Chapter 6
The President was transferred to a special isolation room at Bethesda Medical Center. The air flow was set up to blow all air from the outside hall to the inside and then sucked into special filters to be returned to the outside. Paper gowns, masks and other isolation materials were placed in the anteroom between the hall and his room.
Ron had insisted that an agent be placed in the room with the President but the doctors overruled him, for once. If it was the avian flu, the less people exposed to the virus the less likely it would spread past the current infected victims.
"Mrs. Bartlet, I'm Dr. Wilson, Assistant Head of Infectious Diseases here at Bethesda. I'll be heading up the President's case."
Abbey looked at the young man in front of her. He had to be over forty years old but looked like he was twenty.
"Excuse me, Dr. Wilson, but you seem young for such a prestigious position."
Dr. Wilson laughed. "Thank you, ma'am. I'm 51. I guess I look much younger. But I'm uniquely qualified for this particular case."
"How? We don't know what we're dealing with yet."
"I've spent some time in Southeast Asia specifically working with doctors taking care of avian flu victims and since that might be what we're facing I felt that I should be the one in charge."
Abbey smiled. "I'm sorry, Dr. Wilson. I don't usually ask for a person's qualifications but you just seem so young for such a high-ranking position."
"Yes ma'am. I can understand your concern. But there are really only a few experts on avian flu in this country and I'm the only one on the East Coast. So if the President's illness does turn out to be avian flu, then he couldn't have a better physician."
"That's of comfort to me. Now, how does one treat this? Which antiviral medicine do you recommend and what's the normal course of disease progression? And what effect will this have on his MS? Will it cause a relapse?"
Dr. Wilson looked down at his shoes and then returned the First Lady's gaze. "While it's true we can give some antiviral medicine, we don't have sufficient data to say that it will cure him. In fact, there's no real cure for this. We treat the symptoms, keep him hydrated, and wait. That's the hard part. To be honest with you, there were some victims in Asia that the doctors did exactly what I plan to do here but they still died. And we don't know why. And the same for the MS. This is really uncharted territory we're diving into."
Abbey, who had been listening intently to the doctor, gasped when he had stated that some patients had even died while trying to support them in the same manner that Jed would be supported.
"Mrs. Bartlet, you look pale. May I get you a chair?"
Abbey nodded her head and sat down just as her knees buckled.
Dr. Wilson knew his words were not giving the First Lady the hope that she needed. But she needed to know the facts. The truth. That was the only thing to do. And down deep, he knew that Dr. Bartlet would want it.
"What you're saying, is that my husband could die in spite of all the treatments and care?"
"Yes, ma'am. That's exactly what I'm saying."