Out of My Head
Peter Gallay





Joe Mahoney, MD
    They say airline pilots and policemen can go about their business — flying jet planes, shooting unarmed suspects — unconscious of background radio chatter, but instantly attentive when their own call letters are heard. It’s the same with the doctors at St. Sinai’s Hospital. I ought to know. I’m Joe Mahoney, MD, and I’m one of them. (And I used to be an airline pilot and a policeman.)
    I was sitting in my office reading the latest issue of The Journal of Unnecessary Cosmetic Surgery, barely aware of the background buzz of the overhead pager.
     “Dr Scholl, wanted in Podiatry…Dr Seuss, wanted in Pediatrics…Dr Pepper, wanted in the cafeteria…Dr Mahoney, wanted in five states…”
     Scholl, Seuss, and Pepper went unnoticed, but I immediately responded to the mention of my name. The switchboard operator, Crazy Sally, was having some fun at my expense again, engaging in absurd hyperbole. Actually, I’m a highly skilled plastic surgeon. And it was only four states.
    Over the years I’ve done many, many facelifts, eyelid lifts, neck lifts, brow lifts. (The hospital wags call me Dr Otis.) Hundreds of successful operations. So what does the public remember? What do the tabloids exploit? What does 60 Minutes devote the whole hour to? A couple of little screwups. And it was only a big story because the patient was in the public eye. If Angelina Jolie had been an ordinary housewife, the whole thing would have blown over with a modest under-the-table payoff.
     My brooding about past accomplishments was interrupted by a knock on my office door.
     “Your office door needs painting. And it’s hard to open. And the hinges squeak,” came a woman’s voice.
     “Who are you?” I called. “And why are you knocking my office door?”
     “Oh, sorry,” she said as she stepped in. “I’m an interior decorator — I notice those things.”
     I watched as she approached my desk. Sleek, blond, stylish. I had bought it at Ikea and it served me well. The woman, on the other hand, was a brunette. And even better looking than my desk.
     “Dr Mahoney, I believe I’m your next appointment. Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”
     I looked down at my desk calendar. “I don’t have any appointments scheduled.”
     “As I was saying, thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”
     “Have a seat, Miss — ?”
     “McArtle. Rita McArtle.”
     “Have a seat, Miss McArtle.”
     “How do you know it’s ‘Miss’?”
     “Call it a trained medical eye. I’m right, aren’t I? It is Miss — not Mister?”
     “I can see I’ve made the right choice.”
     “Now, what brings you to St. Sinai’s?”
     “It’s your reputation. I’ve read that you’re the most brilliant plastic surgeon in the annals of modern medicine — a genius whose skill is unmatched anywhere in the world.”
     I was outraged. “How dare you read my diary!”
     “Oh no, it wasn’t that,” she quickly replied. “It was your ad on Craig’s List.”
     “Ah, yes, that.” Somewhat abashed, I pressed on. “So what can I do for you?”
     “I want to you perform plastic surgery on me.”
     “But my dear, you're a beautiful young woman?”
     “There are more important things than physical beauty.”
     “That's just what I said at the malpractice trial!”
     Rita sat up a bit straighter and laid it on the line. “Doctor, I want you to completely change my identity. Can you do it?
     “Possibly,” I said, “but first I’ll need a complete history.”
     “Well, I was born in Cleveland…”
     “That’s geography. I said history. On second thought, let’s skip history and go right to economics. Do you have insurance?”
     “I’m afraid not.”
     “In that case surgery is not medically sound.”
     “Doctor, please, I must change my identity. I can pay you seven hundred dollars in cash. It’s all I have.”
     “For seven hundred dollars I can get you a fake driver’s license and a new email address.”
     “That’s all?” she said plaintively.
     They’re never happy. If this were an HMO, she wouldn’t even get the email address.
     But the poor woman was desperate. “Could you do the operation on credit? I’ll pay you two hundred dollars a month until it’s paid off. And I promise I won’t rest until you get every cent. I’m an honorable woman, doctor. You can trust me, please believe me.”
     “I do believe you. But why is it so important to change your identity?”
     “To get my damn creditors off my back.”
     I slammed my appointment book closed. “About that driver’s license — would you like California or Nevada?”
     Rita sat quietly a moment, absorbing the reality of the situation. Finally, she spoke. “All right, I lied. That’s not really the reason I want my identity changed.”
     “I thought not,” I said, perhaps a little smugly.
     “The truth is — both my parents died of a hereditary disease and I want to change my identity before I get it too.”
     “Now at least you’re making sense.”
     “Will you do it, doctor? I’d be ever so grateful.” She leaned over my desk seductively, “And I know so many ways to show my gratitude.”
     I tried to remain businesslike. “Well, first I’ll have to give you a thorough examination, inside and out.”
     “That’s one of the ways.”
     “Why don’t you go into the examining room and disrobe. I’ll be with you in a minute.”
     “Yes, doctor.” With that she rose from the chair and headed for the adjoining room.
     “You’ll find a hospital gown hanging on a hook.”
     “Fine.”
     “Leave it there.”
     She turned out to be a great patient. After a thorough examination, she begged for another one.
     I sent her tests off to the lab, hoping they’d find something chronic so I could keep seeing her. When the results came back, I felt a little guilty. They were much worse than I thought. I decided she was the kind of person who’d want the unvarnished truth. So when she returned a few days later for the results, I pulled no punches. After another thorough examination, inside and out, we took our places at my desk.
     “Prepare yourself for some bad news” I began. “I have your lab results here.” I opened the file and read them off. “Positive, positive, positive, positive, positive.”
     Rita looked at me desperately. “Isn’t there any good news?”
     “Negative.”
     “Are you sure?”
     “Positive.”
     “What does it all mean?”
     “I’m afraid the disease has already taken hold. You need an immediate transplant.”
     “Oh my god! Transplant of what?”
     “Anything we can get. You’re in really bad shape.”
     “I think I’m going to cry.”
     “Don’t bother. Your tear ducts were the first things to go.”
     “Is there no good news at all?”
     “You’re going to save a fortune on Kleenex. We’ve got to line up a donor. You say both your parents are dead. Do you have any living relatives at all, no matter how distant? Even a second or third cousin?
     “I don’t have cousins, of any number.”
     “A grandparent? A great aunt?”
     She shook her head.
     “A stepfather? A live-in maid? A favorite pet?”
     “No, there’s nobody like that.”
     I felt defeated. This poor young woman in the prime of life, alone in the world, condemned to an early end by a cruel fate.
     “I do have an identical twin sister. Would she do?”
     “Only if you’re sure you don’t have any cousins.” I consider sarcasm part of my bedside manner. “Where is your sister now?”
     “That’s the trouble. I don’t know where she is. You see, we were separated when we were five days old.”
     “Separated? Oh, I see. Siamese twins. Well, we’ll just have to track her down. And we’ll have to work fast.”
     Rita looked at me tremulously. “How long do I have?”
     "Maybe three weeks."
     "That's not much time."
     "It's worse than that. I'm going on vacation in two weeks."

