Harry sat up and looked around. “No dizziness so far.” He moved on to standing and then walking around.

“I feel good. I didn’t realize how tired I felt before. I thought it was just old age.”

“It was mostly lack of oxygen to your body. You should feel even better over the next few hours before the effect stabilizes.”

We returned to the Parlor and Harry showed off his energy by picking me up and swinging me around. I might have squealed in surprise and yelled at him to put me down. It didn’t matter much, since he ignored me completely. He only stopped when he got too dizzy and had to sit down.

“That’s better. It’s ok to get dizzy when there’s a reason for it.” Harry was practically glowing with happiness.

“How are you doing, Harry?” Jake asked him.

“Jake, I haven’t felt this good in years. Most days I’ve been waking up feeling like I haven’t slept. Since Abby’s treatment a few minutes ago, I don’t just feel like I can do things, I actually want to. Do you think she laced that pasty stuff she made with drugs? Cocaine or heroin? If she did, I can see why people get hooked on it.”

Jake looked at me and asked, “You didn’t, did you?”

“Maybe just a little.” I brought my pointer finger close to my thumb to illustrate the point.

“How long will this treatment last? Will he have to come back again every week?”

“Jake, do I look like I do things in half measures? I’m not some pharmaceutical company that needs to have my customers hooked for life on my drugs so that I can make huge profits. He’s done. At least until his poor dietary choices and lack of exercise cause the plaque to build up again.”

“That’s not going to happen again. I’m a changed man.”

“Yeah, right. You’re like an alcoholic after his first AA meeting. Talk to me when you’ve got your one-year bronze sobriety chip.”

“You’ll see.”

“Uh huh. Will you be turning over this new leaf before or after dessert? Mom made chocolate peanut butter brownies. I think she mentioned that you used to love those.”

“Abby, you are quite possibly the most evil person that I’ve ever met. Your mother has been missing for thirteen years and on the day of her return she bakes all day for us and you would have me spurn her and her wares just to make a silly point. I’d thought better of you, but I can see that I was mistaken.” He shook his head in mock disappointment.

“So, you’ll be having two slices, huh?”

“Consider it a test drive of the new arteries.”

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Wow. Your resolve lasted all of three minutes. I’m in awe.”

Dessert tasted just as good as it sounded and I made sure that Mark saw me take my third piece, daring him to say something. He dared.

“I see you’re not worried about clogged arteries.”

“No, I have a treatment for it. How about you?”

“I just happen to know someone who does. I can probably talk her into saving me, again.”

“You’d like to think so, but you’re forgetting the old saying.”

“Which one is that?”

“People who show videos, shouldn’t eat brownies.”

“Oh, that one. Yes, that’s a good one. Not as good as, “A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips” though.”

God help me, I almost gave in and laughed. “I see your point, but my favorite has always been. “Get lower in your horse-stance, Mark, we’re not standing around waiting for the bus.”

Mark winced. “I remember that one. My favorite one is, “Pain is just weakness leaving the body.”

“I kind of like, “If it isn’t hurting, you’re not doing it right!”

Jake interrupted our banter. “Abby, do you have any plans for making your treatment for clogged arteries available to hospitals?”

Everyone’s ears perked up at this like of questioning, dad most of all. He knew I couldn’t, but he was curious to see how I’d get out of it. “Not at all, Jake. It would be a waste of time to even try.”

That wasn’t the answer he was expecting and it took him a second to regroup. “Why would that be? I looked it up while you were fixing Harry up. Arterial disease is the direct cause of millions of deaths worldwide every year. You could save so many lives.”

“There are several reasons. First, as a non-medical professional, anything I bring to the table would be ignored. Add in my age and I wouldn’t even get a meeting to explain about the treatment. Second, my treatment is based on existing Eastern medicine techniques. This creates two problems. Problem one is that most people who practice Western medicine discount Eastern medicine and problem two is that as part of established art it can’t be patented and so pharmaceutical companies can’t make money from it. In fact, it would hurt their current sales of drugs directed at the same market. You might think that this is trivial, but it’s not. If big pharma wants to kill a treatment, there will be dozens of papers out within three months questioning everything about the new treatment and positing that it probably causes cancer as it cures your heart problem. Another issue is that of time. Even if I could get someone to listen to me and even if pharma didn’t come down on me like a ton of bricks, the treatment would still have to make it through the FDA and all of it’s trials. That could take over ten years and cost upwards of a hundred million dollars. With all that there’s still only slim chance of it passing all their trials. I have better things to do with my life than beat my head against a brick wall and thank them for the pleasure of using their wall.”

“Harry, how accurate is what she’s telling me? It not really that bad, is it?”

“If anything, she’s underselling the difficulties. She left out that my situation is rare. Most people would have gotten the surgical treatment and been fine. That means that she’d have to put her treatment up against existing techniques that have been around in some fashion for over a hundred years. To make matters worse, she’s not even allowed to do what she just did for me. Medical treatments can only be performed by licensed medical personnel. She might get away with selling it as a new-age ‘healing’ technique if she adds in some crystals. However, I do agree with you Jake. Saving millions of people every year would be worth the effort and I’d be glad to help get Abby into meetings with key people that can make it happen.”

“I know you would, Harry, but there is one final problem. What you saw me do was only the finishing touches on the main ingredient. That ingredient is extremely rare and all efforts to synthesize it have failed. You’re looking at saving maybe a few hundred people per year, if you used all of the available stock before it went bad. It has a short shelf-life.”

“Damn! That’s frustrating and depressing.”

“You don’t know the half of it, Jake. My cancer treatment is even harder to produce.”