A Friend In Need...
Part Five
“But Mom,” Thomas protested. “I need to go!”
“You need to go alright. Go to school,” his mother replied with a stern face. Thomas gave in. He knew that there was no way to convince her.
As he walked to school with his sister, he thought about what might happen while he was wasting his time away in school. Thankfully, today was Friday, so he’d be able to go after school and then again tomorrow.
“Do they know what’s wrong with Dad?” Joanne asked. Thomas wasn’t certain what she knew and what she didn’t. He was fairly certain his mother had told her that their father was at a doctor’s office or in a hospital.
“No,” he admitted with a frown. That much was the truth. He heaved another sigh as he walked up the front steps to the school. ’Let’s get this over with as soon as possible,’ he thought to himself.
“You sure you don’t want me to come with you, Mike?” Micky asked, glancing up from his bowl of cereal.
“No, thanks Mick. They don’t know who I am, yet. If they see both of us together they might figure it out,” Mike told his roommate. “We don’t want that happening.”
“Okay,” Micky agreed, half-glad simply because he didn’t have to hurry through breakfast.
“If you need anything, just call,” Davy told him, and Mike nodded.
“I will,” he replied. Then he left. Davy and Micky looked at each other.
“D’ya ever get the feeling we get left out of stuff a lot?” Micky asked.
Davy shook his head. “I dunno, man, maybe. But ‘e’s got a point.”
“Hey, Pete, you’re awake!”
Peter slowly focused his tired eyes on the room around him. It had plain beige walls and he was lying on a metal table. ’Still at the vets,’ he assumed.
Mike was sitting in a chair nearby and looking at him. Peter forced his eyes to focus on his friend and made out that the expression on Mike’s face was one of relief and worry.
’Hi, Mike,’ he managed to whisper.
“Man, you’ve been out for a while,” Mike informed him. You were out all yesterday!”
’How long have I been here?’
Mike thought for a moment. “Well, we brought you in on Thursday morning, and today’s Friday, so about two days.”
’What’s wrong with me?’
Mike grew grim. “They’re not exactly sure...” he told his friend. “Um...Pete, there’s somethin’ I think you should know.”
Peter didn’t ask. He just sighed. That particular statement most likely preceded bad news.
“Tom and I told ‘em.”
Peter’s eyes opened wide. ’What?’
“We thought it might be best if they knew about it. It might be connected to whatever’s makin’ you sick,” he explained.
Peter heaved another sigh. ’Oh boy.’
“We woulda asked ya, but you were out cold and we weren’t sure if ya’d wake up,” Mike defended his decision.
’How’d they take it?’
“Like I figured. They were kinda skeptical of it but they accepted that it could be possible.”
The door to the room suddenly opened and Theresa poked her head in. “Mike?”
“Yeah?”
“Could I talk to you a sec? I want you to look at something.”
“Sure.” Mike stood up and followed the veterinarian out of the examining room. They headed to the back of the building and into a small room not much larger than a closet.
“We got the blood tests back today,” Theresa informed him as she fiddled around in a box.
“Oh? And?”
“Well, the good news is there weren’t any viruses,” she replied. She found the small microscope slide she was searching at and carried it to the other side of the room.
“The bad news?”
“The bad news is that there is something bad.” She placed the slide in place and looked through the microscope. “I’m gonna let you look at it.” Theresa turned the knobs and focused the lens.
“There,” she told him. “Look at that.”
Mike stepped forward and squinted through the eyepiece. Inside he saw some red blobs. “That the blood cells?” he asked.
“The red stuff is, yes,” Theresa answered.
“Okay...” Mike looked around. There were small little green things attached to the blood cells. They were too tiny to be seen clearly - even with the microscope. “What are the green things?”
“They’re the bad news.”
Mike looked up from the microscope. “What are they?”
“Tiny little bacteria.”
“Bacteria?”
“They’re what cause most diseases,” Theresa clarified. “They attack your blood cells and your body releases antibodies to fight them. But, as you can tell from the microscope, there aren’t any antibodies.”
“That’s bad. What does that mean?”
“That is very bad. It means that his body isn’t fighting the infection.”
“What do we do now?”
“Well, thankfully we have medicines that will help him out. Antibiotics that are man made. We’ll try him on a few of those and wait a few days and see what happens.”
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