"Doctor?" Nurse Emma said, getting the man's attention.
Erin was lying on the table still clothed, and looked like she was wondering when they'd ask her to remove her clothes.
On the wall beside the bed, a large image of a human body was displayed, with lines pointing out to different text descriptions along the top and bottom of the display. I stepped closer to see what the text said, but it looked like Klingon to me.
"Uh, do you want me to take my clothes off?" Erin asked.
Emma turned around and smiled at her. "That's not necessary dear, we did a scan already. This is you up on the screen." She indicated the display.
" ... and there is a problem. We can heal it, but there is a chance that you might lose the child." He took a stylus out of his pocket. "Do you see these areas here?" He pointed to the three different areas the display had pointed out. "I won't bore you with the technical names, but it's the early ... very early ... stages of cervical cancer. At this stage, it won't show up on a pap smear for at least another two years. However, as I said, we can fix this."
"You said there was a chance she could miscarry?" I asked, taking Erin's hand.
"As it stands now, she will miscarry in about two months. This sort of thing is responsible for a lot of miscarriages in women all over the world. Now don't panic about the word cancer, it actually isn't cancer yet, but the cells are starting to form. In fact, in about seventy percent of women, the body will defeat it, but in those other thirty percent, it grows."
"What do we need to do? I know there's a chance it'll kill our baby, but from the sound of it, it doesn't stand much of a chance anyway," I said.
The doctor tapped something on the display, and new list of text appeared. He tapped one of the lines of text and waited a few seconds. "It looks like she's going to be a female. You have another daughter growing there." He went on to explain what the treatment was, and that Erin would have to spend the night in the hospital. His description of the treatment was frightening. Did Talosian medical science really have the knowledge to reprogram human genes?
"Doctor, if you can save our baby, please do so. The idea of gene manipulation is scary, but I'm hoping that's only because of all the horror movies I've watched," Erin said.
"Erin, before I joined up, I was a doctor at Walter Reed. Since then, I've learned so much that it felt like I'd been a witch doctor. Talosian medical knowledge is at least a thousand years more advanced than current Earth knowledge. Have you been told about the Talosian custom regarding promises and oaths?" When we nodded he continued, "I'm still bound by the Hippocratic Oath. Actually I'm more bound by it now than I ever was before. There is no malpractice here; if one of us makes a mistake that should have been avoided, we are facing either imprisonment or death, depending on the damage our patient suffered. Before I will undertake your treatment, I will be consulting with at least two other doctors just to make sure I'm not overlooking something."
"Thank you, Doctor, that makes us feel a lot better about it," I said, before I realized I might have offended him.
My gaffe must have shown on my face because he chuckled. "Jon, if someone were going to go messing with my genetic makeup, I'd damn sure want a second and a third opinion first. Seriously though, the treatment for this is very common, and I wouldn't have any problems at all using it on her; it's the fetus I'm worried about." He picked up what looked like an electronic clipboard. "Computer, transfer scan to tablet, and please show me who's available for consult." He was writing while giving the orders. "Please forward scan, analysis and diagnosis along with proposed treatment to Dr. Williams and Dr. Johnson; mark it 'in office' please."
"Messages sent, Dr. Neilson," a voice issued from the ceiling.
"Did you do that?" Barbara asked, looking at Andreya.
"Technically, yes, I did. However, unless there is a complicated issue, all routine communications and the like are handled by a subset, a sub-program within my main program that handles these requests," Andreya explained.
"Okay, while we're waiting for their replies, who wants to go next?" Dr. Neilson asked.
I looked at Casey; "Why don't you and lil' squirt go ahead?"
She grinned, handed Wendy to me and took Erin's place on the table. "You're just chicken."
"You know me, terrified of needles," I retorted, grinning. "Besides, I want to see what they do to you before I let them monkey with my genes."
She no sooner had lain down when a new image appeared on the wall. Nothing was highlighted, but there was considerable text below the image.
"Nothing major here, just the standard amount of toxins and other bad stuff that is part of life on Earth. We can get rid of all that now, or we can wait and treat you at the same time as your wife," Dr. Neilson said.
"If it's okay, I'll wait," Casey said. "Jon, hand me Squirt, so he can check her over too. Unless she needs to be up here alone?" She asked the last looking at Emma.
"No sweetie, you can hold her," Emma answered. "If you would like, we can put the children's lenses in for you."
"They get lenses too?" Casey asked. "They don't even talk yet." As soon as I handed Wendy to Casey, Erin grabbed me; she was shaking like a leaf.
I took her aside and held her close. "Shh, baby. Everything'll be alright; you'll see."
"Jon, when Andreya said I was pregnant I was so happy I thought I would burst. When the doctor said our baby could die, I almost lost it. I still feel like I will. I don't want to lose her!" Erin said.
"Honey, I'm worried about losing both of you, but don't worry. You heard the doctor, this technology is very advanced; if there's a way to save you and the baby, they'll figure it out," I said, trying to calm her. "Personally, I'd still like to know how you can get pregnant from anal sex!"
She pulled back and looked at me like I'd lost my mind. Then she chuckled. She leaned back in and started laughing quietly. Eventually, I heard her say, "You are so bad! I love you, Jon."
"I love you too, baby. Feeling better?" I asked.
