Here's Morgan at the chest clinic in Maldervale General Hospital.
Stripped to the waist, the old
emaciated man sat on the hospital bed, a small plaster covering a vein in his
arm where a blood sample had been drawn.
The doctor, who was a big
sandy-haired man, withdrew a spatula from the patient’s tongue and switched off
his pen light, ‘Mr Fanshaw’s notes say non-smoker – is that correct?’
‘Never in my life,’ said Morgan
Digbone.
‘Hmm,’ said the Doctor, taking
an ophthalmoscope. ‘Don’t look at the light - rather look up here at my
forehead.’ After examining the patient’s eyes, he reached for his otoscope and
carefully inspected both ears.
On leaving the Royal Army
Medical Corps, Dr Frank Dunbar had recently taken up the post of consultant
physician at Maldervale General. One of the first cases referred to him was a
most unusual one that was causing some brows to be furrowed in the Surgery
Department. Mr Fanshaw had hoped a new mind might throw some light on the
matter.
‘Have you ever lived in an area
built on granite,’ said the doctor, taking up his stethoscope.
‘No, I can’t say that I have.’
The doctor listened to Morgan’s
heart and lungs.
‘Hmm…somewhere like the Southwest
or Far North perhaps?’
‘No.’
‘It has been known for some
homes built upon granite to have relatively high levels of the radioactive gas
Radon,’ said Dunbar . With long freckled hands he
began to probe the rack of ribs and the spare supporting muscles.
‘Ow,’ winced Morgan, when the
doctor found a tender area on the right side just below the clavicle.
The physician smiled knowingly,
‘That’s where it is, I’m afraid.’ He then began to feel for and press the lymph
nodes in the neck and armpits. ‘Hmm…no sign of anything there.’
‘Is that good?’
The doctor gave his patient a
strange look and flicked over another page of the case notes, ‘You’ve been
coming here for nearly fourteen years?’ he asked incredulously.
‘Yes, indeed,’ said Morgan, ‘I’m
not getting any better though. This damn cough is terrible at times -’
‘Oh, I’ll grant you are far from
a well man – but – can you just lie down, please?’
The doctor tapped and pressed on
his patient’s hollow belly. Finding no evidence of fluid build up or enlarged
liver, he knew the examination of the lymph nodes in the groin was going to be
unremarkable. A professional displeasure began to arise in him: he had not found
what he had expected and was just as confounded as Fanshaw, his senior
colleague in Surgery, whose competence he had inwardly questioned when first
briefed about this case. ‘Have you ever worked with asbestos?’
‘I have come across it from time
to time in the scrap yard.’
‘That could have been it. But
then again, it says here that until only a couple years before diagnosis your
background had been entirely rural?’
‘All fresh air and fields.’
‘Hmm…could you get on the scales
for me?’
Morgan rose and obliged.
‘Eight stone two – same as last
time.’
Just then there was a quiet
knock on the door and a pretty dark haired nurse entered. She wore a red and
white striped blouse and a spotless white pinafore. Her waist was pinched
tightly with a broad black belt, which accentuated her figure.
Morgan winked at her, and she
smiled back while depositing two large envelopes and a smaller brown one on the
desk. The doctor immediately opened the latter. ‘Your blood count is fine, Mr
Digbone,’ he said, as the nurse left the room, then under his breath added,
‘nothing short of a blooming miracle after so long.’
Morgan buttoned up his shirt,
spluttered and then swallowed the sputum.
The doctor looked over from the
desk and took up a prescription pad, ‘Oh, yes, you have a small infection for
which I’ll give you some antibiotics – but as for the tumour…well…it appears to
be frozen in time.’
You can sample this and and the first seven chapters of The Scorpian Visitant at Smashwords.com
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