Winning the Lottery

Ch. 42 Speech: Take 1

The room applauded.

I stood and went to the stage.

My laptop was set up.

I shook the Chief's hand and took a deep breath as he left the stage.

"Good morning," I spoke. "Many of you don't know me, but I've worked here for a few months and I thought of this idea. It's only been a couple months and I wasn't expecting it to work this fast... Actually, I wasn't expecting it to work at all."

Whispers went around again.

I looked at my notes and pulled up Peter's first scan.

More whispers.

"Thai patient was my first patient. When I began here in November, he was recovering from a Whipple procedure. When he wasn't getting better, I looked into it and discovered he had cancer. The doctor on his case at the time was Nick Klein, an intern. He hadn't gotten the proper scans before the Whipple procedure, so he hadn't caught it. As you can see, the patient had barely any pancreas left. What he had of a pancreas was covered in tumors." I took a breath.

The room was quiet.

"It took some time to convince the patient to do chemotherapy and radiation."

Someone stood. "Doctor, why didn't he come sooner? Had he not had any symptoms?"

"The patient's wife was a doctor. He didn't want her to see him as a patient." I looked down. "After six months of enduring pain, he came in and got checked out. It was then that Dr. Klein came to the conclusion to do a Whipple procedure."

The man nodded and sat down.

"When his cancer had spread to his stomach and spleen, I didn't know what to do. I just knew he was dying and we had to save him. I'd grown close to this patient and his family. I'd recently lost my parents. I'd felt that loss, the void the loss brought with it, and I didn't want the family to feel that." I took a glance in the Hamiltons' direction.

They were all looking at me with misty eyes.

I took a breath. "So I got to work. I spent an afternoon in the research library. I made and wrote down a plan. I gave it to Dr. Cole. I never thought it would become anything. I never dreamt anyone would agree with it. This patient was the first one on the trial."

I flipped a notecard. I shook my head, put them down, and began walking on the stage. I needed to have a conversation with the audience. I described the treatment plan, which earned whispers from around the room.

I spoke, "It was vigorous, but the patient and his wife were excited for it. After the trial was approved by the FDA, we got started. Our patients had nothing left to lose, but they had a lot of fight to give. We didn't want that to falter. The first day of the trial, we were confident. We worked hard. We kept a close eye on all of the patients."

I switched the slides to Wesley's scans.

Dr. Cole met my gaze. She nodded.

"This patient was my first trial patient. He was in bad shape. The treatment was vigorous and his body couldn't take it. He'd had so many surgeries. He'd been rundown and his body backfired. He came into the emergency room. Within an hour, he was dead."

Whispers went around.

"The other patients still had hope, but mine was faltering. I began to believe this wasn't the answer, that we needed to end the trial before anyone else died. Of course, all of patients had one last hope: the trial. They gave everything they had left at a one, last ditch effort to save their lives."