Apparently, Nathan went straight to the hospital to get a new scan and Sister Clara received a very rude call from one Dr. Sinclair expressing how unprofessional it was to offer diagnoses using untested equipment and that Sister Clara had scared a patient half to death based on ‘quack science’. He was livid and threatened to report her conduct to the appropriate medical body and get her license revoked. She asked him if he had done a new scan and he refused to allow it. It was a waste of the hospital’s limited resources.
As Sister Clara worked to calm her nerves from the Dr. Sinclair’s abuse, I called Pierce and explained the situation. Pierce was very aware of Dr. Sinclair and his ego and found another doctor to order the imaging to be done. I told Pierce that if Dr. Sinclair raised the issue of limited resources again, then I’d be happy to pay for the scan myself.
A tense hour later, Pierce called to tell us that their scan had confirmed the small lump of lung cancer and that Nathan had been admitted to the hospital. Surgery was being scheduled for the day after tomorrow. Catching the cancer so early meant that the chances of a full recovery were very high and Pierce thought that our scan had probably saved his life. He also filed a complaint with the hospital on Sister Clara’s behalf about Dr. Sinclair. When Sister Clara tried to get him to revoke it, Pierce explained that Dr. Sinclair’s abusive attitude had been going on for far too long and that without Sister Clara’s complaint, he would continue to belittle and abuse other nurses. His closed mindedness could also have ended up killing Nathan. Reluctantly, Sister Clara allowed the complaint to stand.
As usual, solving one problem opened the door to another. Kind of like no good deed goes unpunished. Nathan left the hospital a week later and stopped by to thank Sister Clara. The cancer had been completely removed and he only needed to occasionally verify that it wasn’t coming back. He praised her for her foresight in trying out the new technology and he told her that he’d given a full account of his experiences to the other guys on the force and to his union rep. They all loved the idea of a five minute scan that you couldn’t even feel and the union rep was going to work with their insurance company to see if they could get everyone’s scans paid for by the insurance.
That led to a whole new round of testing with the insurance company and to negotiations for the price of each scan. Before I knew it, my first week of Spring Break was totally booked with scanning hundreds of police officers and Sister Clara’s budget was secured for the next six months. It wasn’t all bad. I did get to meet a lot of…uhm…very physically appealing men and it gave me time to regret that I hadn’t required the scans to be shirtless. I also felt like I was doing something to give back to the people who put their lives on the line to protect the public.
While the scans didn’t turn up many full blown cancers, it did turn up a few in the early stages that were dealt with at the hospital. Thanks to ‘my friend’ having downloaded some software updates that could detect new diseases, I was able to diagnose over twenty officers with various stages of coronary artery disease, three with hepatitis, and one with a slightly inflamed appendix.
I drew the line at giving up my second week of Spring Break. I needed some downtime and Rose had called a few weeks ago and explained in no uncertain terms that I had to come gemstone mining with them again this year. I tried to get out of it only to receive a call from Jake five minutes afterwards.
“Abby.” He said my name with a sigh and I knew why he was calling.
“Don’t you Abby me, Jake. I’m tired. I need a break. I worked through my summer last year and then through Christmas and now half of my Spring Break. When I get tired, I get cranky and angry. Don’t make me angry, Jake. You won’t like me when I’m angry.”
“I don’t know about that, Abby. I think that green would suit you just fine. Not sure if the boys would appreciate all those muscles though. It might intimidate them.”
“Nah. Strong women are all the rage these days.”
“So you identify as the Hulk. What are your pronouns? Me and Smash?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. I tried not to, but the idea of old school Jake asking me for my Hulk pronouns was just too funny.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Ah good. Now that you’re not angry, how about you make me a hero with my granddaughter and come on out for some gemstone mining with me and the grandkids? I’ll make sure to ride herd on them and keep them in line. It’s your fault really. You did such an impressive job helping Rose and Connor with finding gems last year that now all of their cousins are clamoring to come this year.”
“Wait a second. How many kids are we talking about? I thought it was just Mark, Connor and Rose.”
“I have eleven grandkids, Abby.”
“No good deed goes unpunished”, I muttered.
“What was that, Abby?”
