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“No, ma’am.”
Recalling his lack of regular medical care, she looked up at him. “Have you everhadsulfa?”
He shrugged. “Works good.”
She waited for him to elaborate.
“We’ve got them big white sulfa pills in the barn, for calf scours and pneumonias.”
“You take...calf antibiotics?”
“Yep. Got long-acting penicillin, too—250cc bottles.”
“Youinjectyourself?”
He shrugged.
Jolie sighed. “What protocol—er—how do you know what to take? And when?”
He gave her his first smile since walking in the clinic door. “I figure I’m big as a hunnert-fifty-pound calf and go from there. I gave myself a good dose yesterday.”
Jolie tried to hold in her exasperation.
“That didn’t necessarily help one bit with your burn,” she said through clenched teeth. “Bacteria aren’t all sensitive to thesame drugs. And if you don’t take the right dose forlongenough, those bacteria can mutate into resistant strains.”
He gave her a blank look.
“That means the drug might not work anymore.” Jolie continued talking as she dressed the wound with Silvadene cream and applied a gauze dressing. “You need to keep this clean and redress the wound every day, just like this. It should be looking a little better in three to five days. Can you come back then?”
“No, ma’am. We’ll be moving cattle up into the higher ranges, then hauling steers to Billings.”
“I’m giving you prescription for a tube of Silvadene and a course of Amoxicillin capsules. Takeallof the capsules as directed on the bottle. If you see signs of infection, you need to see me.”
He shrugged into his flannel shirt, then pulled a worn billfold from the hip pocket of his jeans as he slid off the exam table. “How much do I owe?”
“We can submit this to your insurance. Do you know what your copay is?”
He gave her another blank look.
“What portion do you pay out-of-pocket for medical care?” Belatedly, she remembered that he’d neversoughtmedical care.
“We don’t have no insurance where I work.”
From his worn boots and battered jeans, to his crumpled hat, he was clearly a man who didn’t have a lot of cash to spare. She knew ranch hands were often paid subsistence wages, maybe given marginal housing in the bargain.
Jolie quoted a small fraction of what she’d charged in California...and mentally crossed off the acquisition dates for equipment items on her wish list.
Many of her patients would be like Bill, she realized. Hardworking, low-income people who barely made ends meet.
But she hadn’t come home intending to get rich.
With no kids, no mortgage, and no responsibilities beyond the clinic, llama and the old blind ewe, Jolie’s needs were minimal.
A sense of satisfaction warmed her heart as she sent Bill on his way and turned to the next patients in the waiting room. “Next?”
A gray-haired woman glanced at the young mom and toddler across the room. “If you want to go first, it’s okay. I won’t be but a minute, though.”
The mother looked up from readingI’ll Love You Foreverto her child and shook her head. “We’re fine, Aunt Irene.”
