Author: Greg Didaleusky

Chapter One

A soft glowing ivory light is illuminating from the entire ceiling of this cube-shaped sterile-white room. Each of the room’s dimensions, width, length, and height, appears to be about twelve feet. Where are the windows to let in the sunshine, the celestial light which has been present since the first organism and plant needed its nurturing power of life? Absent on the walls are pictures, shelves and electrical outlets. There’s a faint outline of a sliding door on one of the walls. Is this the way out of the tomb-like room?

In the center of the room is a white, square stone table supported by four round stone legs resting on a white glossy marble floor. On top of the table is a pastel blue, oval-shaped object resembling a football in size and shape. A hammock-shaped silvery metal apparatus is cradling the object. What’s this bluish object?

Wait a minute. The room is getting brighter. Even with my eyes closed, the piercing light is burning my eyeballs. The light is becoming brighter and brighter and brighter....

Adam Stafford’s upper eyelids snapped open to the morning sun’s rays piercing through his bedroom window. He rolled over to his right side. The thirty-nine-year old squinted at a digital clock sitting on the night table next to the bed. In less than a minute, the alarm would be going off at 6:00 A.M. This morning, an unusual vivid dream--a nightmare--had awakened him. He rolled on his back and stared up toward a white stucco ceiling. His thoughts focused on the day laying ahead of him: The eight o’clock weekly pediatric meeting this morning. One of the residents will present a difficult pediatric case, leading to an open discussion and a diagnosis. 

After completing his pediatric residency program eight years ago, he thought his long marathon hours as a resident had ended. He had been fooling himself. Two years later, he accepted the responsibilities and duties as Chief of Pediatric at Ocala Reginal Medical Center. Adam soon found out the prestigious position demanded more of his time and energy than the residency program.  

 “I better get up,” he whispered 

Adam began his morning ritual of showering with his favorite soap, Irish Spring, and shaving with an electric razor. He put on his work clothes on: White dress shirt with a Mickey Mouse blue tie, dark-blue slacks and white tennis shoes. He went to the kitchen and poured himself a cup of coffee, retrieved a bowl and a box of cereal from the cupboard, milk from the refrigerator and sat to enjoy his usual morning nourishment.

Adam’s mind pondered on Arius Turner, a twelve-year-old patient who was admitted by one of his pediatric residents three days earlier through the emergency room. The patient had a three-week history of a persistently elevated temperature. His parents, Howard and Patricia Turner, told the resident their son’s temperature had ranged from one-hundred and one to a hundred- and three-degrees Fahrenheit for three weeks. Arius didn’t have any medical complaints. All preliminary testing had been normal. Adam had a “gut” feeling Arius had something unusual, a rare medical illness causing his fever.

During Adam’s residency at University of Florida Pediatric Residency Program, he had the reputation of looking further into symptoms and signs of an illness. When a patient’s medical condition appeared to be a clear and common diagnosis to his colleagues and mentors, he would prove them wrong by diagnosing an unexpected, and sometimes rare, medical condition or disease. The other doctors had been listening for the common gallop of a horse, but Adam had heard the rare hoof sounds of a Zebra.

He looked at the digital watch on his right wrist: 6:45 A.M. It was time to leave for the hospital. He walked into the living room of his two-bedroom ranch condominium. The house was meticulously neat and clean--not the typical condition of a bachelor’s residence.

After about thirty minutes of driving, he pulled off I-75 and turned east onto 200^th Street. Several minutes later, the hospital came into view to his right. The hospital’s tall, white, U-shaped structure towered majestically above the moderately treed surroundings.

After parking in the hospital’s parking structure, he entered the hospital and stepped into the elevator. He rode the elevator to the sixth floor. The elevator door opened, and Adam stepped out onto the pediatric floor. Physician Assistant Scott Templeton stood behind the nursing station, looking down at a chart. “Hi, Scott. I’m sure all the residents are waiting for us in the conference room.”

He glanced up. “Good morning. You’re right. We don’t want to keep them waiting.”

 A few moments later, Adam opened the conference room’s door. In front of him, in the center of the room, was a long, rectangular, highly glossed, mahogany table. On each side of the table were three pediatric residents sitting in their cushioned captain chairs. The chairs were spaced far enough apart allowing its occupants plenty of elbowroom. At each end of the table was an unoccupied chair, the chair to the left was Adam’s, the other chair was for Scott.	

Two of the three residents on the left side of the table, who were first-year residents, had solemn appearing expressions. While the residents on the right side of the table and the one sitting next to the two first-year residents, smirked at Adam. 