“I was just saying how you’re going to owe me big time for this, Jake.”
“I already do, Abby. What’s a little bit more?” He barked out a laugh and we made the arrangements for the last two days of Spring Break. I did manage to squeeze Eva, James and Bobby into the trip, so at least my misery would have some company. I just wasn’t sure how hard the company would laugh at my misery.
Uncle Magnum was the next one to try and take away my hard-earned rest. He’d heard that I wasn’t booked solid this coming week and figured that I’d like to start morning training again with him and Sifu Zhang. Not a chance!
After that call I wrapped my bed in a field and shifted us to L2. Finally, uninterruptible peace and quiet. I slept like the dead for twelve hours straight. Waking up completely relaxed for the first time in months I shifted myself, and the bed, back to reality and started my day of relaxation. That lasted five minutes as I realized that dad could have come in anytime during the night and noticed that both me and my bed were missing. Me I could explain. The bed, not so much. That led me to thinking about setting up a room for myself in L2 and packing it with all sorts of things that I might need if I were to stay there for a long period of time. Food and water were at the top of the list, along with a bed. Clothes, books, cooking stuff, a generator, a computer? This was starting to feel like work and I gave up the list. I’d just get a bed for L2 and some snacks. I wondered if I could use my bitcoin for that.
An hour later, I was on my way to Eva’s house. I took my bike, since no one knew about my truck. I’d been using the truck for almost a year now and I always made sure to keep my bike in the back so that I could lean it against a wall somewhere and no one would question how I got there.
Eva finished her ‘Boot Camp’ just as I arrived and I waited for her to shower before telling her of our plans.
“So what’s the plan for today?”, she asked as she dried her hair.
“Today, we set out to help the course of true love!” Melodramatic, but essentially accurate.
“You’re in love? Does Bobby know?”
“No! Not me. Uncle Magnum and Maggie. They’re the ones who are in love and we need to help them move things along.”
“What’s the rush?”
“You’ve met Uncle Magnum. How long do you think that he can keep up the whole dashing Kung Fu Master routine before Maggie gets tired of his references to the 80’s? We need to help him seal the deal and get her to the alter before she gets tired of him.”
“You have a very skewed version of true love.”
“Fine! I found a shiny yellow diamond last summer and I think it would be perfect if Uncle Magnum were to give it to Maggie as an engagement ring. I think it would be fun to go to a few jewelry stores and check out settings. We also need to drop off the diamond at the gem cutter’s place and suggest the type of cut we want.”
“Abby. Next time, start with that. I’m all for spending the day looking at jewelry. Besides, it’ll freak James out when he finds out about it.” An evil smile twister her face and she gave out a maniacal laugh. “Mwahahaha!”
I gave her the facepalm that she so richly deserved and we set off for our day of looking at shiny things. Under the cover story of ‘helping my uncle’ choose a setting for an engagement ring, which was kind of true, Eva and I wasted salespeople’s time at three jewelry stores before we found a setting that we were happy with and I took pictures of it to ‘show my uncle’. The pictures were really for one of my artist friends who made stunning jewelry. She would take the picture and use it to create something more spectacular. The best part about it was that she accepted Bitcoin.
With the setting contracted for and the diamond safely in the gem cutter’s hands, Eva and I met up with James and Bobby at Big Julie’s Pizzeria. As Eva had predicted, her mention of the jewelry store outings made James take a sudden interest in the contents of his backpack and he only returned to the conversation once we had safely moved on to another topic of conversation. I wondered what was causing his discomfort and I made a mental note to ask him about it.
Just before the pizza arrived, I remembered to invite them all on the gemstone mining trip and the conversation quickly turned to last year’s trip and Eva showed off her necklace with the peridot pendant on it. She explained to Bobby how she found the peridot, with a little help from my field scan, during our gemstone mining trip last year. With the visible fruits of last year’s labor in front of them and the knowledge that I’d set up my foundation using the funds from selling off the gemstones that I’d found last year, everyone jumped at the chance to try their luck. When I mentioned that we’d be spending two days in the company of Jake’s eleven grandchildren, most of whom were under the fourteen years old, some of their enthusiasm died.