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Muriel Pruitt met my questions with a contemptuous little smile.
"Augusta, you really are ignorant, and it's laughable. More medication doesn't mean all of it gets infused into the patient."
"Your mother's condition is special. A lot of those drugs are used for dialysis, not the way you imagine, all going into an IV drip."
"You don't understand any of this. Please stop using your amateur guesswork to question our expertise."
Her cold, dismissive smirk only made the knot in my chest tighten.
I said, unwilling to let it go,
"Fine, say I'm overthinking that part. But what about all these tests?"
"I did the math. Every day you're running some blood gas test on my mother, X-rays, all kinds of scans, all kinds of checks."
"A dozen, twenty tests a day. Is that reasonable?"
"Do you really need to put a patient through this over and over, testing and retesting, again and again?"
Muriel's face went cold.
This time she didn't answer me head-on. She just said, flat and indifferent,
"Augusta, I only agreed to take a patient like your mother as a favor to Leigh Gilbert. Don't go looking for trouble!"
Looking for trouble?
Questioning her to her face was already me being polite.
Take all those tests, for instance. I'd worked it out. Each one takes about half an hour.
Which meant Muriel would have to do nothing else all day, spend her entire shift at the hospital running test after test, without even time to eat.
No leisure left over for the coffee she was drinking now.
It made no sense at all.
"If there's nothing else, please leave." Muriel's irritated voice cut in.
I looked at her and said,
"I'm not finished, and you're already rushing to throw me out?"
"As the patient's family, don't I even have that much right?"
"I'm not a doctor, sure, but this is basic common sense. You don't need a medical degree for this, do you?"
Muriel's face was full of impatience.
"What else? Ask, quickly!"
I pointed at the duplicate medications listed on the bill.
"Set everything else aside. What's the story with these repeated drugs, the same medication given over and over?"
"Surely you're not treating these drugs like meals? Feeding them to her again and again?"
"Or crushing them up for a bath? For dialysis?"
Slam!
Muriel brought her hand down hard on the desk and shot up from her chair, furious.
"Patient's family, I'll say it one more time. Please stop making a scene!"
"And stop using your amateur guesswork to question my expertise."
"What you should be doing right now is paying, before you miss the best window for treatment."
I watched her, out of answers.
She couldn't even be bothered to throw professional jargon at me to keep the con going.
A cold went through me.
There was no doubt about it. I was being fleeced, a fat sheep for the slaughter.
The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. I said coldly,
"This bill is in dispute. I won't be paying it, and I'm transferring my mother out right now!"
"Transfer out?"
Muriel sneered. "You think a case like your mother's can just be transferred whenever you feel like it?"
"You think any other hospital would take a patient like that?"
"If it weren't for Leigh Gilbert, your mother wouldn't even have qualified to come to our hospital!"
That was that.
I had nothing left to say.
I gave Muriel one long look.
Then I turned and walked out of her office.
After that I threw myself into it, calling around, reaching out to other hospitals.
It took a few hours.
Just as I'd finally lined up a hospital.
My boyfriend, Leigh Gilbert, came rushing into the hospital.
The first thing out of his mouth wasn't concern for me, or for my mother. It was a complaint aimed straight at me.
"Augusta, what are you making a fuss about?"
"Muriel told me you went after her today, accusing her of overcharging? And that you want to file a complaint against her?"
"Isn't this just you causing trouble?"
"Go apologize to Muriel, right now!"
