Gastroenterology's happy camper: a codeine drip, possibly for life

pivotal · prob. 19 Nov YDAU (reported)

• When: ~1100h, McDade and Diehl arriving at Gately's room from visiting Glynn downstairs.
• What: McDade and Diehl come up from visiting Doony Glynn in the Gastroenterology Dept. with the record's last word on him: the Bowel M.D.s have him on "a megadrip of a Levsin[n.361]-codeine diverticulitis compound," and "the Doon seemed to have undergone a kind of spiritual experience vis-à-vis this compound" — he "was giving them ebubblient high fives," because the doctors say "the condition might be inoperable and chronic and that D.G.'d have to be on the compound for life, with a rubber bulb for Self-Administration." And "the formerly fetal Doon was sitting up in a lotus position and seemed to be a very happy camper indeed." The reporters play it as good news and the text leaves the rest unspoken: a recovering addict's arc ends with a lifetime prescription for self-administered narcotics, told as a joke at the bedside of a man refusing narcotics for a gunshot wound.