the junior resident. “And I want you to run an EKG,” he said to the medical student. “And Miss Aronson, how about another ampule of fifty-percent glucose?”

While the team fell to work, Lenore picked up the bedside table, replacing the phone. With her foot she pushed the shards of glass from the broken pitcher into the corner. The drawer had come out of the table and Lenore replaced it. It was then she found several used vials of insulin. Shocked, she handed them to Carol, who in turn handed them to the resident.