The Waiting Game.
A week had passed since Renee had dragged her father through the halls of this Hospital in Oklahoma. A week where questions were dismissed and piled in the corner, and answers came few and far between. A week in which patients had come, and gone. Men and Women just like her father, even children. They had all been rushed through those doors, and wheeled out on gurney’s; some only hours later. Renee had watched from the window of her fathers room, because that was all she could do; watch. With her forehead pressed against the glass, she watched the nurses and doctors run around like headless chickens, rushing from one room to another in a desperate attempt to do whatever they could. Which appeared to be very little. Whatever this disease was, it was a ruthless killer of both the strong and the weak, it didn’t seem to mind who it claimed and nothing seemed to stop it, only hold it back for the time being.
Renee rubbed her eyes, looking up from the pages of her book as the words had begun to swim. It was the fifth book she had read this week, with nothing else to do but sit by her fathers bedside she found that she had an immense amount of free time, something she hadn’t had in a long time. On the second day she had gone in search of something to read, finding an abandoned book on the nurses station, though the small novel had barely lasted a day before she was off in search of another. She had traded books with others in the ward, some where page turners and some were garbage, but they were enough to take her mind off the reality of the situation, if only for awhile.
The wards were starting to feel over crowd, the small wing of the hospital barely able to deal with the sudden influx of patients. There were 6 beds in this room of the ward, and there had only been one other patient that had been here as long as her father, his wife was snoozing in the chair beside his bed. He was younger than her father, probably in his late thirties. His wife had sparked up conversation on the third day and they had shared the stories of how they had come to be here for awhile, before her husband had awoken and called her away. The had spoken in hushed whispers for awhile, and then the wife had refused to even make eye contact. Everyone was scared and nobody was sure how the disease was spread. Everyone was being over-cautious. Even the Doctor’s and nurses had taken to walking around wearing face masks, a sight that was no encouraging.
Rubbing her neck slightly Renee looked over to her father, he was pale and thin; thinner than even years of alcohol abuse had made him. The hospital gown he wore was too big, and he looked like he was drowning in the fabric and the blankets they had swathed him in to try and retain his body heat. Amongst all that fabric a small cross could be seen, lying delicately against her fathers chest. It had been years since her father had given up his position at the church, and it had been years since Renee had prayed, but as her hand clasped around her own necklace she found herself praying; and not for the first time this week. With her eyes closed, she reached out and clasped her father’s hand with her free hand. She was mid prayer when she felt a presence at the end of her fathers bed, and her eyes snapped open. ”Doctor…”
A clipboard balanced in his right hand, he finished filling out the important patient information about Riley, last name undisclosed. He had been committed quite recently, but not with the mysterious virus that had been going around, and therefore, his case of leukaemia was refreshing, in an odd, macabre sense. At least Benjamin knew precisely how to treat it, how much of a dosage of chemotherapy to administer, how to tell whether or not it was going to be sent back into remission or not. Riley, at the moment, seemed to have a very good chance of survival, which lifted the weights that had settled in around his heart, ones that had hardened and now resembled boulders, ones that had begun as pebbles and grown in size with each gurney, with each flatlining heart monitor, with each hyperventilating last breath, with each blue tinge of the skin, with each racking cough that emitted no fluids whatsoever.
Humming a motif from a Beethoven sonata to make himself feel better, he rounded the corner of the hallway and came upon the glass walls of his next assignment, one that made his insides curdle. It was one of the worst cases that he had ever seen, even with this strain of virus. But the good news was that pinned on the top of the clipboard, there was a vial of a serum that had been developed, that they had been administering to others throughout the hospital - one that seemed to be showing signs of improvement. Slow, subtle signs - a lack of hyperventilation for three hours, a lack of a blue tinge to the neck muscles, and other such nuances that most would not count as progress, but to Benjamin and the other research scientists in the laboratories, it was a miracle drug. It also seemed to relieve their pain, having morphine-type effects on the limbs and the chest walls, lessening their constrictions, causing the release of pressure on the rib bones and the shoulder blades. Which was what they truly needed. Just the relief. For a small amount of time.
He didn't bother putting on his face mask. He wasn't paranoid as the other doctors were. And he discovered that it frightened the patients more than was necessary. Everyone needed to remain as calm as possible. He was about to enter the room when he noticed a prone form on the floor, by her father's bedside, with her hands clasped, and a peace surrounding her, one that could not come from any amount of pain medication. He watched, almost mesmerised, as she reached out and took her father's fragile hand. Here was one that refused to give up hope. Another odd thing to see in the midst of so much death. He cleared his throat, hesitating before he stepped finally into the room. He had been incredibly reluctant to interrupt that moment; he had seen her every day for a week, but never really looked at her, and once he had, he had been surprised to see that in that moment, with her prayer, there had been a halo encompassing that head of red hair, tousled from lack of sleep and movement, one that had framed a photograph of her as an angel permanently into his brain, as though it had been branded there by hot metal. In fact, his temples pulsated with this stark imagery.
"Ah, Miss Jennings." Everything was formal now. He tucked away the odd intimate moment he had shared with her, unbeknownst to her, for later analysation, when he didn't have to focus. "I believe that I am carrying good news along with me." Taking the vial from the clipboard, he balanced it in the palm of his hand whilst flipping through the charts until he reached her father's. His condition, steadily worsening, The symptoms, becoming stronger. "It -- It's a prototype. Freshly developed. But we've applied it to several others in the hospital with the disease - and it seems to be helping in small ways." He cleared his throat again, using the busied hand to comb through his askew hair, hoping he didn't look too frazzled and exhausted. "Of course, it's entirely up to you whether or not I'm allowed to apply it into his drip or not. I won't do anything without your permission."
