Jessi parked her Corvette across from the restaurant. She got out and crossed the street toward it. The building was unexceptional with a façade of vertical grey wood strips capped with white over an awning extending out over the white trimmed windows that made up the front of the building. Opening the red door Jessi went inside.
The interior was small but warm and elegant with the small tables set with crisp white tablecloths and wine glasses. The space was warmly lit with long lights hanging from the ceiling, and was divided by sheer fabric hanging from the ceiling in various places throughout. A large wine rack was visible in the back.
Jessi told the host, "I'm meeting Abby Hawkins."
He said, "Yes, Ms. Hawkins has already been seated. Let me take you to her." He guided Jessi to where Abby sat waiting, a glass of wine in front of her, and an open menu. There was another menu sitting at the place across from her. The host gestured toward the table.
Abby half rose from her seat, "Jessi, I'm glad you could make it."
"Thank you for inviting me," Jessi moved to sit across from her. The host held her chair and then returned to the front.
"I hope you like it here," Abby said. "It's small but nice. They do some interesting things with the cuisine." She indicated the menu in front of her.
Jessi opened her menu as well. When the waiter came, she ordered the Oregon venison ragu with porcini. Abby ordered the Squab with Piquillo pepper.
As the waiter left, Abby said, "I thought it would be nice for the two of us to get together, just us 'girls'."
"Kyle and I are a team," Jessi looked guarded.
"I know," Abby smiled, "and an amazingly capable one. The two of you have renewed Latnok. It's what we wanted it to be back in the beginning. I feel rejuvenated." She explained, "When I suggested that you and I have lunch, I wasn't trying to keep Kyle out of our conversation, I think I was hoping to recapture some of the feel of the times when Sarah and I got together and brainstormed."
"You specialize in medicine, in diagnostics," Jessi said. "Was my mother interested in medicine?"
"Sarah was interested in everything," Abby smiled. "You could have a great conversation with her about almost any subject. Adam was the same way." She took a breath, "At our dinner, when we were talking about Latnok politics, you and I were also talking about systemic approaches to diseases. I'm really interested in your thoughts on the subject."
"The human body is a complex system with a large number of feedback mechanisms," Jessi explained.
"Some are molecular at a low level, some are hormonal, and there are also neural connections. Many of the chronic diseases, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol may all be interrelated symptoms of a systemic failure."
"We currently diagnose and treat them as separate conditions," Abby said. "There's a presumption that they are disorders of individual organs, or alternatively the result of lifestyle choices."
"It may be more complex than that," Jessi said. "Our understanding is still not complete. It may be better to think of the nervous system as an interconnection of autonomous systems rather than a single system. There are multiple, redundant intercommunication mechanisms. It's possible that there are synchronization errors between them that, with feedback loops, push the system out of normal operation."
Abby smiled, "It's almost like the old Greek theory of Humorism where they thought the balance of the four humors was essential to health and that disease was a result of an imbalance between them."
"It's nothing as simple as that," Jessi smiled. "But it may require looking beyond a single failing organ."
"In the Twentieth Century, medicine had good success dealing with infections," Abby observed, "especially bacterial, with less success with fungal and not particularly good with viral. Things that had been frequently fatal became almost easy to cure or to prevent with vaccines. Our success may have biased us in favor of the concept of single causes to diseases. But how would you go about doing systemic analysis?" She smiled, "Since my specialty is diagnostics, obviously I'm looking for something in the diagnosis realm."
Jessi smiled in response, "Well, we don't know that the theory is actually true, or if it is, what the actual signs of miscommunication are and how they could be adjusted. We could start by probing a wide number of diagnostic values, hormone levels, blood chemistry, neural activity and building a matrix of data points to trace."
"Do a regression analysis on the data to find the key variables?" Abby suggested.
"Because of feedback, I'm not sure regression will work properly," Jessi disagreed, "certainly not linear regression. And it may be better to use a pattern matching approach than to attempt to isolate key variables."
"Falling into the single cause trap again," Abby nodded.
Jessi smiled. They continued to explore ideas animatedly as they ate their meals.
Some time after their plates were empty their waiter hesitantly approached and asked, "Would you care for a dessert?"
The question brought them down from the heights of theory back to the menu. Jessi looked at the menu, "Chocolate Cake. I'll have the Theo Dark chocolate cake with the pomegranate red wine syrup." She smiled in anticipation.
"Ah to really be young again," Abby sighed. "I think I'm going to have the cranberry sorbet. I have to watch my calories."
The waiter went for their deserts. The conversational thread broken, Abby said. "This has been more fun than I hoped. I'm very interested in pursuing some of your suggestions. If they pan out it could yield some important breakthroughs."
"I enjoyed talking as 'just us girls'," Jessi said. "Was it like it used to be when you talked to my mother?"
"In a way," Abby said judiciously. "But Jessi, you're so much smarter than anyone I've ever met, including Adam and Sarah. Well not counting Kyle, of course."