Although Stephen is working hard, the whole world seems to be getting worse and worse, and his efforts cannot make his life better.
Although the work in the clinic can still be maintained, the income is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain life.
Rising prices have caused the prices of goods in supermarkets to change almost every day. Even so, the shelves are becoming increasingly empty and there are fewer and fewer things available to buy.
The depressed scene on the streets is even more shocking. Not only are there a large number of homeless people wandering the streets, but as the weather gets colder and colder, more and more people freeze to death. They can be seen on the streets almost every day. Corpse.
What's more, there are rumors that the snow in New York is mixed with personal skin flakes.
I don’t know where this rumor originated, but it spread very quickly. Even Kristen was skeptical about it. Not only did she wear a mask every day when she went out, she also prepared an umbrella for herself to prevent these things from falling on her.
But compared with these, what really makes Stephen feel that the world is getting worse and worse is the increasing number of patients in the clinic every day.
At the beginning, this small clinic only received patients from surrounding neighborhoods suffering from minor problems such as headaches, brain fever, etc. It could basically solve the problem by prescribing some corresponding drugs and asking them to go back and drink more hot water and rest.
But as the world is getting worse, not only the number of people coming to see a doctor is increasing, but the symptoms are also becoming more and more serious.
From ordinary headaches and brain fever, it gradually escalated to various intractable diseases that even doctors in big hospitals would find difficult. Among them, some of the mutations and aberrations that Stephen had never seen before were even more shocking to him.
After all, it is really scary to see a huge, deformed growth growing on the neck of a previously healthy person that can tilt his head.
If it was at the original hospital, Stephen would be able to handle this kind of disease and just perform a surgical operation to remove it.
With Stephen's skills, he was able to ensure that only this huge deformed growth was cut off without damaging the patient's original muscles and nerves.
But it is obvious that the clinic where Stephen is now does not have the conditions to perform this level of surgery, and his hands have not yet recovered enough to pick up a scalpel.
In fact, Stephen now doubts whether his skills will still be as good as before even if he can pick up the scalpel again.
You must know that surgeons must perform operations at least once or twice a week to ensure that their hands are not raw. Not holding a scalpel for a long time will really cause the surgeon's skills to decline.
At least one or two years have passed since Stephen's car accident, and he is really not sure whether he can return to his previous level.
Although now in the treatment of various patients day after day, Stephen's inner compassion has been inspired, which makes him more sincere when treating these ordinary patients, instead of just treating these ordinary patients. Treating it as a job no different from other jobs, it only made his hands no longer shake on other occasions except holding a scalpel.
Although this has allowed Stephen to preserve his career as a doctor and prevent his hands from shaking when doing anything related to medical treatment like at the beginning, there is still a long way to go before he can pick up a scalpel and recover his past surgical skills. Very far distance.
But for Stephen now, he no longer cares about this matter very much.
After all, after experiencing everything after the car accident, it was indeed difficult for Stephen to accept it all at first, and he did think of various ways to treat his hands, unwilling to accept such a huge gap.
But as time has passed, Stephen is now able to calm down and accept it all.
Things are already like this, so what if you don't accept it? Even if there are miracles in this world, miracles come with a price.
After understanding this, Stephen actually accepted the reality.
Now he only hopes to improve his current life. It is best to find a decent hospital to seek a suitable position, and then propose to Christine so that the relationship between the two can take a further step.
It's just that in this world where the whole world is getting worse, it has to be said that it is a huge challenge for Stephen to achieve his goals.
Moreover, even though he had accepted all this, Stephen still felt as if he had forgotten something important, as if he had missed a very rare opportunity. He should seize this opportunity, but he could not remember what happened.
.
So even though he didn't really care, occasionally Stephen would still try to remember what he had forgotten.
But every time he recalled it, he would think of a man wearing a monocle that he saw smiling at him somewhere. That weird smile could always take his train of thought away, making him unable to think.
Concentrate on remembering what you have forgotten.
Fortunately, Stephen doesn't care about this matter very much now. He doesn't think about it and is not very demanding. And now he has moved to live with Kristen. If he hadn't felt that his current state could not give Kristen a good life.
life, I'm afraid the two are already planning a wedding.
Christine can naturally understand what Stephen is thinking about. Although she doesn't mind Stephen's current situation and is willing to marry him, sometimes women also need to consider a man's pride and self-esteem.
After Stephen has lost the thing he is most proud of, if even the last bit of self-esteem is to hit him, Kristen is worried that this will really destroy Stephen.
So even though she actually wanted to marry him, Kristen still condoned Stephen's last insistence.
And to be honest, after two people live together, it is not particularly important whether they get married or not. Although Kristine hopes that the relationship between herself and Stephen can be blessed and proven through the sacred marriage relationship, but
For the United States, which has just experienced various ideological collisions during the Vietnam War, not getting married is not an unacceptable result.
In today's increasingly bad world, it is already a great happiness for two people to live together.
Because they are in the medical industry, both Stephen and Christine have seen too many deaths and deaths during this period. The hospital's morgue is no longer enough. The New York City government even rented cold storage to store corpses to prevent them from being used.
Too much accumulation.
The crematorium responsible for cremating corpses works almost 24 hours a day. The smoke rising from the burning corpses envelopes the sky in New York. Coupled with the gloomy weather, life becomes even more difficult.
