Page 5 - Sample Flip Builder Project

The intern has dark feathery eyelashes and a middle-eastern look. He pulls down

his mask and mentions a word I don’t catch. ‘How do you spell that?’ I ask.
S-t-r-e-p-t-o-c-o-c-c-u-s P-y-o-g-e-n-e-s.

I google it on the iPad, and immediately regret doing so. There are photographs.
Graphic images.

My son is in pain. He breathes shallowly, his eyelids flickering. Every little movement is
agony. He seems on the verge of tears, but the act of sobbing and shuddering will

cause him torment because he has deep incisions all over his body. Underneath the
bandages the wounds are open to let fluid ooze out. The nurse, Shelly, tells me the

wounds must be stitched up in a week, regardless of whether the infection has been

conquered, otherwise there’ll be scarring.
‘Can we do something about the pain?’ I ask her.

In time I will forget all the nurses’ names. Only Guy and Shelly I’ll remember. Guy
because he’s my first point of contact. Shelly because she takes my concern about the

pain to the doctors. Because she has a boy with the same name.
‘I have a Tristan, too,’ she tells me as she checks the level of the catheter. ‘My

younger son. You must be a romantic, like me.’

‘I am,’ I say. ‘Tristan was one of King Arthur’s knights, as you’d know —’ I glance
at him, sleeping. ‘Will he — will he —’

‘He’ll come through,’ she whispers, ‘because knights save people. They’re
needed in the world.’

Mr Speight is in his forties with a jolly face, plump cheeks and glasses. He wears blue

scrubs, and has an English accent. Many of the doctors are foreign, on exchange

programs, I find out later.
‘I am quietly optimistic,’ he tells me. ‘He’s young and healthy and strong. If he’d

been older…

‘I’ve only had a case like this once before, many years ago. They’re very rare.
Luckily I recognised the symptoms. Your son’s arm was swollen up three times the size

it should be —’

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