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For Rollie Gibbs, the worst part has been the wait.
It was no surprise when the envelope with the return address of the Southern Nevada Health District showed up in his Las Vegas mailbox. He had followed the news and knew he would probably be on the list.
Gibbs, 52, was a patient at the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada in 2006. It was just a routine checkup as he entered his 50s.
The lack of shock didn’t make it any less infuriating when he got the notice that he was one of 40,000 people who may have been subjected to a deadly disease because of dangerous practices at the clinic.
So he scurried over to a diagnostic center to see whether he had hepatitis B or C or HIV.
He and his wife have been married for 18 years. He works hard, prays and cares for his son. He’s a good guy. A few years ago he even won an award from the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce for helping people out when he drove a cab.
Like others among the 40,000, Gibbs, who now works in the cab company offices, found himself wondering, Why me?
But there he was at 6:45 on a Saturday morning waiting to be pricked — waiting to find out whether he had, through no fault of his own, contracted a potentially fatal illness.
That wait lasted only 45 minutes March 8 in the lobby of Quest Diagnostics on South Rainbow Boulevard. He got the blood drawn. “I made sure they had clean needles and syringes,” he said.
That, however, was just the beginning of his waiting.
Four days after his test, he learned he didn’t have HIV. He breathed a sigh of relief: One down, two to go.
Over the next six agonizing days he wondered, “Do I have hepatitis?”
A Southern Nevada Health District spokeswoman said labs are experiencing a much higher than normal volume of blood draws, which is why it may be taking longer than usual to get test results — in some instances, as long as three weeks. Typically, it takes five to 10 days to get blood test results, medical experts say.
Each day for Gibbs got a little worse. He couldn’t sleep. He lost his appetite.
He’d stay up past his bedtime to watch 11 o’clock newscasts that simply fueled his anxiety.
At work the thought crossed his mind every few minutes, hundreds of times a day.
His mind started playing tricks on him. He had been feeling a little sluggish — maybe it was hepatitis. He sneezed. Was that the beginning of the end?
“I waited all these days thinking, ‘Why is it taking so long? Did they find something? Am I going to get this shocking news?’ ”
He and his wife, Cindy, called the center every day. Each day they were told to stay patient, that the results would be in soon.
“That’s a long time to be waiting,” he said. “It was very emotional just knowing this. It was like, ‘Do I have a death sentence?’ ”
Finally, on Tuesday, he got the results. All tests had come back negative.
“We hugged,” he said. “It was a big relief. Then it was like, ‘What attorney do I call?’ You know, though, I don’t even want money. I’d be happy if they just gave me back my $30 co-pay and threw the doctor in jail.”
Sun reporter Steve Kanigher contributed to this story.
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