Adam stood in the doorway shaking his head back and forth. A serious expression emerged across his face. Looking straight across the table, he glared back and forth at the two first-year residents. “What a motley appearing group we have at this table. I hope you all brought your questions for this important staff meeting. I wouldn’t want to expel anyone from the residency program.” 

The first-year residents looked at other baffled by Adam’s austere statement. “No one told us about having questions to ask,” said one of them. “What were we--?”	

“Loosen up,” interrupted Adam. “I’m kidding.” The other residents laughed, causing the two, naive, first-year residents to roll their eyes upward in embarrassment. 

The meeting lasted about an hour. Adam pushed his chair back, stood up and said in a firm, authoritative voice, “Our monthly medical meeting is now adjourned.” 

His cellphone went off, indicating there was a text message He removed the cellphone from a holster attached to his belt. Adam retrieved the message, which read:

URGENT...REGARDS TO ARIUS TURNER...DR. WALKER. 

Dr. Walker was the hospital’s chief hematologist.

Adam told Scott to start the pediatric rounds with the residents and that he’d catch up with them later. 

Adam walked into the hematology lab. His vision encountered several apparatuses: some of them were blinking an array of white, green and red lights, while others displayed a series of changing numbers. Several monitors displayed wavy or pointed lines in a graphic pattern. Lab technicians sat in front of sterile-white counter tops with their eyes pressed against the lens of a microscope. In his mind, Adam visualized the technicians were viewing a world of bizarre looking microscopic organisms and structures. The sounds heard inside the room were the mixture of various hums and whining sounds coming from the laboratory apparatuses. Turning his head to the left, he saw Dr. Walker, who was about twenty feet away, standing next to a blood analysis machine. The machine had three small computer screens; the screens were about six inches square and displayed a series of constant changing numbers. The middle-aged hematologist was wearing a long, white lab coat, the coat hung neatly on his short and overweight stature. His sideward profile accentuated a long broad nose and an extra fold of skin below his chin. Streaks of grey hair highlighted his temples, as a six-inch ponytail hung down passed his shoulders.

“Good morning, Dr. Walker.” 	

“Dr. Stafford. I’m glad you received my message. There’s something astonishing I found on your patient, Arius Turner. Something unheard of in medical science.” There was excitement in his voice. “This young boy has immunity to HIV. His CD4 count is twenty-two hundred. Normal high is fifteen hundred. His HIV viral load is undetectable. He has either has natural immunity or received a vaccine. But that’s not all. He has immunity to Hepatitis C. His viral load is undetectable and there isn’t evidence of any active disease. So, Arius Turner either has natural immunity or was given a vaccine. All this indicates our patient has a supercharged immune system. From what I can see from all of this, he’d be able to resist any deadly virulent viral and bacterial pathogens.”

Adam stood there in complete awe. He felt like his body had walked out of a walk-in freezer. He reached up and rubbed the back of his neck, which brought warmth back into his psychologically frozen body. “Are you sure of the results? Maybe there was an error in your blood analysis?”

“I’ve rechecked every test to make sure there wasn’t an error in the technique. There are no doubts in the results of the blood tests.” 	

“How can his immune system resist all of those devastating pathogens?”

“We may be seeing a genetic aberration. I can’t say with any certainty this is what we’re seeing with your patient. We’ll need to look at his DNA for the possible answer to his unnatural immunity.”

“I’ll call Dr. Frank in the genetics department,” said Adam.

“If you like. You can use the phone in my office to call him?”

“Thank you very much. But I don’t want to take you away from what you were doing.”

“No problem. I’m anxious to know what this twelve-year-old boy’s genetic make-up is all about.”

Adam followed Dr. Walker into his office and called Dr. Sidney Frank. 

Adam gave the geneticist a detailed scenario of Arius Turner and the results of his lab test.

“Yes, Dr. Frank. I can have his chart sent up to you with all the blood results.” He looked at his watch. “That’ll be okay with me. I’ll see you round three o’clock.” Adam hung up the phone.

“It’ll be important to check the parents’ blood,” said Dr. Walker. “They also may have a similar immunity system?”	

“I’ll be sure to discuss this matter with them today.” He shook Dr. Walker’s hand, then walked briskly out of the hematology department.

Adam glanced down at his watch: 11:45 A.M. It was almost lunchtime for the patients on the pediatric floor. Howard and Patricia Turner will probably be in Arius’s room. This would be the ideal time to question them. 

As the elevated reached the sixth floor, he heard muffled voices. The elevator door opened. 

No one was there.