Grace - A Patient Encounter

“You promised me a book.” Grace said.

Grace had wire-rim spectacles and a contemplative facial expression, uncommon for her age.

I had not promised her a book, but I did not tell her this, for I was intrigued.

“What kind of book did I promise you?”

“I don’t know,” she said…”Maybe a novel.”

“What kind of novel?”

“Any,” she replied.

“Remind me when you are about to go to the pharmacy,” I told her. I would not need reminding, for I tend to remember the unusual. A pensive teenager who makes up a story to get her hands on a novel is unusual.

“So, how is school?”

“It is nice,” Grace replied.

“What do you study?”

“Everything,” she said, flashing me a glance as if to tell me that she knew that I knew that fourteen year-olds were always assigned a general curriculum.

Of course, I could not resist asking, so I did: “What do you want to do when you get older.”

“I want to be a doctor.”

“Would you like to work here?” I asked pointing to the floor of the consultation room.

“Oh, yes.”

Hearing this, her grandmother, who had begun caring for Grace when her mother died, suddenly said, “They always leave. They never come back. They go away to the UK or USA to study and they say that they are going to return, but they don’t.”

“But Grace will come back.” I said. “She is going to be the best doctor in Botswana someday.”

Grace smiled. “In Africa,” she said.

“What’s that?” I asked, not understanding.

“The best in Africa.”

I looked into her bright, sincere eyes. I shined a light in them, and watched her pupils get smaller. She squinted. I looked into her healthy mouth and ears. I listened to her strong heart and lungs. Her belly was soft but ticklish. She had no abnormal rashes or lymph nodes. Her hands were warm and pink with well-oxygenated blood.

I finished the exam, wrote her prescription for ARVs, and took her by her left, healthy hand and led her to our library, where there is a small collection of children’s books...and novels.

She narrowed her choices down to The Hobbit, Prince Caspian from The Chronicles of Narnia, and A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book One. She thought for a few seconds and then picked up the first of thirteen small volumes that tell of the adventures of three skilled siblings who find themselves in an endless string of predicaments.

“A good choice.” I told her. “Now, if you bring this one back, I will give you the second one to read, and then the third…and so on.”

“Thank you,” she said. I handed her a prescription. “Thank you,” she said again.

As she said this, I wondered as I do most days at how incredibly lucky I am. I get to show up to work and help restore the immune system of a child that the world came very close to giving up on, a child that was almost left to die. I get to encourage this nearly forgotten child to become Africa’s best doctor. And, I actually get paid to do this.

Then, this clever child who has waited several hours for a simple refill of HIV medicine thanks me for doing a job that makes me happier than anything else I can imagine.

I hope that Grace, with her discerning eyes, can see this.