“I’m staying right here.” Denise hugged Harry.
Once outside the building, Harry stopped, breathed deeply. Spring’s signature fragrances filled her. An Appalachian spring assaults all the senses. This spring seemed more vivid than any other, or perhaps she appreciated it more.
At ten in the morning, the mercury reached sixty-two degrees, low humidity, the air a touch cool, with a light breeze. It couldn’t have been more perfect.
The Volvo sat in the crowded parking lot, the windows down two inches because the kids had hitched a ride. No matter how she tried to keep Tucker in the house, the intrepid dog found a way out, only to blaze down the driveway, barking furiously. Once she’d picked up the corgi, all thirty pounds of her, she’d usually turn back to fetch the cats. If Tucker got to ride and they didn’t, destruction followed.
Walking toward her, Annalise Veronese waved. “Good morning.”
“Hey, how are you?”
“Good. Just attended an incredible lecture sponsored by the Virginia Historical Society about the medical advances springing from the War Between the States.”
“Annalise, since when did you start calling it the War Between the States? I thought you were born and raised in Vermont.”
Annalise laughed. “Yes, I was, but I’ve lived here long enough to watch my P’s and Q’s. Say, how do you feel after that workout with Noddy?”
“Pretty good.” Harry then added, “But you were right about the second day. I feel muscles I’ve never felt before.”
“If you stick with her program, she’ll keep mixing it up so you don’t get bored, and you’ll be super-fit. How’s everything else?”
“Just had my first mammogram after my surgery, and I’m fine.”
“That is wonderful news. You must be a fast healer, too. I was surprised you could do the push-ups and stuff,” Annalise complimented her. “You’ll beat it.”
“Thank you.” Then Harry informed her, “Susan makes a paste, I have no idea what’s in it, for the horses. Heals up flesh wounds so fast I used it on myself. I keep asking Susan what’s in it, and she says it’s a family secret. I hope it doesn’t have mouse droppings in it.”
“Harry, you’d know.”
They both laughed. “If you ever want to attend any of the special medical lectures, like today’s, let me know. As I recall, you like reading history.”
“I do. Regina was telling me she has to put in seventy hours each year to keep her license current. Is it the same for you? I thought perhaps not.”
“Same. You’d be surprised at how much there is to do in pathology to keep current. All of medicine is changing so rapidly, thanks to the technological advances. Harry, something as simple as pollen—now, I’m not a forensic pathologist, as you know, but if there is pollen in the nostrils or lungs of a corpse, it’s possible to trace where that person had been. Often murder victims’ bodies are not left at the murder site. It fascinates me. I know people think we cut open dead bodies and that’s about it, but some of the biggest advances in medicine come from pathologists.” She held up her hand and smiled. “You’re on the end of an unasked-for lecture, but I am so passionate about what I do. Karl Landsteiner, who was born in Vienna in 1868, a pathologist, was the first doctor to distinguish between different blood types. Do you know how many lives have been saved by that once we knew how to perform transfusions?”
“No. I know so little about any kind of medicine.”
“It’s one big detective story. I’m going up there now to perform an autopsy on a twelve-year-old who died of a brain tumor. I’ve asked Cory and Jennifer to attend. We are seeing a disturbing uptick in brain tumors in the young. A researcher in Sweden reports that anyone using a cellphone before age twenty—and that’s everyone, and they use them nonstop—that individual has a four to five times greater chance over a nonuser of developing a brain tumor. University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute researchers report an increase in brain tumors in Americans under thirty. No warning about the dangers! The cellphone industry is at stake, and until the public demands changes, nothing will be done. In fact, it will be denied. Same with computers. We know they cause certain types of health damage, the eyes being the most obvious. Billions in revenue could be lost, so what’s life compared to profit? Sometimes I wonder how long it will take for citizens to realize we have poisoned ourselves. Even plastics aren’t as safe as you think. Every day I see the damage from all forms of pollution, from the chemicals—even from antibiotics in the meat we eat, to say nothing of hormones, which are even worse. We’re awash in chemicals. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death. Right? It’s not all from smoking, Harry. It’s the great American way: Blame the victim.”