     A plea went out to the public and quickly went viral. The New York Times headlined the search for Rita’s missing sister, Louis. Then the typo was corrected and the search went out for Rita’s missing sister, Louise. Twitter repeated the story, in some cases adding that the missing sister was actually Lee Harvey Oswald. Rita appeared in person on Oprah, Good Morning America, and The Price Is Right (where she got so excited after winning a cruise to the Bahamas, she forgot to mention the transplant). Waze redirected traffic to pass by billboards seeking information. Even Jeopardy had as its final clue one night, “She’s trying to find her sister for an emergency transplant.” (None of the contestants got the answer. Two of them named Kylie Jenner and the third one thought it was a gardening question.)
     One problem handicapping the search was the lack of a photograph of Louise to post along with the plea. It was only much later that someone realized that Rita was her identical twin and they could have used a photo of her.
     The search was proving futile and time was running out for Rita, so I decided on a drastic step. I would try an experimental transplant as a temporary measure. The donor would have to be someone of similar age and size to the patient. After much research, I settled on Maisie, a young baboon at the city zoo. It took some shrewd negotiating, including hefty payoffs to zoo officials and the PETA crowd, but the deal was made. The last obstacle was obtaining permission from the hospital’s ethics committee. This turned out to be less of a problem than I expected when I pointed out that this wouldn’t be my first surgery involving an animal. A very rich patient to whom I had given a facelift also had me remove the wrinkles from her shar pei. Fortunately, three out of the five committee members were dog lovers, so I just squeaked through.
     Maisie was rushed to St. Sinai’s and readied for the transplant. But we hit a snag. Lab tests showed that the Maisie’s own organs were damaged and couldn’t be used. However, as luck would have it, we learned that Maisie had a twin who had been separated at birth. A plea went out to all the media to locate Maisie's twin, Daisy, this time with a photograph.
     Several baboons answered the call, but all were eliminated as not being Maisie’s twin and simply seeking publicity. However, there was good news at last. Rita’s twin sister Louise finally turned up. She had heard the original appeal but had been unable to come forward at the time due to previous engagements with her hairdresser and manicurist as well as a week’s reservation at an exclusive spa.
     But she was here now and that was the most important thing. Then another problem arose when she refused to donate any organs to her desperate sister. It seemed that for all these years she had been holding a grudge against Rita.
     “My parents always favored her,” she lamented to me. “Rita this and Rita that. It was as though I didn’t exist. They treated me horribly and Rita never lifted a finger to intervene. So why should I help her now?”
     I was momentarily confused. “But I thought you were separated when you were only five days old.”
     “Yes,” said Louise. “But what a miserable five days.”
     In the end she relented, Rita received the transplant. What's more, Daisy also turned up and Maisie received her transplant. At one point there was a rumor that the two operations might have gotten mixed up, but that was quickly quashed, and Rita’s sudden craving for bananas put down as simply a coincidence.
     Rita, by the way, turned out to be as good as her word and indeed had many ways of showing her gratitude. She also became extremely health conscious, and returned to my office weekly for a thorough examination. Inside and out.

The End (You're welcome.)

Back to Home Page

Copyright 2015-2024 Peter Gallay, All Rights Reserved