Ezra Abernathy|Tony Stark (repulsortech) wrote in thereincarnates, @ 2017-11-12 23:41:00 |
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Entry tags: | ezra abernathy |
Who: Ezra Abernathy
What: Ezra gets an update at his regular appointment
When: Monday 13th November
Where: Delaware Cardiovascular Associates
Warnings: Discussion of mortality.
The cold white walls of hospitals were not one of Ezra’s favorite things. He’d seen enough of them over the years that they now bled into the background of each new horror that he was confronted with. In fairness though, he’d outlived every prognosis they’d thrown at him. The doctors rarely had anything good to say to him, but what did he know? He was merely an engineer. Not medically trained. Surely they would have the better idea of what was going on with his cardiac muscles. They all seemed to think so at least. Even with their terrible track record, Ezra sat waiting. He was early for the appointment and they seemed to be running late. The physician had probably had to break bad news to someone else. Tell them that their life wouldn’t be the same from now on, or it was going to be indefinitely shorter. Some people reacted badly to that sort of news. They threw all sorts of hysterical fits.
Time dragged and became surreal. The magazines that were available in this waiting room were old and of generally little interest to him. For a moment, he considered writing an email to Irving, but this anxious wait had sucked the ability to care about much else. Definitely not something like gravitational waves. His fingers tapped out a rhythm against his thigh, changing every ten seconds as anxiety got the better of him. He wasn’t even sure why he was so anxious. It wasn’t exactly like his diagnosis could get all that much worse. They didn’t expect him to survive another three years. Shaving time off of that would hardly make a difference. Admittedly, the project he had started with Irving might make a huge difference. It was a shame that it was neither of their fields of excellence, but creating new organs that could do the job of the original in a satisfactory manner, without the need for multiple follow-up operations…well that was the dream.
The door opened and he looked up to see Dr. Kerry looking out. Their eyes locked and the physician motioned for him to follow. Ezra put his phone back into his pocket and stood up, walking the length of the reception area in that weirdly suspended time where one step seemed like it took hours. As soon as the door closed behind him time seemed to speed up again, faster than was right, but he was relatively certain it was just his perception of everything. There wasn’t really some kind of device playing with temporal fields around this hospital. Ezra took a seat, nervously pressing his fingernails into the meat of his palm. He sighed out the breath he was holding then looked evenly at the doctor.
“So, what’s the damage, Doc?” His feigned nonchalance didn’t seem to put the doctor off at all. He was probably used to people acting braver than they were. Heart problems weren’t exactly uncommon, especially in this age of obesity. Heart disease was now one of the biggest killers of people in the USA. So what if his condition wasn’t tied to his weight? It was still going to kill him. At least, if he didn’t get himself killed first. Dr. Kerry had obviously trained long and hard on his professional manner. His expression remained as neutral as Ezra kept his own, he merely coughed and straightened papers on his desk. Then he removed his glasses and set them aside. It was a significant tell. Ezra knew the guy only did that when he was about to break some bad news, he never felt the need to take his glasses off if everything was normal.
“From your most recent scans and the blood work I’m afraid I don’t have good news. We thought with the way you were going that you still had a good three to five years. It’s looking like eighteen months would now be an ambitious estimate,” Doctor Kerry’s voice was slow and gravelly like always. It was possible he spoke so slowly so that people had time to take everything in, but right now it just felt like he was wasting time Ezra didn’t have. “Have you been doing anything differently recently?”
“No.” Ezra lied immediately and shrugged. “That’s just the way the dice falls I guess. I’ll speak with Sandy, sort out the next appointment. Thanks, Doc.” Ezra stood, carefully pushing the chair back under the desk before he left without another word. The doctor knew him well enough by now that he didn’t try to cushion this with any platitudes. Ezra had bigger things to think about now. And people to contact.