waiting for the results

Pan lay in the bed of her room. She was quite an active person so for her this was like torture. She was 18 and stuck in some hospital bed for a reason she didn't even know. A sample of her blood had been taken for testing and she was currently waiting for the results. She hoped it wasn't too serious as she hoped to be leaving the hospital soon as she was due to be heading off to Australia in a couple of weeks to go rock climbing, paragliding, parachuting and white water rafting before she was due to start colledge.

Chase opened the door to the room, no longer wearing the face mask of earlier as the disease she had was determined to be non contagious, though it was certainly a very serious condition, none the less. "Hey. We've got the results in," he said, sombrely, "It's admittedly not great news. You've got Yellow Fever. Luckily so far you've only been displaying the symptoms of the first stage, which is basically what you've been experiencing so far, though we're unsure if you'll go on to develop the later symptoms, the chances are quite low that you will though."

Pan was confused at first as to who this person was after only having people completely covered and defended against infection enter the room. All she knew was 1. this guy was probably a Doctor, 2. He was Australian and she loved his accent and 3. He had the most awesome hair she had ever seen in her entire life. If what he was saying wasn't so serious, she would have just sat there admiring it. But that wasn't an option. "Okay." She accepted the information without complaint. "What are my erm, options? Or what happends next?"

"Well, your options are pretty limited. We can treat the fever with ibuprofen, but there's no specific treatment for the virus itself," Chase said, grimacing, "And as for what happens next, well, chances are you'll recover from it in a few days. Either that or you'll move onto the second stage, and keep in mind this only affects 15% of people with the disease. If that happened then you'd continue to have a fever, and most of your current symptoms. But you'd probably also start feeling lethargic, and there would be a possibility of liver and kidney damage. But as I said, that's pretty unlikely to happen."

"Alright." She muttered, nodding and thinking. She had accepted the idea of death as a young child so she wasn't really that peturbed by it. "If it gets worse, will I die?" She had to know all the same. If she was going to die, she didn't want to spend her remaining life in hospital. She would rather die falling 50,000 ft from a helicopter attatched to a large elastic band.

Chase hesitated for a moment before speaking, lowering his voice, "Possibly. But again, the chances are low, the most likely scenario is that you'll recover in a couple of days, so I wouldn't worry about that yet."

"Okay. Right. Okay." She rambled, thinking hard which was difficult and painfull as her head started to ache so she decided to change the subject. "Where in Australia are you from?" She asked, interestedly, she wanted to know what it was like for when she left. She wanted to know about the people, the culture, the food. Almost everything.

"Melbourne," Chase answered, smiling faintly, wandering what the point was of the change of subject, "Anyway, we should get you started on the Ibuprofen now. It would probably be best to try to relieve the symptoms that we can as soon as possible. Okay?"

"Alright" She said lightly, returning the weak smile. "Was it nice there?" She asked, making some form of conversation having not really spoken to anyone for a long time. She had missed the usual traces of civilisation like talking, going out, meeting people and that sort of thing.

"Yeah, it was. Still, I prefer it over here," Chase said, walking over to one of the medicine cabinets, hoping that the drug required would be in there, as that would save him a trip to the nearest supply room, "And are you English? Don't usually see many Brits around here."

"Yeah, I moved here earlier this year. Decided I needed a fresh start in life. England held a few bad memories." She said solemnly. The ghosts of her horrific past vivid in her memory.

"I see," Chase said, finally catching sight of the ibuprofen. Grabbing it he walked over to Pandora's bedside. "Right, with these its safe to take about one every four to six hours," he said, placing them down on the table next to the bed.

"Okay" She said softly, wiping away a silent tear on the back of her hand. "Why did you leave?" She asked, wanting to know why anyone would leave such a perfect country.

Chase glanced away, feeling rather uncomfortable, not really wanting to discuss his motives for leaving the country with one of his patients. "It was complicated," he murmured, keeping any eye contact broken, then asked, in an attempt to deflect the subject, feigning interest, "Why do you ask? Have you been there before?"

"Not yet, I'm supposed to be flying out there in two weeks. Doesn't seem too likely from where I'm standing. I wish I could have gone before, now that there's a chance I might not ever go there." She said sadly, almost wishing she had never gone to Egypt.

"Ah, right. Well, I'm sure you'll get a chance to go there at some point," Chase said, in a light tone, "Anyway, the mortality rate for Yellow Fever's pretty low. You needn't be worrying about that."

"I'll take your word for it." Pan said smiling. "I'm glad I got you as my Doctor." She said calmly. She liked Chase incredibly, he seemed to actually care about his work.

Chase smiled briefly, rather flattered by this. "Thanks," he mumbled, "So yeah, we'll monitor your condition over the next few days, see how it goes."

"Okay, great." She said, feeling better now she knew what it was that was wrong with her and greatly prefering seeying Chase's face than hearing a muffled voice behined a sterile mask. "What's it like? working here I mean."

"It's great, bit stressful, but worth it," Chase answered truthfully, wondering what was with all of this questioning, "So, do you have any plans as to what sort of profession you want to go into after all this?"

"Well, I dont really need to work for money, I have insurance money which is more than enough but I would love to do a job where I can help people. Make a change ya' know." she said in perspective. She wanted to make something of her life instead of money gained from having her skull smashed in and permanent scars made across her upper arms from being hit with car jump leads.

"You could do some volunteer work," Chase suggested, "You know, do a bit of voluntary work over in Africa maybe. Never done anything like that myself, but it does sound like quite a good thing to do."

"I wanna do something like that. Although I think I can officially rule out Africa after this." She said subjectively. "I think I would like to try something thats a bit more challenging." she said carefully.

"You would? Like what?" Chase asked intently, wondering is she was ever going to get round to taking the Ibuprofen tablets.

"I was thinking of training to be a Doctor actually." she said in thought before following Chase's gaze to the ibuprofen and remembered she was supposed to take it. She tipped out two of the little tablets into her palm. "Do you have any water?"