Kimberly Elise credited as playing...
Denise Archibald
- Denise: [to Rebecca Payne, the hospital administrator, in the hallway of the hospital with Lt. Frank Grimes present] I would tell you what I think of you, but I am a Christian woman.
- Denise: [angrily over the phone with John] They are releasing him, now you need to do something! DO YOU HEAR ME! DO SOMETHING!
- Rebecca Payne: Mr. and Mrs. Archibald. Hello, I'm Rebecca Payne, hospital director.
- Denise: Hi there.
- Rebecca Payne: It's nice to meet you.
- John Q. Archibald: How are you.
- Rebecca Payne: This is Dr. Turner, the head of cardiology and Michael's doctor.
- John Q. Archibald: Oh. Okay.
- Dr. Turner: How do you do?
- John Q. Archibald: Good. My wife.
- Denise: Hello.
- John Q. Archibald: How's our boy doing?
- Rebecca Payne: Please sit down.
- [They both sit down]
- Dr. Turner: Okay. This x-ray shows a normal 9-year-old's heart. This x-ray is that of your son Michael. There are septal defects here, here, and here. Which have induced myopathy, resulting pulmonary edema, and malignant ventricular ectopy. So as you can see, Michael's heart is approximately three times larger than normal size.
- John Q. Archibald: I'm sorry. Uh... I didn't understand what you said. Could you put that in layman terms for me?
- Dr. Turner: Basically, there's not enough blood being pumped by Michael's heart, so it backs up in the lungs like a sponge getting wet. His heart is trying, but it's working too hard.
- John Q. Archibald: What, does he need an operation, or...
- Dr. Turner: Well, we're considerably beyond corrective surgery Mr. and Mrs. Archibald. Mike's heart is useless. He's going to need a transplant or he's gonna die.
- Rebecca Payne: Wait a second. There are other options.
- John Q. Archibald: What options?
- Rebecca Payne: To do nothing. Medicate him. Make him feel as comfortable as possible. you're going to have to start thinking about quality of life now.
- Denise: I don't understand. We were just with him, and he seemed fine.
- Dr. Turner: He's going to seem fine, but as his heart gets worse, he will become increasingly fatigued, and He will sleep more and more, until one day he will fall asleep, and he won't wake up.
- Rebecca Payne: I know this is difficult, but you have to face the fact that your son may not live much longer. You might want to make it a happy time, say goodbye.
- Denise: God.
- Rebecca Payne: Transplantation is a high risk operation. You can lose your son on that table. You might not want to take that chance.
- John Q. Archibald: If you, you know, if he doesn't have the surgery... If he doesn't have the surgery, how long would do you live
- Dr. Turner: Not long. Months, weeks, days.
- John Q. Archibald: [comforting his wife] Come on. All right. All right. All right. Come on, now. I'm sorry. This-- this is a lot. All right. Uh... Okay. If he was your son, what would you do?
- Dr. Turner: I'd do the transplant, absolutely.
- John Q. Archibald: Okay. Okay? Okay, let's do that. Let's do it.
- Dr. Turner: Yes?
- John Q. Archibald: Yes.
- Dr. Turner: Okay. Well the first thing we've got to do is is get Mike's name on the organ recipient list. Can you be positive so his name should go right to the top of the list.
- Rebecca Payne: It's not so simple. There are other considerations before a prospective recipient can be placed on a donor list. Transplant surgery is very expensive. In most cases, prohibitively so.
- John Q. Archibald: Oh, we got insurance, Major Medical. He's covered.
- Rebecca Payne: We've already checked with your carrier Mr Archibald. There are no provisions in your policy for a procedure of this magnitude.
- Rebecca Payne: Oh, no, no, no. That's a mistake. Not that you're making a mistake. I'm just saying that I'm insured. My son's covered.
- Rebecca Payne: How about you Mrs. Archibald, do you have coverage?
- Denise: No. I've only been working at the supermarket a couple months, and you don't get benefits until...
- John Q. Archibald: Doesn't matter. We got insurance.
- Rebecca Payne: Okay, I can see here that you don't own your home. You have no stocks, no bonds, no investments. You have a little over a $1,000 in savings.