“I don’t know why we’re like that,” Harry puzzled.
“It’s the very air we breathe, and it’s a result of those polluting industries belching out filth. I see what these substances do to the human body. Year after year, I see the man-made damage.”
“Annalise, a lot of that has been cleaned up.”
“Harry.” Annalise reached out to her. “A lot hasn’t. What’s worse, we don’t really know the life span of those particles released in, say, 1937. I didn’t mean to take up your time, but I so care. I try not to let emotions affect me when I do my job, but I can tell you, looking at a twelve-year-old will affect me. Then I have to put it out of my mind and go to work. Maybe I can contribute something that will repair damage, slow injury, retard aging. I won’t contribute on the level of Dr. Landsteiner, but I can do something to help.”
“It’s good you’re passionate about your work. If people love their work, they’re happy. We spend more time with our co-workers than we do with our families, most people.” Harry mentally exempted herself, since she farmed.
Annalise touched Harry’s hand. “You’ve been patient with me. Thanks. I can go a little over the top, but I see—literally—so much unnecessary damage to the human body, and I know there are many things that can be done to enrich life, to ease suffering. Our government—I don’t care who’s in charge—is bought off by the lobbies. If it threatens profits, forget it. The real threat to public health, apart from government, is the intertwining of the pharmaceutical giants and medicine.”
“Things like stem cell treatments? Sure works for horses.”
“That’s not a result of pharmaceutical research. The problem there is it’s a religious issue for some. A small but powerful group of anti-anything activists can hijack government and medicine. And they have. Your husband can perform treatments as a vet that I cannot. Until recently, hospitals didn’t even allow acupuncture. Now there’s evidence it releases enzymes that help to blunt pain, to heal. Human growth hormone, another substance produced by the body, drops off after age twenty-five, and if I could give it to people according to their age, I truly believe we could prevent aging. Aging is a disease. But here I am, one physician in central Virginia, no powerful friends, lacking great wealth. Who will listen to me?”
“I am.”
Annalise smiled broadly. “So you have. I guess I needed to let it all out. Too much going on.”
“Always is.”
Annalise spontaneously leaned over and kissed Harry on the cheek. Then she headed for the hospital.
As Harry climbed into the Volvo, she saw Cory walking through the parking lot. He jogged to catch up to Annalise, and they walked to the entrance together.
Three faces looked up at Harry, whiskers forward in anticipation.
“I thought she’d never shut up,” Pewter moaned.
“Gang, I am so naïve. What have I been doing all my life?”
“You were the postmistress of Crozet before they built the big post office,” Tucker said. “You were the best postmistress in the world.”
“Don’t gild the lily, Tucker.” Pewter lifted one dark gray eyebrow.
“She was.”
“That means you’ve worked with other postmistresses,” Pewter argued.
“Miranda.” The dog named Harr
y’s friend, who had worked with her.
Miranda Hogendobber’s husband, George, had been the postmaster for decades. When he passed away, Harry, fresh from Smith College, had fallen into the job, assuming it would be temporary.
When the new post office was built—quite a nice one, and much needed—she was told she couldn’t bring her pets to work. No one much cared at the old, cozy PO. Furious, Harry resigned to take up farming full-time. Much as she missed that regular paycheck, she’d never regretted it.
Harry’s eyes followed the two doctors, engaged in an animated conversation. Then Cory pushed open the large glass door for Annalise, and they disappeared into the hospital.
Mrs. Murphy jumped into the passenger seat, leaving Pewter and Tucker to fuss at each other in the back.
Absentmindedly, Harry reached over to pet the tiger cat once she’d started the wagon.
“Good news.” Harry ran her forefinger under Mrs. Murphy’s chin.
