{"id":32,"date":"2022-02-07T21:33:14","date_gmt":"2022-02-08T02:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foxglovesystems.com\/herbheineman\/Stowaway\/?page_id=32"},"modified":"2022-04-07T17:01:32","modified_gmt":"2022-04-07T21:01:32","slug":"two","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/herbheineman.com\/Stowaway\/two\/","title":{"rendered":"TWO"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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May 1985<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Connor Flynn \u2014 Con to family and friends \u2014 was in the transfusion room for the umpteenth time in the past eighteen months; he preferred not to keep count. His hemoglobin level was back down to 5, a third of what a healthy fifteen-year-old boy needed to sustain the vigorous activity characteristic of his age. He didn\u2019t think he needed to subject himself to repeated blood counts. Loss of energy, shortness of breath on the slightest exertion, and pallor of his fingernails and the insides of his eyelids (that\u2019s where Doctor Ellis always looked) told him \u2014 and his mother, though he couldn\u2019t tell whether his father noticed \u2014 that he was due for a transfusion.<\/p>\n

Until he was fourteen, Con had been his father\u2019s pride, a poster boy of ruddy vigor. There was no sport at which, once he became interested and learned the rules, he did not excel. Then one day he paid the price \u2014 a reasonable price, most would say \u2014 for his enthusiasm.<\/p>\n

With his father as referee, Con and a group of friends played tackle football on a neighborhood dirt lot. Con had learned from experience that with dad watching, anything less than maximum effort could lead to an unpleasant dinner conversation. Unwilling to take that risk, he threw himself headfirst at Paul Bannon\u2019s legs as Paul came thundering down the lot carrying the ball. Paul was a year older and weighed almost half as much again as Con. With minimal effort he sent Con sprawling, inflicting a number of abrasions on his knees, forearms, and face.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood try, proud of you!\u201d his father yelled to Con after properly crediting Paul with a touchdown. His mother was less pleased when Con limped home, bragging about his encounter. She considered her son\u2019s play reckless and the entire sport of football violent and conducive to bodily injury. She rushed him to their family practitioner\u2019s office, where Doctor Ellis determined that Con had not broken any bones but had so much dirt in his wounds that even after thorough washing they weren\u2019t really clean.<\/p>\n

\u201cSponge them with lukewarm salt water \u2014 just a wee pinch of salt \u2014 twice a day,\u201d Doctor Ellis instructed Mrs. Flynn, \u201cand bring him back here in three or four days. You can make an appointment up front. Most of the dirt that\u2019s left will work its way out, though there\u2019ll be some infection for sure. I\u2019ll give him a tetanus booster and a prescription for an antibiotic. Better yet,\u201d rummaging in the refrigerator, \u201cI\u2019ll give you these samples of Chloromycetin. It\u2019s broad-spectrum, so it\u2019ll work against most bacteria. Not much used anymore, but very powerful. Have him take one capsule four times a day with water.\u201d Doctor Ellis treated his patients as whole human beings, not, in contrast to some of the younger medical graduates, as a composite of individual organs. In that spirit he also believed in saving them unnecessary expense and kept, sometimes well beyond their printed expiration dates, the free samples pharmaceutical salespeople left with him. Sooner or later someone was bound to need them. He\u2019d taken care of two generations of Flynns, and they had benefitted from his thrift and generosity more than once. Mrs. Flynn didn\u2019t ask why Chloromycetin was \u201cnot much used anymore,\u201d considering how powerful it was. Obviously Doctor Ellis knew what he was doing.<\/p>\n

She conscientiously followed the doctor\u2019s instructions, and Con\u2019s inherent tissue integrity, with the help of the Chloromycetin, did the rest. At the follow-up visit Doctor Ellis was very satisfied. Within two weeks Con was back playing football and earning his father\u2019s kudos. Two weeks more and, for all the thought he gave to it, it might as well never have happened. He\u2019d sustained injuries before, and this was just another.<\/p>\n

Within three months he would learn the difference.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat did you bump into this time? Or who did you bump into, I should say?\u201d his father asked with a smile at dinner, more proud than worried. He right away visualized Con in a fight \u2014 winning, of course. Nothing builds character like a good fight.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust the usual,\u201d Con answered with a shrug. He looked at the bruise on his left forearm. Then a second above his right elbow. He frowned but said nothing. That evening, undressing, he was astonished to see half a dozen bruises on his legs, and a profusion of pinpoint red spots besides. Nothing hurt or itched, so he decided not to create an emergency but go to bed.<\/p>\n

He fell asleep comforted by the thought that bruises are part of a football player\u2019s life. He was proud of not feeling the tenderness that ordinarily accompanied bruises. In his dream that night he saw himself as a soldier riddled with bullet holes and still managing to drag a wounded comrade to safety. An officer patted him on the back and congratulated him for his bravery. A medal was just around the corner.<\/p>\n

The reality to which he awoke was a different matter. He had not been shot even once, and his wounded buddy was none other than a sleepover friend, with whom he had got into a fight a week earlier and who had emerged with nothing more serious than a bloody nose.<\/p>\n

The bloody nose with which Con woke that morning was his own. He had never before gotten into a fight in his sleep, so there was no reason for the nosebleed. He made his way to the bathroom, where the sight of blood dripping from his nose, drop by drop, into the washbowl was enough to scare him into admitting that something was wrong. His parents agreed and his mother once more took him straightaway to see Doctor Ellis. The doctor looked at Con\u2019s limbs, saw the bruises on his torso, which neither Con nor his parents had been aware of, and sent him to the laboratory two floors below with an urgent request for a complete blood count.<\/p>\n

The laboratory telephoned the results thirty minutes later, and the printed report was sent up that afternoon. A chill ran down Doctor Ellis\u2019s spine as he studied it. Memories of a warning, which he had dismissed as a statistical rarity, came back to his mind. Surely he could have treated Con with some antibiotic other than Chloromycetin!<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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