Chapter 2: Inspector Moo

It was a little before eight thirty on a Monday morning in June, one of those chilly, gray summer mornings San Francisco is famous for. I was starting the week of badly, flipping through old copies of the New Yorker while waiting for my G.P., Doctor Kelvin Macdonald, to free up.

I'd been seeing Dr.Kelvin, as I sometimes called him, ever since I was a sociology major at the Francis state university, and I obligingly came in once a year for my checkup. That was last Tuesday. To my surprise, he had called at the end of the week and asked me to stop in today before work.

I had a busy day ahead of me; two open cases and a desposition to deliver at a district court. I was hoping I could be at my desk by nine.

"Ms. Alexandra," the receptionist finally called to me," the doctor will see you now."

I followed her into the doctors office.

Generally, Kelvin greeted me with some well intended stab at police humour, such as," so if you' re here, who's out on the street after them?" I was now thirty four, and for the past two years had been lead inspector on the homicide detail out of the hall of justice. But today he rose stiffly and uttered a solemn" Moo he mentioned me to the chair across from the desk uh-oh.

Up until then, my philosophy on doctors had been simple: when one of them gave you that deep, concern look and told you to take a seat, three things could happen. Only one of them was bad. They were asking you out, getting ready to lay on some bad news, or they' d just spent a fortune reupholstering the furniture.

" I want to show you something," Kelvin began.

He held a slide up against a light.

He pointed to splotches of tiny ghostlike spheres in a current of smaller pellets." This is a blowup of the blood smear we took from you. The larger the globules are erythrocytes. Red blood calls."

They seem happy," I joked nervously.

"They are, Moo," the doctor said without a trace of smile. Problem is, you don't have many."

I fixed on his eyes, hoping they would relax and that we'd move on to something tribal like, you better start cutting down on those long hours Moo.

There's a condition, Moo," Kelvin went on.

Negil's aplastic anemia. It's rare. Basically, the body no longer manufactured red blood cells," he held up a photo."this is what a normal blood work up look like.

On this one the dark background looked like the intersection of the market and Powell at 4:00pm., a vitrtual traffic jam of the compressed, energetic sphere. Speedy messengers, all carrying oxygen to parts of someone else's blood.

In contrast mine looked about as densely packed as a political headquarters two hours after the candidate has concede.

" this is treatable, Moo,' Kelvin said after a pause." But it' serious

A week ago, I had come in simply because my eyes were runny and blotchy and I'd discovered some blood in my panties and every day by three I was suddenly feeling like some iron-deficient gnome was inside me siphoning off my energy. Me, of the regular double shifts and fourteen days. Six weeks' accrued vacation.

How serious are we talking about?' I asked, my voice catching.

Red blood cells are vital to the body process of oxygenation," Kelvin began to explain. Hemopoiesis, the formation of blood cells, in the bone marrow."

Dr. Kelvin, this isn't a medical conference. How serious are we talking about?"

What is it you want to hear, Moo? Diagnosis or possibility?

"I want to hear the truth."

Kelvin nodded. He got up and came around the desk and took my hand." Then here's the truth, Moo what you have is life threatening."

" life threatening?" My heart stopped. My throat was dry as parchment.

Fatal, Moo."

The cold blunt sound of the word hit me like a hollow-point shell between the eyes

Fatal Moo.

I waited for doctor Kelvin to tell me this was all some kind of mixed up with someone else's

I want to send you to a Hematologist, Moo, Kelvin went on." Like a lot of diseases, there are stages. Stage one is when there's a mild depletion of cells. It can be treated with monthly transfusions stage two is when there a systemic shortage of red cells.

Stage three would require hospitalisation. A bone marrow transplant. Potentially.the removal of your spleen."

So where am I?" I asked sucking in a cramped lungful of air.

"Your erythrocytic count is barely two hundred per cc raw blood. That puts you on the cusp."

The cusp?"

The cusp," the doctor said between stages two and three."

There come a point in everybody's life when you realize the stakes have suddenly changed. The carefree ride of your life slams into a stone wall; all those years of merely bouncing along, life taking you where you want to go, abruptly end. In my job, I see this moment forced on people all the time.

Welcome to mine.

So what does this means?" I asked weakly. The room was spinning a little now.

What it means, Moo, is that you re going to have to undergo a prolonged regimen of intensive treatment,"

I shook my head. What does it mean for my job?"

I'd been Homicide for six years now, the past two as lead homicide inspector with any luck, when my lieutenant was up for promotion, I'd be in line for his job. The department needed strong women. They could go far. Until that moment, I had thought that I would go far.

Right now," the doctor said," I don't think it means anything. As long as you feel strong while you are undergoing treatment, you can continue to work. In fact, it might even be good therapy."

Suddenly, I felt as if the wall of the room were closing in on me and I was suffocating.i will give you the name of the Hematologist," Kelvin said.

He went on about the doctor's credentials, but I found myself no longer hearing him. I was thinking, who am I going to tell? Mom had. Died ten years before, from breast cancer. Dad had been out of the picture since I was thirteen. I had a sister, Mary, but she was living a nice, neat life down in Newport Beach, and for her, just making a right turn on red brought on a moment of crisis.

The doctor pushed the referral towards me. " I know you. Moo. You will pretend this is something you can fix by working harder. But you can't. This is deadly serious. I want you to call him today."

Suddenly my beeper sounded. I fumbled for it in my bag and looked at the number. It was the office-Mattew.

" I need a phone," I said.

Kelvin shot me a reproving look, one that read, I told you, Moo.

Like you said,"-I forced a nervous smile-therapy,"

He nodded to the phone on his desk and left the room I went through the motions of dialling my partner.

"Fun's over, Moo," Mattew's gruff voice came on the line." We for a double one-oh. The Grand Hyatt."

My head was spinning with what the doctor had told me. In a fog, I must not have responded.

You hear me, Moo? Work time. You on the way?

Yeah," I finally said.

And wear something nice," my partner grunted.

Like you would to a wedding."