“Good.” The cat purred.
“All right. We’re off and running. Who knows what else the day will bring.”
The whole thrust of where we are now with cancer surgery,” Cory Schaeffer spoke to Harry’s support group, “is to get survival rates equivalent to those where women have undergone a radical mastectomy. We’ve accomplished that for the early stages of breast cancer.” Sitting on a chair, he crossed his right leg over his left, holding his right ankle. “As many of you know, there is now tissue-targeted therapy, which we’re using with those breast cancers that overexpress ERBB-two. Tremendous advances have been made in tissue-targeted therapy, as well as endocrine therapy. Tests now are far more sensitive than they were even ten years ago. We can use aromatase inhibitors for women, almost always postmenopausal, with hormone receptor–positive breast cancer.” He took a deep breath. “What I do is remove your cancer, then advise treatments based upon the tumor, the stage of the cancer, and your body chemistry. My great hope is that one day we will be able to prevent breast cancer. We will be able to develop a vaccine just as we have for smallpox.”
Tired from her second radiation treatment, Harry listened, but much of it went over her head.
He continued, “An immunologist at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio believes breast cancer is a preventable disease. I do, too. Clinical trials of a vaccine could begin within the next two years. It’s tremendously exciting.”
At ease in front of a group, the handsome doctor forgot that his audience—unless they had the receptor-positive breast cancer or something rare, such as inflammatory breast cancer—might not understand the technical terms.
When Toni Enright asked for questions, many were for clarification.
Franny Howard asked the most interesting question. “Dr. Schaeffer, you mentioned a vaccine. Does that mean you think cancer is a virus?”
“Some cancers, yes. This is an issue often discussed by oncologists. Obviously there are different kinds of cancers, and they may be caused in different ways.”
Now more alert since the discussion was less technical, Harry asked, “If cancer is a virus, then wouldn’t people close to you come down with it?”
“In fact, Harry, they do. We all know of families where cancer runs through all the generations. Is it genetic? Probably, but there has to be something that kicks it off. This disease is so complex, we don’t know. Can you give it to someone else like the common cold? Probably not, but we don’t know. Some oncologists believe when we can cure the common cold, we will cure cancer. One thing that makes cancer work easier for doctors is it isn’t disguised as something else, the way syphilis is.”
Listening intently was Emily Udall, a young woman in Stage Four cancer. She’d been diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer when pregnant. She had delivered a healthy daughter, but her cancer exploded. Emily knew her time on earth was drawing nigh. But she fought on, more for her baby and her husband than for herself. She wanted to make certain she left them in as good an order as possible, but she feared her disease would reappear thirty years later in her beautiful baby girl.
Franny reached for Emily.
Emily put her hand over Franny’s, then removed it and raised it. “Dr. Schaeffer.”
“Emily.” He was her surgeon.
“How early should my daughter begin getting tested?”
If only he didn’t care so much about his patients. Wretched that he couldn’t save Emily, couldn’t save any woman diagnosed with cancer when pregnant, he said, “I’d begin checkups once she gets her period. And mammograms once her breasts develop. With your family history, this is critical, and we can fervently hope that by the time Teresa reaches adolescence, we will be far more advanced than we are today.”
Emily’s grandmothers on both sides of her family had developed breast cancer. Her mother also died from it.
The questions continued, and Cory did his best not to be so technical.
Watching Emily, Harry realized that what Regina and Jennifer told her was the truth: She had been lucky. Bad as it was to be diagnosed with cancer, her chances were excellent. She knew she wasn’t a deep thinker. Her interests weren’t superficial—she loved art history, she loved history, and, of course, she loved farming—but Harry hadn’t considered the giant questions of life. She’d not given much thought to her purpose, to the direction of her nation, to the fragility of both democracy and life. In a strange way, she was becoming grateful to that invader of her breast. How could she sit near an attractive young mother, her chances nil, and not ask profound questions?
