It’s funny how songs can trigger memories. For example, when Peggy Lee’s “Fever” recently played on my car radio, I thought of a long-ago patient whom I’ll call Jerry Rivers.
Jerry had fever, all right—but it wasn’t the sizzle of passion. Ten years ago, when I first met him, the trumpeter who helped launch the “cool jazz” movement of the 1950s had been hitting 101 degrees Fahrenheit for weeks. His internist had already sent out routine blood, urine, and stool cultures. No answers there. Nor had abdominal scans revealed a hidden abscess. From the moment we met, I knew Jerry had no ordinary bug.
Across the Formica desk of my small exam room, the frail but animated 74-year-old—his head and torso lightly bobbing—gazed at me, perplexed. “I don’t get it,” he said. “When that staph infection gave me fevers last year, my doctors figured it out right away.”
