Poisoned Page 5

  “This red blood cell count looks really low for a young guy like you,” he announced and sent me off for an endoscopy at the University of Colorado right away, along with a battery of other tests.

  The next time I saw him, Dr. Kirkpatrick had the test results in hand. “I thought you might have internal bleeding, maybe bleeding of the esophagus, because your red and white blood cell counts are so low,” he explained. “Now these tests show that your liver enzymes are off, too.”

  I remained quiet, recognizing that Dr. Kirkpatrick was acting like a medical detective. He was intrigued by my case and tried to puzzle out the clues. “This is so odd,” he said. “None of this adds up, unless—” he began, then stopped.

  “Unless what?” I asked.

  He looked at me. “Unless you were poisoned. That’s how it appears to me. What do you think?”

  “Poisoned? Like food poisoning, you mean? I don’t think so. I haven’t eaten any bad fish or anything.”

  “No, that’s not what I’m talking about,” Dr. Kirkpatrick said. “Listen, I know you’re a lawyer, but where do you work?”

  “I’m a litigator for Fortune 500 companies.”

  “And how long have you been doing that?”

  I told him, then added, “Before that, I was a prosecutor for the State Attorney’s Office.”

  “What kinds of people were you prosecuting?”

  “I was in the organized crime unit.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “Any chance one of those guys might have poisoned you for revenge?” Dr. Kirkpatrick said.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think so.” This whole idea seemed pretty far-fetched to me.

  “Look, how many people did you put away?” Dr. Kirkpatrick asked.

  “I can’t count how many,” I said. “Lots.”

  “And did any of them get out recently and maybe come see you?”

  Dr. Kirkpatrick was clearly serious about this possibility, so I thought hard. “You know, something did happen recently,” I admitted.

  I told him about pulling up to a pump at a gas station near the courthouse not too long ago. As I was filling the tank of my car, a tall, muscular guy in ragged clothing came up to me and said, “Hey, remember me?”

  I looked up at him—he must have been really tall, since I’m over six feet—and I told him I didn’t know who he was. The guy responded, “Yeah, well, I remember you. Is you a lawyer?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Well, is you a prosecutor?” he asked.

  By then, I was alarmed enough by his appearance and behavior to hide my identity. “No, I’m not a prosecutor,” I said, “and I’ve never seen you before in my life. You must have the wrong guy.”

  The man would not give up. “I just got out of the jailhouse, and you put me in there,” he insisted.

  “I don’t put people in the jailhouse,” I said.

  “No, I think you did. I never forget a face,” the man said.

  I shrugged, trying to act nonchalant, but my heart was pounding as I got back into my car and drove off, feeling the guy’s eyes on me.

  I described this incident to Dr. Kirkpatrick, then said, “But I don’t see how that guy could have done anything to me.”

  “You’d be surprised,” he said. “There are all kinds of chemicals people can use if they want to poison someone. These substances are easy to put in your drink or your food. If the poison doesn’t kill you, it leaves you permanently impaired. I’m telling you, Alan, this really manifests like a poisoning case.”

  I was still skeptical. “Okay, but can you find out what it is?”

  “Maybe,” Dr. Kirkpatrick said. “I’ll run some basic test panels to screen for the most common toxins.”

  More tests followed. The results suggested that my immune system had been exposed to a toxin of some kind, Dr. Kirkpatrick reported during my next appointment. “Unfortunately, we don’t have the technology to identify what that poison might have been,” he said. “All I can tell you is that your blood test results are abnormal in a way that suggests you were poisoned, but we have no way to diagnose the root cause of your malady. I’m sorry, Alan. There’s nothing more I can tell you.”

  Susan had traveled with me to Denver. At night, we’d drive around the local neighborhoods looking at houses, imagining what it would be like to live here instead of in Miami. I talked with Susan about Dr. Kirkpatrick’s poisoning theory. She thought it was absurd.

  “Come on, Alan. That’s ridiculous. How would anyone get to your food?” she demanded.

