The Truth Matters!

Ward 2.

Adam walked to the door and heard a suppressed sob.

Looking inside through the glass window above the door.

Sure enough, Bill lying face down on the pillow, trembling, and sobbing.

"Well."

Adam sighed inwardly.

I stood outside for more than ten minutes, waiting for Bill to stop crying.

Adam then pushed the door open and went inside.

"Dr. Duncan."

Bill wiped away the tears from the corners of his eyes and forced a smile as he greeted them.

Are you alright?

Adam said gently, "You just had surgery, so you need to rest and be careful not to reopen your wound."

"Thank you, doctor. I understand."

Bill laughed.

"Should we call Dr. Burke over?"

Adam hesitated and said, "Perhaps you need to have a good talk with him?"

"Preston has already spoken to me."

Bill forced a smile, "I'm fine, I just need time to recover, just like this wound."

As he spoke, he touched the wound that had been cut open and stitched up during the surgery.

"If anything happens, the nurse can call me."

Adam nodded, gave his instructions, and prepared to leave.

But when he got to the door, he turned back.

"What's wrong, Dr. Duncan?"

Bill looked at Adam.

"There are some things I shouldn't have said."

Adam stood by the hospital bed and said thoughtfully, "But I still want to advise you to think more positively. Sometimes the truth is really important."

He was Bill's attending physician and naturally didn't want Bill to aggravate his wounds due to excessive grief.

At that point, whatever the specific reason, he will have been somewhat derelict in his duty.

Therefore, even if he is unwilling to get involved in the patient's private affairs.

However, in order to complete this case as perfectly as possible, he also decided to make an exception and give Bill some psychological counseling.

"Thank you, Dr. Duncan."

Bill paused for a moment, then smiled and said, "I understand. Preston is both my good friend and my doctor. He's telling me the truth for my own good."

"Would you be interested in hearing a true story from me?"

Adam simply sat down.

"Certainly."

Bill was very cooperative.

Even though he was in great pain, he didn't take it out on others; he was a very well-mannered person.

This is also one of the important reasons why Adam was willing to get involved.

"There was a young couple, just twenty years old. The husband was white and the wife was African American. They were childhood sweethearts, but because the husband's father strongly opposed it and often beat and scolded them, they ran away from home at a very young age and got married early."

Adam said slowly.

"They must be very much in love."

Bill murmured.

"Yes."

Adam nodded. "They loved each other very much, the kind of love where they would give their lives for each other. Once, they went to a restaurant and unfortunately encountered robbers. The robbers not only wanted to steal money, but also took a fancy to the young wife. Even with the robber pointing a gun at his head and seeing the robber trying to molest the young wife, the husband dared to stand up for her, but was dissuaded by his wife."

"Then what?"

"Bill asked."

"At this moment, the kidnapper who wanted to molest the wife suddenly felt unwell and started coughing incessantly."

Adam continued, "The young husband, taking advantage of the other robber being distracted, knocked him unconscious, then knocked down the robber who was trying to molest his wife and beat him severely. But at that moment, the young wife suddenly fell to the ground, clutching her throat, unable to breathe."

"Does that coughing robber have a contagious disease?"

Bill guessed.

"That's what everyone else suspects too."

Adam said, "The husband loves his wife very much, so even though they are very poor and usually wouldn't dare to call an ambulance, this time he gritted his teeth and didn't stop the people around from calling an ambulance, after all, it wasn't a broken leg..."

Bill couldn't help but laugh when he heard this.

He sensed the sarcasm in Adam's words.

As an African American who came from a slum, he deeply empathized with the young husband's mindset.

Back in school, one of my classmates broke his leg in a similar way.

A wealthy classmate kindly offered to call an ambulance for the classmate with the broken leg.

But when the student with the broken leg saw this, he was startled. After finding out what had happened, he immediately shouted, "I'm all better! I'm all better! Please don't call an ambulance!"

Because once the ambulance comes, $1,000 is gone.

Let alone a student from a poor family with a broken leg, even a typical middle-class family would be very cautious and would avoid calling an ambulance if possible.

Similarly, there are fire trucks.

Each vehicle costs $700, and usually two or more vehicles are deployed together.

So sometimes, when a house catches fire and the fire truck arrives, the homeowner would rather watch the fire with the firefighters than have the fire truck put out the fire.

no way.

The house is gone once it's burned down, but the homeowner simply can't afford the exorbitant firefighting costs afterward.

Let's just burn it all.

"When we arrived at the hospital, they couldn't find out what illness my young wife had at first."

Adam then returned to the main point of the story. "The young wife was once critically ill. In order to find out what disease she had, the husband, who had the same symptoms but a milder condition, voluntarily gave up treatment and let the condition worsen. He endured extreme pain and allowed the doctor to perform a brain biopsy and test drugs on him, just to increase the chances of saving his wife's life."

"This is true love..."

Bill was deeply shocked.

"Yes."

Adam nodded. "The husband is truly in love. Thanks to his efforts, the doctor finally found the cause of the young wife's illness before she died. It turned out that she had Hereditary Angioedema, a very rare genetic disease, but fortunately it is treatable."

"That's good, but wait, something's not right?"

Bill first breathed a sigh of relief, then frowned. "You said your husband also had the same symptoms, but isn't that a rare genetic disease? Could it be that..."

"Remember what I said at the beginning, that the husband's father vehemently opposed their relationship, to the point that they eventually ran away from home?"

Adam said, "When the hospital contacted him, they found out he had committed suicide."

"But one of them is white, and the other is African American?"

Bill muttered, "Mixed-race?"

"The young wife is of mixed race, with fair skin! She has the same blonde hair and blue eyes as her husband."

Adam said expressionlessly, "They are half-siblings. The husband's father had an affair with the neighbor's mother but never told them."

Bill was startled.

He finally understood Adam's intention in telling this true story.

"And then what?"

"Later, love vanished, leaving only endless pain."

Adam sighed, "The wife doesn't want to see her husband's face anymore because she feels utterly disgusted. The husband is also worried that if they have a child, it will be deformed and he will be in great pain."

Given the depth of their relationship, even if they eventually separate, the pain will last a lifetime. Therefore, the truth is sometimes crucial; blood ties must never be blurred.

"I see."

Bill murmured, "You're right! The truth is indeed very important!"

Adam observed him carefully and saw that while he was shocked, he hadn't lost much of his melancholy. Deeply relieved, he didn't tell the other "Your sister" story.

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