"Yeah, thanks to you. I was stuck in a rut there wasn't I?" she asked.
"Well, I don't know about a rut, but you sure didn't want to listen to me. Let's worry about the problems as they come, instead of adding extra stuff. A lot's happened to us today; I think we're all pushing the overload limit."
She wiped the tears from her face and nodded over to the group by the bed. "Let's get back over there."
We rejoined the group in time to take Wendy from Barbara so she could get on the table. She looked a little pale, but she hadn't been feeling very good these last few days, so I figured she was just tired.
By the time she was lying down, tears had started falling. I was about to ask her what was wrong when I heard the intake of breath from the nurse, and the doctor said, "Damn."
I looked up at the display, and for the first time wished I knew what language it was in. Several things all over her body were circled in red pulsing light. "What is it, Doctor?"
He turned around and looked down into the face of my lover, wife, and mother. "You haven't told them?"
She shook her head. "What was the point? Nothing could be done about it."
He gave her an almost sad smile and took the hand Erin wasn't holding. Then he looked up at the rest of us. "Barbara is suffering from chronic lymphoblastic leukemia. If we were still at Walter Reed, we would be discussing hospice arrangements to make her remaining months as comfortable as we could. You see, her leukemia is too far gone for treatment, and if left alone, she will die in less than six months." He looked back down to Barbara, and winked. "But you are no longer in an Earth hospital. Emma, prep treatment room three for Erin, and room four for Barbara." He looked back up to us. "I can cure this. She'll need to stay here for a day, but she should be able to go home with you again tomorrow night."
"You mean I'll be in remission?" Barbara asked hopefully.
"No, young lady, you will no longer have leukemia. You'll be tired for a few days, but that's just your body working to replenish yourself. We'll also take care of those toxins and the environmental damage that all of you probably have. If you would please follow Emma again, she'll get you set up for treatment," Dr. Neilson said.
"Can I stay with her, Doctor?" I asked.
He chuckled; "If you really want to; she's going to be asleep in about five minutes, though. It's easier to repair her cells if she's asleep, so she'll be out of it until tomorrow. Take Casey and the children home, have dinner, and get a good night's sleep. Give us a call in the morning to see if she's done yet."
"Its okay, Jon. If he really can cure this, everything will be okay," Barbara said with tears running down her face.
I hugged her close. "I love you, Mom. I don't want to lose you."
"Take our Casey home and make love to her for me. Erin and I'll be back with you again tomorrow night," she whispered to me. "I love you too, my husband."
After she gave Erin and Casey a hug, she kissed Greg and Wendy, then followed Emma from the room.
"Your turn on the table, Jon," the Doctor said.
As I climbed up on the table, Andreya said "Paul, he has an active ability, also there is an incoming data message from Dr. Johnson."
"Thank you, Andreya. I'll look it over in a moment," he said as he turned to look at my scan. He touched a few places on the display and another chart came up. It looked more like the displays I was used to seeing in a hospital. "It doesn't look active right now; what ability do you have, Jon?"
"Andreya told me I was a projective empath, whatever that is," I said. "But I can usually feel what others are feeling if I try to."
"Empathy huh? That's a rare one. Well, it's not active right now, and it's getting late, so why don't we look at it later? For now, your scan looks like Casey's does; you're healthy except for those toxins I mentioned. It'll only take about five minutes to get rid of them, so why don't we get you, Casey and the kids fixed up now, then we can take Erin down the hall to her room and get her settled in for the night?"
I nodded my head in agreement and looked to Casey who also nodded. The doctor smiled. "Okay, now I'm going to knock you out for the actual procedure, but you'll be back with us shortly. Don't worry, we don't use drugs to knock you out, it's a simple electrical impulse that basically sends a reset signal to your brain. It's painless. Are you ready?"
I noticed something descending from the ceiling; it looked like a white basketball suspended by a stainless steel arm. It didn't look threatening, but I was still nervous. I nodded to the doctor and he grinned, turned back to the display, tapped the representation of my head ... and I woke up looking at Casey's smiling face.
"How do you feel?" she asked. Greg giggled at me.
I took a minute to evaluate my body. How did I feel? Pretty good actually; I felt like I had more energy, and felt stronger. "Pretty damn good. In fact, I don't remember ever feeling better. You didn't slip me something did you doc?" I asked teasingly.
He chuckled. "No I didn't, but considering what we removed from your system, you should be feeling better. Don't worry, the euphoric feeling will gradually reduce over time. If you spend much time down here on Earth, then we'll have to go through this again on your next check up in a couple of years."
I climbed off the bed and Casey handed me little Greg before lying down herself. She nodded to the doctor, and he tapped the image of her head like he did to me. It was amazing. It looked like someone just flipped her switch to the off position. One minute she was awake, the next she wasn't.
The doctor went to work tapping commands into the display while the white basketball dropped down to almost a foot above Casey. It started at her head, and slowly moved down her body. Other than the doctor's display, there wasn't a lot to see.
Greg started squirming; he wanted down, so I let him down so he could toddle around the room. Mulan came over and took his hands to help him with his balance, and Andreya made a little red 'firefly' appear and fly around him. He giggled out his delight and immediately took off after the light.
Seeing the fun her brother was having, Wendy soon wanted down as well, so Erin set her down and she toddled off after her brother.