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We have developed some immunity from our society, yet I still fear for the young children back home. Here, the indigenous have no immunity from a disease transported to their community from Europe, America, and Australia.
Microbiologists in the United States are trialing the vaccine.
It can’t come quickly enough.
15
SAMUEL
Dr. Tolley appears in the doorway of where Samuel is sitting at a desk finishing the notes of a patient he reviewed.
“Dr. McMahon, please come with me.” She turns and heads out of the room, and he catches up to her in the long hallway. “Dr. Edwards is performing a lower leg amputation on an osteosarcoma patient. They cleared us to watch from the observation windows.” She gives him a curious look, one questioning why Samuel has special status when he’s only been at the hospital a few weeks.
He offers no explanation and instead walks in silence.
Dr. Tolley is a tall, dark-haired woman in her late thirties, he presumes. She has more clinical experience than him, yet she’s only a few years older. He senses a drive in her that can’t be taught, and he ponders if he could open her eyes to the wonder of treatment beyond these walls. Modern medicine saves lives, except Samuel believes there’s a place for modern and natural medicine to work together side by side to complement and strengthen the other.
They scan their ID cards, and thick double doors open to another long hallway with multiple side doors. They pass radiology and the nuclear medicine departments before scanning their cards once more, and the large doors open to a smaller room void of any furniture. Dr. Tolley is required to scan her card and then punch in a pin to enter the next door.
“The pin changes daily…” she tells him, “… depending on the surgery and the surgeon.”
Samuel follows her along a wide passage with windows beginning from his hip and extending to the ceiling where seats are positioned behind the glass. It reminds him of his residency training in California, viewing surgeries from an upper level.
The staff, including his supervisor, Dr. Tolley, aren’t privy to Samuel’s background or his training in California. As far as they know, he has no experience in a specialty except for Professor Roxby, his father’s contact who could pull all the strings, including his clearance for today’s procedure. The professor passed Samuel to work as an intern for a year and then return to his oncology specialty training. Before his time in Ulara, Samuel was two years into his specialty training in California before deciding to quit and volunteer abroad, a decision that brought him a mountain of happiness and an equal amount of distress to his father.
Samuel has never been interested in performing surgery, only specializing as a physician. Only his past decisions landed him two steps backward in his training. And if he never went to South America, he’d never have changed and, more importantly, never met Eden.
Eden has led him on a path to finding genuine happiness. Hence, he has taken a full circle in his medical training. At the very least, he’s thankful he didn’t need to train from scratch.
Dr. Tolley brings up her iPad and opens the screen. “X-rays before and after chemotherapy are available to view. The patient insisted on the chemotherapy although amputation was inevitable.”
Samuel has seen a similar surgery performed many years ago. Yet he remains tight-lipped and listens to Dr. Tolley, awaiting new findings in modern technology to be mentioned. When she discusses the remaining muscles and skin form a cuff around the bone to fit in the end of a prosthesis and the new prosthetics available—all a vast improvement from what he remembers—she has his full attention.
He returns to the ward many hours later and is to work alongside Dr. Tolley for the rest of the day. Her stiff manner softens as the day progresses, and when in a room with a man in his forties and his two children are playing nosily by his bedside, Dr. Tolley surprises Samuel with her gentle approach.
“Dr. McMahon, this is Mr. O’Toole.” She turns to Samuel. “A MVA patient with multiple fractures, and after further blood tests and x-rays, they diagnosed Mr. O’Toole with leukemia,” she says softly. “His wife is in labor in the maternity ward.”
“Afternoon, Mr. O’Toole,” Samuel introduces himself. He picks up the chart and assesses his medication. “Are you in any pain?”
“No pain,” Mr. O’Toole grunts.
Dr. Tolley leans closer to Samuel to speak. “The problem we have…” she whispers, “… is he doesn’t trust us. Believes we’re creating more illness by having him here.”
One boy plays with a car on the floor, and the older one has picture cards spread out on the floor. Dr. Tolley smiles at the boys. “Are we having fun?”
“Vroom, vroom,” the child roars, and Dr. Tolley chuckles. “Their aunt should be here soon to collect them.” She turns to Mr. O’Toole. “We’ll keep you updated on your wife when we hear more.”
“I should be there with her,” he snaps. He turns to the tubes coming out of his arm. “If you could disconnect me, I couldwalk there myself,” he roars. His head flops back onto the pillow, and his face pales as though he realizes he’s incapable of walking the distance.
“As soon as your sister arrives to take the boys, we’ll set you up in a wheelchair so you can be with her. She’s only in the early stages,” she reassures, then turns to Samuel. “It happened quickly. His wife went into labor while visiting him this morning and went to the labor ward from here. We’re waiting for her sister to finish work to pick up the children.”
A nurse joins them in the room. “Excuse me, I was just talking to your sister on the phone. She apologizes for being held up and will be here in five minutes.” She places the call button closer to the patient. “Please call us if you need anything.”
“A cuppa tea would be good, love.” His voice softer for the nurse.
Dr. Tolley’s phone buzzes.
“Attention, code blue in room 203. Code blue in 203,” comes over the speaker.