  I’d asked myself the same question. On the other hand, talking with Dr. Kirkpatrick had also made me think back to the hundreds of high-level mobsters and drug dealers I’d put away during my time as a prosecutor. What if somebody like that cocaine kingpin who left his shirt in the suitcase had a long memory and a thirst for revenge? Even if he was still in prison, it would be easy enough for him to order one of his underlings to go after me. Perhaps I should have been concerned for my life while I was putting criminals away. Was it possible that my past had caught up with me?

  But Susan wasn’t buying this theory, so we didn’t talk anymore about it. Instead, as we were leaving National Jewish Health for good, Susan said, “We’ll get through this, Alan, and maybe when you’re feeling better, we’ll come back here to ski.”

  “That sounds great, honey,” I replied as I held her hand. “I’d love that.”

  I was glad to hear that Susan seemed as certain as I was that I would eventually kick this thing one day.

  • • •

  When we arrived home from Colorado, I was exhausted, but I continued to mull over Dr. Kirkpatrick’s theory. I still thought it was pretty crazy that, after all this time, somebody would come after me. At the same time, Dr. Kirkpatrick was a prestigious, well-qualified physician with a workable hypothesis. What if he was right? And what if we could discover the source of the poisoning, leading us to an antidote?

  My legal training prevented me from accepting anything as truth without adequate proof. On the first day of law school, the dean told us, first-year students, “When you leave here, you will never be the same again. Look at your fellow classmates sitting next to you. Some of them will fail to become lawyers because they will not have learned to change the way they think.”

  I walked out of that class feeling concerned, thinking, “I don’t want to change how I am. I like the way I think!”

  I was twenty-one years old, tall and athletic, with beach-blond hair. I was a former lifeguard and musician. On the first day of that class, I was wearing my favorite faded blue-and-white striped T-shirt. Despite all of my academic accomplishments, I was still a naive kid.

  But the dean was right. In order to become a successful attorney, you must change the way you approach, analyze, and solve problems. In the courtroom, everything must be proven by solid evidence. If you can’t see something, smell it, hear it, touch it, or taste it, it doesn’t exist.

  After spending many years gathering evidence, building legal cases, and proving them beyond a reasonable doubt, I’d learned that you can’t convince juries to convict criminals and put them away unless you give them hard evidence. It was the only way I knew how to navigate my world.

  My well-trained prosecutor’s investigative mind kicked into gear after our return from Colorado. If this were a criminal case I needed to solve, I wondered, then how would I approach it? How could I find out if I’d really been poisoned? And, if so, by whom?

  I decided to investigate my alleged poisoning the way I would any other crime. I called a buddy of mine, Ben, a former detective for the Oakland Park Police Department, and asked if he’d look into this for me.

  “What do you want me to do?” he asked.

  “Sniff around and see what you can dig up, maybe develop some leads on who might have wanted to poison me,” I told him.

  “Leave it to me, Alan,” he said.

  I knew what Ben would do from there: he’d reach out to our confidential info
rmants, the petty street criminals who fed cops information about the mob in exchange for lighter sentences after they were busted for a less serious crime. These informants would know of any rumors about someone acting on a vendetta against me.

  Ben wouldn’t stop there, either. He was a good detective: I knew he’d also start nosing around my office building, the courthouse, the restaurants I frequented, my gym, you name it. He would casually strike up conversations to see where they’d lead. If somebody had poisoned me, Ben would find out who had done it and why. I felt confident of that.

  Meanwhile, I continued my own parallel investigation, doggedly searching for medical answers. My next appointment took me to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Susan accompanied me, and, once again, I saw a primary physician who would serve as my guide through their ranks of specialists.

  “Look, we’ll get to the bottom of this,” he vowed, “but you’ll need to stay here a week so we can check you out. You’ll have to promise that you’ll see every doctor I refer you to, all right?”

