The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1016 by Angharad Copyright © 2010 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

The next morning I’d only got home from taking the girls to school when the phone rang, I picked it up and carried it into the kitchen where I continued nuking the mug of milk to which I was going to add some coffee in a moment.

“Hello?”

“Cathy?” said a male voice.

“Yes, who’s that?”

“Sam Rose.”

“How’s my favourite paediatrician this morning?”

“Well, and you?”

“I’m fine thanks.” I poured in a small amount of Tom’s sticky brown fluid and stirred the milky mess.

“I hear you met a colleague of mine and sorted out his whiplash.”

“That wouldn’t be Dr Weathercock, would it?”

“I suspect that just about sums him up, but he tells me you’ve been performing miracles on his patients.”

“He didn’t tell you who it was then?”

“No–only someone who’d had a stroke and who’d been visited by their daughter and seemed to make magical progress by the next day both physically and mentally.”

“She’s Julie’s mother.”

“Oh.”

“It’s gone quiet.” I remarked because it had.

“Sorry, I was of the opinion that she was the equivalent of the wicked witch of the west, and you’re making her better?”

“I go where the healing energy leads me, and I try to be non-judgemental about it.”

“Okay, I was being judgemental, I apologise.”

“I wondered if I most wanted to strangle her or help her, the question was answered for me. I saw into her past and realised it had much to say about her present.”

“It does for all of us; bad experiences can have negative outcomes in later life.”

“Yes, whereas positive ones don’t usually.”

“They can to some extent, they used to say you can’t praise children too much–well I think you can. I have had in the last couple of years two housemen who I suspect might have been praised too much by their mothers–they were both useless and very lazy. I was glad to see the back of them when they went off to do their internship with another specialty–hopefully surgery.”

“Why surgery?”

“Surgeons tend not to tolerate anything they haven’t arranged, they are control freaks–in the nicest possible way, they don’t like finding lumps and things they weren’t expecting or have bleeds that shouldn’t happen. Theatre is a bit like a restaurant kitchen and tempers get frayed. Those lazy youngsters might learn a bit about themselves in a hot theatre while being encouraged by the consultant to go and take a running jump.”

“I see, and all done in fluent old English.”

“You’ve been there?”

“Only as the main attraction.”

“Pity–but back to business, I have spoken with Dr Wetherspoon and impressed upon him the need for his silence in the matter of Julie’s mother and his neck–he said you’d make it ten times worse if he said a peep about it.”

“Oh did I? I can’t remember that, but it might have happened.”

“I just thought I’d let you know, he was really pleased with his own cure, apparently it’s been a nuisance for some time.”

“Oh good; I like a satisfied customer.”

“If you’ve got some spare energy–I have one or two very sick children who could do with your magical touch.”

“I said I wasn’t going to do any more.”

“I know, but these kids are really nice and they don’t deserve the lot fate has handed them.”

“It doesn’t always work.”

“Neither does my stuff.”

“Will you be there this evening?”

“I could be, what time?”

“After seven.”

“See you then.”

“Sam...”

“Yes?”

“If it does work, the parents must say nothing.”

“If you can give them back their children, I think they’ll agree to anything.”

“Dress it up as if it was a new treatment, not a miracle.”

“Okay–I’ll tell them a little white lie.”

“What have you told them so far?”

“Nothing, except I can’t do anymore.”

“I’ll leave it with you then.”

“Yeah, seven o’clock.”

“I’ll be there.”

I hate to see children suffer, it’s bad enough seeing adults in trouble–but I didn’t want to fail, having perhaps given either the kids or their parents a false hope. I mean, the whole idea is still ludicrous to me–it’s impossible under the rules of science as I know them. I know we’re full of static electricity and electromagnetic stuff but being able to focus it to do certain things seems bizarre–but that’s what I think happens.

When we arrived at the hospital, I sent Julie to go and see Maureen and see what she could do on her own.

“What, like by myself?”

“That’s usually what going on your own means.”

“But I can’t.”

“How do you know?”

“I like, just do.”

“Go and try, you might be pleasantly surprised.” I hugged her and went off to meet with Sam Rose in the children’s ward. I love kids but seeing sick ones always makes me feel so helpless for them.

“Cathy, good to see you again.” He embraced me and kissed me on the cheek, then winked as he stepped back.

“Nice to see you again, Sam.”

“We have two children I’d like you to try and help, one has an inoperable brain tumour, the other AML which isn’t responding to our treatment. The parents are here because if you can’t help–the kids won’t last more than a day or two.”

