AUSTIN:

I was in pediatrics, talking with a fourteen-year-old boy named Mikey Thompson (AUTHOR'S NOTE: Yes, the child from hell Mikey from the episode Bad Seeds and Bad Dates. Remember him, the kid who kept calling Ally a fart bucket? He was a little devil, am I right?) and his mom, Joanna, because apparently Mikey had smoked a couple of cigarettes with his friends and Joanna told me she wanted him to hear first hand about the harm smoking did to the human body. His pediatrician, Dr. Dwight Lawrence, another colleague of mine, was absent due to his daughter being sick and his wife traveling on business, and I was filling in for him for today (I was a family practitioner, meaning I worked with children, adolescents and adults). I had forty minutes to kill before seeing Ally. I showed him a picture of normal lungs as opposed to the lungs of a smoker, and I said,

"Smoking may not seem like a big deal to you, Mikey, but it's actually very addictive and can harm your body severely and permanently."

Joanna said to me,

"Now, Doctor, I understood that smoking caused lung cancer. My own father was a smoker and he died of lung cancer. Is there anything else it causes?"

I said,

"Yes, Ms. Thompson, I'm glad you asked that question. Smoking does cause lung cancer, but it also can do other damage to the human body. Smoking can deteriorate normal heart rhythm, cholesterol levels, it can raise your blood pressure to dangerously high levels, it can thicken the bloodstream and make it more difficult for the blood to carry oxygen, as well as cause diabetes, atherosclerosis, an illness where plaque builds up in the arteries, heart, respiratory, lung and kidney failure, as well as tons of other health problems."

Mikey gave me that adolescent rebel look that I never used with my mom and dad as a kid.

"That's not going to happen to me. I didn't even smoke that many."

I said,

"Well, you may not have smoked too much, but I'm sure they teach you in school that smoking is one of the worst things you can possibly do to your body, and there are no vaccines for what smoking can cause."

Mikey said,

"Do you think I even pay attention in that shithole they call a school? Middle-aged bitches and sons of bitches teaching me things I'm never going to use to succeed in life?!"

Joanna glowered at her son.

"Mikey, that's very rude! My apologies, Dr. Moon."

I said,

"No apology necessary, Ms. Thompson."

I reached over to the packet slots on the side to the sink with the containers of cotton balls, tongue depressors and the container where used vaccine needles were disposed off. I took out some pamphlets that had information about smoking and the dangers of it. I said to Mikey and his mom,

"I think it would be a great idea if you and Mikey went over these brochures. That way, Mikey, you can know how dangerous smoking really is."

Mikey clearly was resistant to this idea.

"Oh, no. It's bad enough my bitch mom grounded me for a month with no phone, computer, TV, video games, sport or social privileges, but reading- FUCK NO! I wouldn't read if my life depended on it."

He just flipped me off. His mother looked at me.

"Thank you, Dr. Moon. I appreciate it. We'll be going."

Her smile faded as she angrily looked at Mikey.

"Mikey, grab your things. We're leaving."

The epitome of the child from hell, I thought to myself as I saw her pick up his backpack and jacket and firmly seize his hand. But I was the adult in this situation, and the adult was always to be the mature one. Besides, I was in a way, used to this, because I'd dealt with resistant children before, most often children who were resistant to getting shots, getting their fingers pricked, or getting blood drawn, where the lollipops and stickers with kids' cartoon characters on them came in handy, as well as the juice and cookie, (well, the juice and cookie were vital because after the blood was drawn, the blood sugar needed to be refilled) after all, the key was to stay calm as the mature adult. I could tell Joanna was thinking, How can that doctor stay so calm? My son was just very rude and disrespectful to him. I now had to see Ally. I was wondering how she was doing since her tonsil surgery. I went to the adult doctor's section and asked Connie,

"Excuse me, Connie?"

Connie said,

"Hello, Dr. Moon, can I help you?"

I said,

"What room is Ally Dawson in?"

