The Profession.

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As my health deteriorated, with multiple organs failing, I prepared for death.  The constant pains and discomfort stepped the level of misery up seemingly daily.  The end had to be nigh, but on I went.  One of my acquaintances or family members introduced me to The Doctor.  He being a surgeon, who on his own, save for surgical staff, at his home, specialized in organ transplants and saving the incurable.  He had an impossibly uncanny ability to know who could use what organs, well beyond what common practice indicated, or even blood type.  Certainly, mainstream medical attempted to push and pull him out of business.  But when you have saved triple A elites, family members of judges, and many humbler class folk, some things are more difficult than they seem.

After an initial exam, he indicated that the problem was not beyond his medicine, assuming a heart and, by that time, a liver came in that would fit.  The other organs were not damaged beyond repair.  His strange natural gifts allowed him to pick foreign organs, even ones that should not work, and not only fit them, but do so without the risk of rejection.  It is the only reason I even considered surgery.  He told me, as all the others, to go home.  He would keep my case in mind.  If the organs arrived, he would give me a call and begin scheduling surgery.

As it turned out, the organs arrived within three months.  While I had returned home, he had put me on a medical regimen that would more surely secure my life for a longer time, and reduce the suffering, both of which worked.  Still, it was quite good to know that, in short order, I might well be back to a greater health, maybe even full health for the first time, nearly, as an adult.  It seems the heart and liver from the same donor would work perfectly.  I really had worried about having to go through two surgeries, or getting one in and never finding the other.

The surgery went perfectly well.  The organs were accepted.  Some short period of anti-rejection medication, while I lived in a bubble... a few months... was required.  Then another few months of weening me from the medication and I was back to open living.  It still took nearly a year before I was fully healed, but at that time, I was truly healed.  Sleeping regular schedules, being active for a full day, even heavier lifting, were the norm.  But... what to do with what remained of my life?  So, again, I went to see The Doctor.

I let him know it was a social call.  He agreed to meet me on the weekend, have me over for dinner with his wife and some of his staff.  I didn't want to mix business with dining, so waited until after dinner, as we all had general conversation in the living room.  I began with a general opening.

After being ill all of my adult life, I suggested, I had no idea what to do with a healthy life.  While, with my health and intelligence, I could probably get a degree in just about anything, with such lacking in experience and at my age, finding employment would be very difficult.  Adding health history into the billet, no company would bite.  I indicated that I wasn't being ungrateful, at all, I was merely searching for a solution.

They had heard this before.  Sometimes they could offer a solution, sometimes not.  The Doctor decided to perform a few tests, see where I stood, and would consider my situation from there.  The next week saw me filling out forms, doing evals, being intellectually, socially, emotionally, and in other ways probed and prodded.  Patience, I suggested to myself more than once.  On and on, from early to later, day after day.  At the end of the week I was sent home, told that the information would be examined.  If nothing came of it, a simple letter indicating that they had done what they could would be sent.  If something more, a call would be the means of communication, and from there all else would follow.

Less than a week later, a call.  No information, just an invitation to another Doctor and staff meal and evening of discussion.  So it went.  Again, in spite of my burning curiosity, I didn't open up before or during dinner.  And I tried to eat... fine food, didn't want to waste, and yet difficult to focus.  Still, food is food, good food better.  After the meal it became clear that my patience was the last of the keys.  It seemed I was to be groomed to replace The Doctor.  Flabbergasted, that is the word to describe my reaction.  I wasn't going to say yes, or no, only... listen, maybe feign at asking questions while I worked through their cumulative minds to see what it really was they meant.  It time, I learned that The Doctor had, at one time, been in my very shoes... all the way around.  He had not been the first Doctor.  Nor the one before him.  He didn't know beyond that.

So it went.  I was trained, and well.  I learned to see organ fits just as well as the man who had fitted me.  I became familiar with the aspects of the anatomy that were involved with this specialty.  I learned to call the tune at the surgical table.  I even, if only weakly at first, learned to understand that not all could be saved.  Slowly, over the next decade, I began to operate alone, then take over my surgeon's role fully as age virtually took his legs and wind from him.  Finally he retired.  I sought a replacement for myself, but those things take time.

We healed who we could, who arrived, requested, lasted the wait for replacement parts, and who could afford the process or if we had enough on our ledger to afford fixing them from our funds.  We avoided politics and other such, as best as we were able.  Even so, as the world changed, we got caught up in that.  A man had come in, a writer of some sort.  Rarely did we have time to read, save to stay up on our craft, read new notions, and such.  So his fame was not known to us, or his material.  A humble enough man, and quite ill.  We ended up saving him, then sending him on his way.  The state was quite displeased with this.  They sent a young political officer over to discuss this with us.  I took the call, releasing my staff as they have no control over the choice, and couldn't make the call anyway.

On and on, the young officer talked about the evils of saving a man who was against the state.  I simply suggested that, without testing, the state could not be found to be good.  He suggested that what I did might be grounds for treason.  I suggested that if doing my job was illegal, to some part of the state, in spite of no intent other than to do what is right, then what he was doing, by some in the state, might surely also be considered an evil.  On and on.  I would not recant.  I had expected to simply defend myself to a degree, offend him enough that he would leave, and be done with it.  Right as I thought he had experienced enough pain to just leave, I saw him reaching for his pistol.  I saw the intent in his eyes.

I moved toward him, reaching for his pistol arm.  He hurried a bit, to open his snappy but overdone holster closure.  Who would get there first, who would be strong enough, or fast enough, to secure the pistol?  Then what?  I was too busy to consider answers.