“No pressure then?” I threw back at him.

“Sorry, but you are their last hope and I’ve warned the parents that what we’re going to try is controversial, and very likely won’t help, but it just might. They want you to go for it.”

“What about the children?”

“I told them there was a very beautiful lady coming to see them to try and make them better.”

“Better tell she couldn’t come–I’m here instead.”

“Cathy, never put yourself down. You are a gorgeous and very lovely woman with a talent given to very few.”

“Nah, I can teach most people to count dormice.”

“This is serious,” he said looking at me.

“I know–okay, let’s do it.”

I met the young lady with AML first, bone transplants hadn’t worked, nor had the chemo. I sat and talked with her while her parents went for a coffee and a walk. Her name was Susie, and she was seven.

“Are you really a lady?” she asked me.

“Do I look like a man?” I replied wondering if she’d seen through me.

“No, silly, I mean, Dr Sam said you were lady someone or other.”

“Oh did he? Yes I am Lady Catherine, but you can call me Cathy, because all my friends do.”

“I’d like that, Cathy. Gosh, your hand feels very cold.”

“Does it?”

She nodded and I watched her slowly close her eyes and drift off to sleep. For a moment I thought the energy was releasing her from her body, until I saw her chest continue to rise and fall. My eyes were bleary with tears–why does this have to happen to such innocents? It seems so unfair.

I shook myself–compassion but no involvement. Treat this like a job, and do it as well as you can. I imagined myself able to see inside her body and also able to differentiate between good and bad cells. The former I nurtured, the latter I zapped with a blue laser. Apparently, I spent an hour with her, after which she seemed to wake up and smiled at me.

“You’re not a lady are you?”

“I thought we’d agreed I was?”

“You’re an angel, really, aren’t you?”

“Am I?”

“Yes, while I was asleep, I saw you flying with other angels to fight my leukaemia.”

“Did you now?”

“Yes.”

“Can we keep it our little secret? Because if anyone else finds out, I might not be allowed here again.”

“ ’Kay,” she smiled at me.

“Okay, Susie, you might feel a bit yucky later, but tomorrow you will start to get better.”

“Will you come and see me again, Cathy?”

“No, I’m only allowed one visit.”

“That’s sad.”

“It’s the rules, I’m afraid. Now, sleep and feel better tomorrow.”

“ ’Kay,” she said sleepily and yawned. I left her to sleep and avoided her parents by a few seconds.

The next child was a toddler, a child of three years and a few weeks, who had developed some rare sort of tumour of the brain. They had tried chemo and radiotherapy, but being so young, they couldn’t really blast it with either without killing him or damaging his heart so badly he’d die anyway.

He was sedated because of the pain he was usually in. His parents were asked to go for a coffee while I worked. It seemed the best thing to avoid contact with them, because if it didn’t work, we would each feel less upset with the other. To see desperate parents is something that wrenches even the most hardened heart almost as much as the sick children.

Sam came in with me. “If you can’t do anything, I don’t think this little mite will be with us this time tomorrow.”

“Sam, please.” I felt tears fill my eyes.

“Give it your best shot, Cathy.”

I nodded, too choked to even speak.

I looked at the little boy in front of me, he was on a drip, but I managed to lift him and cuddle him as I’m sure his parents did. I wanted to surround him in blue cotton wool and hug him.

Although sleeping, he snuggled into me and I sat nursing him, my hand holding his resting head as he lay cuddled into me. I felt the energy surrounding the two of us–a new experience, and was it a good or a bad thing? Was this little guy going to make it, or was it helping me to ease his last hours?

I almost felt it was doing the latter and I found myself pleading with it to give him a chance at life. Okay, I was getting involved, and I know thousands of kids his age die every day, especially in the third world. But I’d been involved, and I wasn’t going to walk away from it without a fight.

I became angry with the energy–how dare it use me without any say from me? If it wanted my help, it had to help me. Save this child and I’d be more amenable to doing what it wanted in future.

I felt something at my heart, like it was a hand squeezing tighter and tighter. I felt dizzy and sweaty and I could hardly breathe. I realised if I let the child go, I’d feel better again, as if the energy was bluffing me–him or me.

I clung onto the child with the last ounce of strength I could find, if the Grim Reaper was coming, he’d have to snatch this child from my arms, and I was holding on tight. I could feel everything becoming distant and I fell back, still clutching the baby as everything went black.