14 year old, Kerrie Halinen sits in a chair in an examination room. Doctor Cunningham walks in with… a robot?
"Umm, what's with the computer?" Kerrie questions, unsure if that was the right thing to ask.
Doctor Cunningham sighs as he rubs hand sanitizer in between his fingers.
"Ignore it. What brings you here?"
"Well, I dislocated my ankle while playing soccer but there were some things that were worrying me so I figured I might as well ask, while I'm already missing school."
"Ahh, makes sense," the doctor replied "I'll get right to examining you."
Doctor Cunningham tests her reflexes and looks over the notes that the nurse put in her file. Then he makes sure that there's no issues, such as twitching or abnormal markings. He spots some bruises on both of her legs.
"What happened there?"
"Oh," she replies "That just kind of happens, My mom tells me I bruise easily."
The robot speaks up "Doctor."
Kerrie lets out a quick scream and hurriedly scoots back
"Woah, girly." Gabe eases, "I probably should have warned you about that, this is RONI… it talks"
Kerrie calms down "oh, let's pretend that didn't happen. As you were saying, um, RONI."
RONI continues talking "Is easy bruising a symptom, doctor?"
"I don't think so, her skin seems pretty delicate, some people are just like that."
"But doctor," RONI argues "If this is a symptom, we risk a wrong diagnosis."
There was no arguing this.
Gabe sighs once again and says "Go ahead"
"Abnormality detected: easy bruising."
"Ya know, other than that, I can't find anything else visually wrong with her" Gabe states, slightly puzzled.
RONI corrects him, "Doctor, not all ailments are visible, we should start by asking her what's wrong."
The doctor defends himself. "I know that! She's not my first patient. Geez."
"My apologies, doctor," apologized RONI.
"Are you? Cause you keep doing that same thing, every single time" Gabe has heard this far too many times to take it seriously
"My apologies doctor" RONI said again
"Yeah, yeah, whatever" He muttered while pulling out his stethoscope
"Hey, can you lift up your shirt for me" Gabe requested "we have to check your heart and lungs, that's it"
Kerrie responded better than he expected "Yeah, you're a doctor, it's totally fine"
He places his stethoscope and listens for anything that could count as a symptom
He turns to RONI, "Well, her heart, lungs and stomach are normal." No matter how much he hated it, he always felt compelled to talk to the hunk of scrap metal.
"Now," he turns back to the patient "what do you have to say about this?"
QUESTION
"Well, um, my ankle kind of hurts but it's not that bad"
"I mean, she did dislocate an ankle, it'd be crazy if it DIDN'T hurt. I won't count that as an abnormality" Gabe says out loud, not really talking to anyone particular
"What's really been bothering me is my back pain"
"Hm, back pain?" This got the doctor's attention. "How long has this been going on?"
"I wanna say it started about 8 months ago and hasn't really stopped since. I thought it was weird because nothing really caused it. It just sort of happened"
"How bad is it on a scale of 1-10?"
Kerrie hated rating her pain using numbers, but this seemed unavoidable. "Most of the time a 4, but it can go up to an 8 on a bad day"
Doctor Cunningham seemed shocked "And you're coming to us now!?" He exclaimed.
The young girl defends herself "I just really hate doctors, Wait! Um, No offense, you're fine, I'm just talking about-"
Gabe stops her mid-sentence "I know what you mean, kiddo. Most people don't ENJOY doctor visits but that was worth mentioning." The girl stared blankly, the doctor moved on with his work. "RONI, count that as a symptom."
The robot speaks "Yes doctor."
"Abnormality detected: Chronic back pain."
"It never really stops and I've been meaning to get that checked out but I kept putting it off but since I'm here I figured, ya know, why not?"
She continued.
"The sad part is I hate sports, running hurts my legs. I only did soccer because gym class required me to."
"Running hurts?" Thoughts filled the doctor's head about different injuries and conditions that would cause leg pain like this, any of these left untreated could cause major issues.
"Yeah, isn't that normal?" Karrie never thought too much of it. She knew people hated running in gym class. She thought this was why.
"Not unless you've been pushing yourself pretty hard, how long do you have to run before it hurts?"
"Only a couple of minutes," she answered
"That's not supposed to happen." He took his pen out of his lab coat and scribbled a note onto a piece of paper.
"Wait," said the young girl, now worried "is that bad?"
The doctor thought for a moment before responding "Maybe, we'll have to get other symptoms first. RONI, you know what to do."
The robot spoke again "I understand"
"Abnormality detected: Leg pain while running."
Oh, I got a really bad headache last week, is that related?
Doctor Cunningham grumbled 'Headaches huh, have you've been putting off mentioning THIS too?"
"Yeah, kind of. Missing a day of school will cause me to make up work for a week" Kerrie tried to hide how guilty she felt.
"How often are they?"
The teenager reflected for a moment "maybe twice a week." She answered
The doctor noticed the teenager getting upset because of his admittedly standoffish behavior, he tried to correct his attitude for her sake. "Listen kiddo." He said sympathetically, "I know school work can be hard to keep up with, but you can't keep putting your health last. Your well-being, both physical and mental, should always be the most important thing in your life. After all," he chuckled to lighten the tension "You can't do algebra with a untreated broken arm"
"Yeah, I guess" the girl looked down, now ashamed.
"Cheer up, kid. Just… keep that in mind for next time." He faced the computer. "RONI, Add headaches to the list. Also, get her a CT scan while you're at it.
The machine obeyed "yes, doctor. A CT scan is now available"
"Abnormality detected: Headaches."
"Alright." Gabe says as he adjusts his stethoscope around his neck "I'll get right to that."
Um, yeah, that's about it.
Thanks for trying to help, Doctor Cunningham.
He tells her that he'll be back in a few minutes and walks down the hall to the Image analysis lab. The room is filled with blue screens and machinery. He logs into a computer and loads the pictures.
The CT scan shows an oval with a white outline that is her skull. Inside the oval is a dark splotch that resembles the shape of a butterfly taking up a large area in the center of the scan.
This immediately catches his attention "I see an excess of fluid in her head. RONI, jot this down."
"Abnormality detected: excess of fluid in brain."
"I've been meaning to ask. What's with that new phrasing?" Cunningham questioned.
A monotone computerized voice responded, "Would you like me to return to my original speech patterns?"
The doctor let out a slow but loud exhale "no, that's fine. This new upgrade of yours is just making it harder get any point across." He thinks back to the patient "I'll go to my office to see what all this means."
Gabe heads walks to his office and looks through the options and notices one diagnosis that fits the CT scan results.
"Headaches and excess fluid in her brain? This can only mean hydrocephalus, but there's so many more symptoms. I'll diagnose her with this but I'm willing to bet that this is only the tip of the iceberg."
*END DIAGNOSIS*
He fills out paperwork and thinks about how he's going to tell the patient, then RONI lights up.
"Incoming alert. The patient collapsed."