Perhaps the most painful was: Am I living a full life? Am I reaching out to others, be they human or animal? Am I doing one thing to make the world a better place?
She snapped back to the group when Cory and Toni agreed to disagree.
“He has more faith in these things than I do. But he’s the doctor.” Toni smiled.
For all his sometimes arrogance, Cory wanted to ease suffering as much as he wanted to cure cancer. “A regimen of vitamins, staying away from too much salt and sugar, and exercise can help. I actually think in some cases faithfully taking care of yourself through diet, supplements, and even walking a mile a day can jump-start the body’s healing.” He became animated. “Your body wants to be healthy. Again, we don’t understand the interplay between good health habits and disease as much as we should. The emphasis in Western medicine is always on disease, not health. We are woefully behind with preventive medicine, but I believe your body wants to live, to be healthy. How can I or any other doctor explain how a person dying of lung cancer spontaneously heals? An X ray reveals no dark mass. And that person lives another twenty years. While these events are considered uncommon and exceptions that prove the rule, I don’t think they are. I think, however, whoever that individual was, they triggered the body’s deepest mechanisms to heal. Sometimes I think we—by ‘we’ I mean modern medicine—interfere with that. And I am the first one to be dazzled by technology. Yet what are we missing? What am I missing?”
Harry never expected Cory to show a streak of humility, to openly question himself. She thought of Annalise’s passionate outburst yesterday. Maybe a sensitive human being can’t work every day with the Emilys of this world and not be touched.
Cory handed everyone a sheet of paper with simple vitamin suggestions based on what type of procedure the woman had undergone, which treatments they were in now.
Harry’s sheet listed a multivitamin, vitamin E, vitamin C, and potassium.
“Harry, I spoke with Jennifer. You had cancer light.” He half smiled, handing her the paper. “So this is my short list, but you might want to speak with her yourself. Noddy told me you’re working out two days a week now. With your farmwork, that’s very positive.”
“Thank you for taking the time to do this for each of us.”
“Half of your group are my patients. I’m delighted they are in this group, and Toni will keep everyone going.”
Harry looked up at him. “There must be times when this is hard on you.”
He wai
ted, then lowered his voice. “It is. I tell myself every woman I see is a legacy. She is teaching me for others, and I truly believe in my lifetime I will see a vaccine or possibly a preventive measure, such as taking a pill every morning if you’re at risk.”
“I hope I live to see it, too.”
“You will,” he confidently predicted.
After her meeting, Harry drove to the GNC store in the mall. She bought each of the vitamins Cory suggested. She now had an arsenal to accompany her Centrum.
When she arrived home, she kissed her pets and carried the small bag into the kitchen.
“No time like the present.” She opened the bottles, grabbed a Coke, and counted out one pill each.
“That’s the smell!” Tucker barked loudly.
“What are you making noise about?” Pewter, miffed that Harry hadn’t brought treats or toys, complained.
“That’s the smell, much stronger, that I smelled on Paula!”
Mrs. Murphy leapt onto the table. She batted over the bottles, then knocked Harry’s pills, like tiny hockey pucks, onto the floor.
“Hey!” Harry quickly grabbed the white plastic bottles, for she’d turned her back.
Mrs. Murphy stuck her nose in each bottle. “That’s it.”
Pewter, mouth agape, was too surprised and curious to continue complaining.
“What is it?” Tucker called up, her nose on an oblong pill.
“Potassium.” Mrs. Murphy then knocked that bottle on the floor, the pills scattering all over the place.
“Murph!” Harry lunged for the bottle.
The cats and Tucker grabbed what pills they could, ran outside, and spit them in the grass.
“Oh, my God, will we die?” Pewter realized what she’d done.
“We’ll know soon enough,” Mrs. Murphy calmly replied.
Harry, livid, blasted outside only to see those pills ruined. “I could just kill you all!”
“We might have saved you the trouble.” A mournful Pewter regretted her moment of bravery.
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