lawyer!].
And the fact that Dr. Martin’s diagnosis had been correct did not matter. Or the fact that, had Eddy been admitted that first night ‘to the end of he hall,’ it would probably have entailed the having had that second, crucial, revealing spinal tap later than when Dr. Martin did it first thing the next morning!
It turns out that Dr. Martin did win such law suit in spite of the mother’s lawyer calling him all sorts of insults in the court room, including making him a villain for having asked Eddy’s mother ‘for family history ‘just to clear himself from responsibility!’ the lawyer told the jurors. Dr. Martin did hear later from one of the jurors who had acquitted him that such insults from the mother’s lawyer had actually turned them off completely away from the plaintiff and in favor of Dr. Martin!
[And again, ironically, as of the time of this writing, this writer hears that such S.O.B. losing lawyer, a known ambulance chaser, is now a local state judge! Wow!]
Even Dr. Martin’s own lawyer was ticked off when -upon hearing his ‘not guilty’ verdict- the doc had put his head down, covered his face and cried, instead of jumping up and down thanking his lawyer for the win. The juror told Dr Martin also that they’d voted to clear him even though they thought his lawyer had done a lousy job!…
[Unfortunately, his not having admitted Eddy that contended first night, even if by most accounts Dr. Martin had been correct in his diagnosis and management and he had tried to admit the boy, ended up being costing the doc: He was reported (by the plaintiff’s lawyer-now-judge?) to the State Health Department Office of Professional Medical Conduct (OPC)! Poor Dr. Martin! That complaint and snitch would be one of the many in his long road to perdition…]
CHAPTER 3
An Unusual, Bad Dream. Amazing!
Some time much later Dr. Frank Martin had been called another evening, again after hours, to see a 7 year old boy who had been admitted to another hospital at the other end of town, hospital Dr. Martin normally did not go to, though he was nominally in its Consulting Medical Staff. A trusted pediatrician friend of his had asked him -please!!!- to see “this young man who has odd complains about his back, does no walk well and we just don’t know what’s wrong with him. We’ve done X-Rays of his spine but they don’t show anything abnormal. His family are up here visiting from the big city, and I hear they have some social issues. We need a good expert! Frank, can you please take a look? I’ll appreciate it.”
So around six o’clock, instead of going home where supper was waiting, Dr. Martin went to the hospital to see the young man. He was in the pediatric floor, in a room by himself, his mother at his side. The complaint of low back discomfort was not accompanied by any clear meningeal or protective sciatic nerve signs. He checked him well all over with a full neurological examination lying down and sitting up and, again, he found nothing. Then he had him walk around the room and even all the way down the long hall and all he noticed was an odd lurching of his shoulders, at times jerky, other times to either side. Occasionally he would move his hips sideways without seeming to lose his balance about to fall… The doctor also took a long personal and family history, remaining with him till about 8 o’clock. And yes, his family was ‘dysfunctional’ the parents having just split a month earlier after much fighting. Dr. Martin was baffled. He wrote a long note concluding, somewhat unsure of himself, that the boy had a hysterical gait and that otherwise all was fine.
Then he went home for supper. It was nearly 9 o’clock. He discussed the case with his wife Isabel, herself a rehab R.N., but she did not have any other ideas of what might be wrong with the boy. He still felt uneasy with himself. Both went to bed by 10:30, both planning to be up at their usual 5 am…
At about 2 am Dr. Martin suddenly awoke and sat up agitated as if he had just had a nasty nightmare.
“What’s the matter?” asked his wife, startled.
“I think I may have missed something important with our young man. I just had a dream about his having ‘something’ inside his spine, perhaps something malignant. I better go back right now and check him again. I rather do it right now because in the office I have my first patient at 7 o’clock…”
“You can’t just go by a silly dream… You already checked him well… And he already had negative X-Rays…”
“Well, plain X-Rays don’t tell us that much, especially of soft tissues. If my suspicions of this dream get stronger when I recheck him, I’ll do an MRI.”
“If you feel you must, go ahead. I’ll see you later in the office by 6 or 7.”
Without bothering to shower and shave, even if it would take him no time, he was quickly on the road by 2:30 am.
The nurses were surprised to see Dr. Martin, an infrequent doctor in the ward of that hospital across town, and at such ungodly hours.
Nicolas was asleep and so was his mother, in a recliner next to him. He awoke the mother first and told her that he couldn’t sleep, concerned about her young man and that he wanted to recheck something he already had examined a few hours earlier, but a bit more carefully this time. He wanted to recheck the boy for meningeal signs, this time specifically looking for the Lhermitte’s sign and even for the Lasègue’s sign, this time being a bit more forceful than he had been earlier when he had checked for the same. [In Lhermitte’s sign, I hear, the examiner flexes foreword the patient’s head; if positive, due to some form of meningeal or cervical spine problem, the patient, often with a grin, reports an electric-like pain down the body. In Lasègue’s sign, if positive, the patient reports pain when the examiner elevates his bent leg and then straightens his knee. Here in the US, neurologists now call those Kernig and Brudzinski’s signs].
So Dr. Martin carried out both maneuvers gently with the boy still asleep and laying on his side. He did not trigger any clear sign of pain but the boy did wake up when he did the Las ègue’s maneuver.
“Good morning Nick! I am sorry for waking you up this early in the morning. I just need to check something that I did before but I am going to be a little stronger this time. It didn’t hurt you when I just did it, did it?”
The boy shook his head. Then he repeated the neck bending bringing forcefully his chin to his chest. This time Nicolas clearly brought both shoulders up and said ouch!
“Where did that hurt?”
“Down my back,”
Dr. Martin then went on to repeat the second maneuver -this time with the boy laying flat on his back- raising pretty high the boy’s one leg with his knee bent (no pain then) but then, all of a sudden, straightening his knee so his foot was way up in the air; THAT brought in Nicolas an immediate ouch! as he brought one arm to his hip and straightened his back. Both mom and the nurse in attendance were very impressed. He repeated the same maneuver with the boy’s other leg and got the same result!
‘I am right! My dream told me exactly what was going to happen. This is not hysteria. I bet he has something pressing his spinal cord inside his spinal canal! He explained to his mother the best he could what he needed to do -basically an MRI of his spine- and perhaps, if his suspicions proved right, probably some surgery with a biopsy.
“We don’t have neurosurgery residents in this hospital. I’ll need to transfer him to the neurosurgery service of the University Hospital, if it is OK with you, ma’m, and if I can at this odd hour of the night. I’ll have to make a phone call to see