"Room five zero four. I checked her temperature, blood pressure, height, weight and I vaccinated her for the flu."

I said,

"Thank you."

I walked into room five zero four, to find Ally waiting patiently. I said,

"Hello, Ms. Dawson."

She smiled in a very friendly way.

"How are you?"

"Much better since two weeks ago, thank you for asking. How are you?"

"I'm fine,"

I said to her.

"You definitely sound a lot better. You sound like you followed my advice. You took a lot of fluids and had a lot of bedrest."

She flashed her gorgeous smile at me.

"I did."

I said,

"That's great."

I grabbed my stethoscope from around my neck, put the eartips in my ears and put the chestpiece and drum on her back and I told her,

"Take slow, deep, breaths."

She was doing that as I put the chestpiece on her stomach and chest.

"Your heartbeat's fine, and since you last came in, your mucus and phlegm have loosened and drained."

I took the otoscope and looked in her ears. Her ears were fine. I grabbed a small plastic spoon and covered her right eye,

"Read me what you see."

She read me all the letters on the chart clearly.

"Your vision and ears are normal, and so is your heartbeat. Sit back on the table."

I went to the sink and washed my hands with soap and water. I put on a pair of latex gloves and took a tongue depressor from my the box by the sink. I told her,

"Open."

She opened her mouth and I took out a small flashlight, examining her throat. Her throat was definitely back to normal. Not to mention the scabs from her surgery were all healed. Scabs from tonsillectomy took up to two weeks to heal, but hers had taken the shortest amount of the time to heal for an adult. Tonsillectomy definitely took longer to heal if you were an adult as opposed to when you were a child.

"How has your swallowing been?"

I said,

"It's been fine. Post and before the surgery for a week, I only ate soft food, I took cough drops and lozenges, I had a lot of tea with honey and lemon, I had hot soup and I rested."

I smiled at my patient.

"That's what I like to hear. Almost as much as I like to hear that you feel better."

Ally definitely looked and sounded a lot better than she did two weeks ago. It was good that she came in when she did. She had a very high fever, she said she had bad abdominal pain, she looked like she had unintentionally lost ten pounds, bloody vomit and a very thick and wet cough with the barking sound. When she was in that state, she looked like one of those starving or sick children in Africa or those homeless animals on the ASPCA commercials. I felt good for her that she was feeling better and I most definitely had the pleasure of treating her.

It meant she was healed and healthy again, and for me, it meant I had done my job properly. I certainly didn't do all that studying for my medical degree for nothing, and believe me, I'd been studying that for pretty much my whole life. Not only did I spend a lot of time studying illnesses and injuries and the risks, treatments and remedies for them, graduate from high school and college early (In high school, I had high grades and I took extra classes, always had high test scores, with my favorite classes being math, health and science) but my paternal Uncle Scott was an emergency room doctor and there were times when we'd bond by when he took me with him on ride alongs to the Imperial Point Medical center in Fort Lauderdale and even mentor me. So I pretty much had had my Doctoring experience since I was a kid. Being a doctor had been my dream ever since.

And I hardly ever got sick as a kid. And if I almost never got sick as a child, I never got sick now. Even now because it was flu season in Miami. A lot of my patients in the last two weeks had come in with the flu, and I think I managed to not get it because I washed my hands constantly before and after examining patients with contagious illnesses or diseases, cleaned my instruments when I needed to with anti-bacterial wipes and disinfectant spray, carried hand sanitizer with me got enough sleep, wore a mask when I needed to and wore latex gloves and I got vaccinated every year.

"You got your flu injection when you came in, right?"

She rolled up her sleeve, exposing her band-aid with the Peanuts kids on it. I smiled.

"Yes."

Connie definitely got the band-aid from pediatrics. Ally looked adorable with it.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Hope you guys liked that chapter! I wonder when Dr. Moon is going to ask Ally out ;) And happy 20th birthday to Ross! Our little baby is growing up so fast :,)