  “Fine,” I said, scanning the list of referrals he’d given me. “I’ll do whatever it takes.” Just then, I noticed the first specialist on the list was a psychiatrist. “Wait a minute,” I said. “What’s this about?” It was the first time a doctor had ever openly suggested that my illness might be psychosomatic.

  Calmly, he told me, “I want to rule out everything by making sure there’s no mental component to your experience.”

  “Fine,” I agreed. “Here’s the deal. I’ll see everyone you send me to, even the psychiatrist. But at the end of it, I want you to promise you’ll find out what’s wrong with me.”

  “You’ve got yourself a deal,” he said.

  I went to the psychiatrist, who sat me at a desk in a tiny room. I answered hundreds of multiple-choice questions, looked at inkblots, and told him what they looked like. I passed these psychological assessments with flying colors—no surprise to me—and made it to the next round of tests.

  The Mayo doctor sent me to specialist after specialist. Susan and Ashlee shared a hotel room with me, and every day, the three of us went to laboratories and doctors’ offices from morning to late afternoon.

  Whenever I wasn’t at a medical appointment, Susan and I toured the area with Ashlee. We were especially fascinated by the Amish communities, and loved seeing how simply they lived, whether they were baking their own bread or driving a horse and buggy down the road ahead of our car. Susan provided a comforting presence, helping me look toward the future rather than feel stuck in this bewildering present.

  The lab results from Mayo Clinic confirmed much of what I’d already discovered at National Jewish Health: my red blood cell count was low, causing anemia and low oxygen levels. My low white blood cell count indicated a condition called “leucopenia,” which caused me to be prone to infection.

  In addition, I had high carbon dioxide levels—probably because of the low oxygen—and my liver enzymes were all abnormal. I still had high Epstein-Barr viral titers.

  Translation? I wasn’t getting enough oxygen to feel or think normally. My severely compromised immune system meant I was vulnerable to constant viral attacks, and my liver couldn’t cleanse my body of toxins.

  “Is it possible I was poisoned?” I asked the Mayo Clinic doctor.

  “All I can tell from the tests is that you have chronic fatigue immune dysfunction syndrome caused by the Epstein-Barr virus,” he replied.

  Epstein-Barr is a virus that causes mononucleosis, and many people carry it without getting sick. However, people who do exhibit symptoms of Epstein-Barr might experience a rash, fever, drop in appetite, sore throat, fatigue, swollen glands, and sore muscles. These symptoms typically improve after a few weeks, but the fatigue can linger much longer—even for months.

  Chronic fatigue syndrome is a complicated (and still controversial, in some circles) disorder. It’s also characterized by extreme fatigue, which may get worse with physical or mental activity, and doctors still haven’t pinpointed an absolute causal factor for the condition. Theories range from psychological stress to viruses; most medical professionals today believe chronic fatigue syndrome is triggered in certain individuals by a combination of factors. Treatment is focused on helping reduce the symptoms. There is no medical cure.

  This doctor’s diagnosis was consistent with my symptoms of fatigue, muscle and joint pain, cognitive and gastrointestinal dysfunction, respiratory distress, and seizures. “Go home and rest,” he said. “There’s nothing more we can do for you.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “Hold up. You’re saying the only advice you have for me is to rest? There’s no medicine you can give me to at least make me feel better?”

  “No,” he said. “I’m sorry. It’s really just a matter of giving the body time to heal itself.”

  “I don’t have that kind of time,” I said. “I can’t do my job, I can’t go out with friends, and I can’t run around with my kid. I can’t even think straight most days.”

  “I know it’s difficult, but only time will help heal you,” the doctor said. “That’s my diagnosis. Go home, Alan.”

  After we returned home, Susan said, “See, Alan? I knew there wasn’t really anything wrong with you. You just need to take it easy, honey.”

  I didn’t argue with her, but at this point, I was secretly hoping my investigator would discover that someone had tried to poison me after all. At least then I’d have an actual reason for feeling so ill. And if we could find out what poison it was, maybe there would be an antidote, too.