It is no wonder that there are rumors that there are scraps of human skin in the snow in New York. In fact, if the recent snow in New York is really sent for analysis, the composition of human ashes can indeed be detected.
It is not incomprehensible that corpses are burned all night and day, and that the smoke emitted from the crematorium is mixed with ashes and debris.
This is also the reason why Kristen goes out with an umbrella every day. She really doesn't want the ashes to fall on her body, even if she can't feel it at all, and even if the ashes fall on her body, the umbrella will not have much effect.
But this was ultimately a comfort to her heart, which made her feel less difficult to accept.
But compared with these, the increasingly serious patients are the problems that both of them need to face.
As the situation worsened, both the small clinic where Stephen worked and the hospital where Christine worked were overcrowded. The corridors of the hospital were filled with wailing patients, and the trucks used to drag the bodies to be burned
The corpse cart even had to haul several corpses in one trip, and the corpses had to be stacked, otherwise they wouldn't fit in the cart.
These patients suffer from different diseases, but after analyzing a large number of cases, both Stephen and Kristen can come to the conclusion that they all seem to have various symptoms after being exposed to excessive radiation.
Complications and sequelae.
Distortion, ulceration, cancer... This is really very similar to the consequences of radiation pollution caused by a large dose of radiation leakage.
However, both the New York City government and the U.S. federal government have conducted extensive environmental testing and found no excessive radiation pollution or leaks.
This has also made the people increasingly dissatisfied with the federal government, believing that they have concealed the truth and are conducting some kind of inhumane experiment on the people.
After all, the United States did too many things that were immoral back then. They had done things like coaxing their own soldiers to go to the positions after the nuclear explosion, and eating biscuits contaminated with radiation for the soldiers. They had once again committed the crime of experimenting on their own people.
It's not impossible.
But there is no direct evidence in any of this, just public speculation and malicious speculation by some people with ulterior motives.
As doctors, Christine and Stephen do not have the ability to find the source of the disease. All they can do is try their best to cure every patient they receive.
Even some people knew at a glance that he was completely hopeless.
For example, the young man in front of Stephen, looking at the cracked and ulcerated appearance of his right arm, Stephen knew that he was hopeless.
"What's your name, young man?" But based on the professional ethics of a doctor, Stephen still planned to treat him as much as possible, even if it was just to reduce some of the pain in the last stage of his life.
Even though his arm was ulcerated and bleeding, this young man still maintained a positive and optimistic attitude. When faced with Stephen's inquiry, he grinned and replied: "Peter Parker, I work as a freelance contributor at the Daily Bugle, providing them with photos.
and manuscripts, I like this job very much...ah!"
The irritation of the alcohol on the wound made Peter scream, but he quickly held it back.
While Stephen was cleaning Peter's disfigured right hand with alcohol and disinfectant, he asked him: "Reporter? Not a bad job. How did you get your arm like this? It looks bad.
of infection.”
"It was a scientific experiment, and I messed up." Peter showed an embarrassed expression, and he said with some annoyance: "A mutated radioactive spider was used in that scientific experiment, but I didn't pay attention to let the spider escape.
It came out, and when I was about to grab it, it bit me, and my arm ended up like this."
Having said this, Peter looked at Stephen with hopeful eyes and asked him: "Doctor, can my arm be saved?"
Facing the young man's hopeful eyes in front of him, Stephen couldn't help but be touched in his heart. He remembered his experience when he sought medical advice when he suffered comminuted fractures in both hands.
Stephen was the same way at that time. He was full of hope and asked for help from people who claimed to be able to cure him, but he always got cold despair in exchange.
At this time, Stephen was in a different place, and his heart was full of emotion and helplessness.
But at this time, he could only reluctantly say to Peter: "Don't worry, young man, you will be fine."
As he spoke, Stephen cleaned Peter's entire arm, removed some of the rotten flesh on his arm, and then carefully bandaged him, and then gave Peter some medicine, hoping
It can help his condition.
When Peter left Stephen's consulting room with great gratitude, Stephen finally realized that he seemed to have picked up the scalpel again.
Just when he was cutting the carrion on Peter's arm, he instinctively pulled out a scalpel and didn't feel the slightest abnormality.
And what's especially strange is that because Stephen can't pick up a scalpel, there are actually no scalpels in Stephen's clinic.
But the scalpel appeared in his hand very naturally and completed the treatment for Peter without him even realizing it.
"This..." Stephen was a little confused about the situation, but he still tried to pick up the scalpel that had been put down again, hoping that his hand had returned to normal.
However, what was disappointing was that although he could indeed hold the scalpel again, his hand was still trembling unconsciously.
Although this level of trembling no longer prevents Stephen from performing operations such as cutting off carrion on Peter's arm, he is still unable to perform precise surgical operations.
Stephen put down the scalpel in frustration, and sat in his chair a little slumped.
Looking at the scalpel that was picked up and put down, Stephen became full of thoughts.
He was deeply touched by Peter's hopeful face and hopeful eyes just now, which made him feel compassion and at the same time he couldn't help but reflect on why he wanted to study medicine in the first place.
It's just that the memories of the past failed to help Stephen. Instead, they plunged him into the pain and sadness of losing a loved one, making it difficult for him to extricate himself.
The death of his brother and sister is an unforgettable pain for Stephen throughout his life. It is almost impossible for Stephen to heal this pain.
