Ch 553 – A Question of Credentials

A case like Keira's only came along once in a doctor's career, so everyone wanted to be the one to find the breakthrough that would save her life.

Medicine isn't a game, Sophie thought, frowning at Alex. And I don't trust this charlatan with my patient.

Her objections to his involvement were shared by her colleagues, and the other doctors in the room were suspicious of the mysterious young man.

Alex smiled, and before Holly could speak, he addressed Sophie directly.

"I don't have a medical degree," he said, shrugging. "I've never even been to medical school. Actually, I'm not a doctor; I'm a martial artist. A warrior."

There was an immediate uproar.

"You're not qualified to see our patient!"

"What makes you so certain you can find something we've missed?"

Sophie was astonished. "Is this a joke?" she asked Alex, scowling at him. "You're wasting our time and putting our patient at risk."

Then she turned to Holly. "Mrs. Lambert, this man could kill your daughter. You could get a paramedic in here—a veterinarian, even—and that would make more sense than letting this man treat her. At least they would have a background in medicine rather than in beating people up. How could you possibly approve of this? It makes a mockery of the entire medical profession."

The other doctors nodded. Keira's treatment was a huge investment in time, money, and equipment. They had turned the Lambert home into a medical facility for a single patient, and this scruffy boy expected to succeed where they could not. His arrogance and ignorance were an insult to their training and experience.

Holly and Jesse frowned, but they didn't interfere. They were waiting to see how Alex would handle the resistance from Sophie and the other doctors.

"Fine," Sophie said, taking a breath and forcing herself to calm down. "Okay, genius. Let's walk you through our treatment plan. With your vast expertise, maybe you'll see something we've missed. But if you can't keep up, just admit you're a fraud and let us treat her with actual science."

She grabbed a tablet from the pocket of her lab coat. "We're still working on a diagnosis, but we've already begun a drug regimen to treat the symptoms before we determine whether she needs surgery or not." She held up the tablet and shook it at him. "Would you like to begin?"

"No," Alex said, beginning to lose his temper with her. "That won't be necessary. I'm sure you're probably recommending something like a course of steroids and diuretics to get more oxygen into her blood, and blood thinners because you're worried about her not getting enough blood to her brain." He fixed her with a pointed look. "But you have to get the bleeding in her brain under control first, or you'll kill her faster."

Sophie's jaw dropped. "How could you know that?" He had barely glanced at the tablet in her hand, and he wasn't anywhere near the conference table covered in their notes and files.

"Her MRI scan is right there," he said, pointing at the screens. "To make things worse, you're working against the clock to complete three steps at the same time." He counted them off on his fingers. "You have to stop the bleeding, fight the ischemia before part or all of her brain dies, and deal with whatever other systems the poison has managed to disrupt. And the whole time, you'll be praying she doesn't have a stroke, which she almost definitely will because the blood vessels are probably weakening progressively in more than one place. You're looking at the hematoma as an isolated incident, but with no head trauma or preexisting conditions, there are certainly more of them hiding in there, and they're all little time bombs waiting to go off."

Sophie gaped at him.

"The problem is that the more time you spend fighting the symptoms, the lower her chances of ever waking up," he continued. "You might save her life, but she'd never open her eyes again."

Sophie went pale and clutched her tablet to her chest. "Impossible," she muttered. "How can you know that?"

The other doctors stood with their mouths open. No one could seem to find their voice.

"What you're prescribing is just going to keep the machine working for a while," Alex said. "But you're only prolonging the inevitable."

Sophie looked away. She wanted to argue, but she didn't know what to say.

"You have all this training, but you forgot to keep an open mind," Alex pointed out. "You reject everything that doesn't fit your established point of view." He paused. "You know what I see?"

He looked around the room and pointed at one of the doctors. "You have nightly stomach pain, and your lower back always hurts when you sit down. You're treating them as unrelated issues, but they're not. You have a nerve impingement that's causing both."

He turned his gaze to the next person. "You have Parkinson's. Your dopamine levels are all over the place," he said before moving on to the next person. "You get night sweats, but you've convinced yourself that all you need is a new air conditioner. But what you actually have is an infection in your left femur, and you need to seek treatment for it as soon as possible."

His gaze settled on Sophie. "And then there's you."

Despite herself, Sophie held her breath, but he just smiled.

"You're in perfect health," he said, grinning. "You just don't like me very much." He turned to Holly and Jesse. "Can I see Keira now, please?"

Holly nodded and led him upstairs. Cowed into sullen silence, the medical team trailed behind them. They were ashamed and angry, but they were also curious.

Keira's room was dominated by her hospital bed and the bank of machines that monitored her vitals. Her skin was pale, her lips were tinged with blue, and her breathing was shallow and irregular. Holly sat on the bed and took her daughter's hand.

"Alex," she whispered. "Please help her." She had seen what she had needed to see downstairs. Any doubts she might have had about him had been forgotten.

Alex nodded and stepped forward, taking Keira's other hand and closing his eyes. He reached for her essence and watched it move through her body. It was sluggish everywhere, but nowhere more so than her central nervous system. He could tell that Sophie's treatment would not save Keira's life. It might extend it, but not for very long. Keira was dying.

"Alex, how is she?" Holly asked, not looking away from Keira's face. "Can you wake her up?" She affectionately smoothed a lock of her daughter's hair from her forehead.

Alex turned his head and smiled gently. "Yes," he said. "I can."