  5 • A DIAGNOSIS WITHOUT A CURE

  WEEKS AND MONTHS PASSED. I didn’t feel any better physically, and I was feeling increasingly despondent and hopeless. I had consulted with any and all specialists under the sun, including immunologists, neurologists, toxicologists, gastroenterologists, hepatologists, virologists, endocrinologists, pulmonologists, hematologists, rheumatologists, cardiologists, and more. I had seen over one hundred doctors in all; I was radiated like a well-done steak and felt like a pincushion from all the needles. Not one ounce of my body was left untouched by medical tests.

  Even worse, I realized that my earlier worries about Susan eventually losing patience with this whole doctor shuffle—and with me—weren’t completely unfounded. My wife was withdrawing emotionally.

  One evening, I collapsed on the couch with Susan, lying with my head in her lap. I felt totally messed up and disoriented, and grateful to feel her comforting hand stroking my hair.

  But when I opened my eyes and looked up at her, the expression on Susan’s face terrified me. She had let her mask slip for a split second, and as her eyes met mine, her stony gaze revealed the truth: she really didn’t want to be with me, doing this. She simply did not want to be in this situation.

  No feeling of compassion emanated from her, and there was no attempt to connect with me. She was simply staring off in the distance with a trapped look that said, “Get me out of here.”

  Suddenly, Susan blinked and looked down at me with her usual warm smile. The mask was fastened tightly back in place. “How are you feeling now?” she asked.

  “Not great,” I said.

  The truth? At that moment, I felt absolutely terrified of losing her. Illness, especially chronic illness, can take a terrible toll on a marriage. Would my marriage to Susan survive if I didn’t get better fast enough?

  • • •

  In the meantime, Ashlee was developing fast, as all kids do during the toddler years. I loved seeing her toddle toward me on her chubby legs, arms outstretched for me to pick her up. She was acquiring new words and cognitive skills quickly while I was fading. Sometimes, I could actually feel the light and energy draining from my body, robbing me of precious time with Ashlee. I could no longer take her on car or bike rides, to the playground, or out to a restaurant. All I could do was sit on the floor and read her a book. Even that was exhausting.

  More than anything, I longed to be the strong father that every child deserves,
rather than this fragile shell of a man. I couldn’t give up the fight to solve my mystery illness.

  Someone suggested that I call the Cleveland Clinic, which had a local branch near Fort Lauderdale. Once again, I saw a new primary doctor who evaluated my case and referred me to various specialists for tests. But this time I heard something new.

  “There’s something wrong with your heart,” he said, reviewing my tests. “You’ve got a prolapsed valve.”

  I was still in my thirties and thinner than I’d been in years. “How is that even possible?” I demanded to know. “I’ve had a million tests, and nobody has ever said there’s something wrong with my heart.”

  “Oh, it’s possible.” The doctor then went on to say something even more astonishing: “You know, all of your symptoms point to something environmental.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Well, when did you first get sick?” he asked.

  I gave him the same date I’d given every other doctor.

  “No,” he said. “I mean, what were you doing when you started to get sick? Where were you in your life?”

  I wasn’t following the connections he was making. Then he asked, “What building were you in?”

  “110 Tower,” I said. “I was spending most of my time either in my office there or in the Broward County Courthouse.”

  “That might be your answer, then: one of those buildings. Probably 110 Tower, since that’s where you started really feeling ill.”

  Even though I was capable of connecting the dots—I’d never been sick until I worked at 110 Tower—I couldn’t fully grasp what this doctor was saying. How could I have been poisoned by a building? This theory was even more far-fetched than Dr. Kirkpatrick’s suggestion that I’d been poisoned by a criminal.

  “That’s impossible,” I said. “Flat out impossible.”

  “I know it sounds incredible,” the doctor said. “But look. Do me a favor. I want to refer you to this guy who specializes in environmental illnesses. If you go see him, maybe he can help you figure this out.”