Luna's moon stood translucent against a pitch black canvas. The shadows across Ponyville Hospital were thick as the grim atmosphere that the wards held. It was 3 am. Most doctors were long gone, few on call. The halls were lacking in their usual fluorescence. The glowing red exit signs gave off a condemned feeling. The few nurses present had mostly dosed off in scattered chairs in empty rooms while others watched tv in the wards of the coma patients. Some checked up on their sick inmates. They drew blood and checked temperatures. The halls were mostly devoid of life however.
One life was still awake. She thrust through charts and stats of a certain patient. She sat her stethoscope cutie mark plot on one of the swiveling chairs in the Oncology Department. Something was bothering her, it wasn't her unwashed blond mane or her messy white coat. It was her patient. His MRI scans showed growths in the occipital, temporal, and parietal lobe. The earlier biopsy of the growths in the parietal lobe showed that they were intracranial neoplasm. Her patient was in the final stage of terminal brain cancer. His symptoms presented as partial simple seizures, and severe headaches. Dr. Cassidy had thought that the symptoms were caused by a concussion he received previous weeks ago. However the scans didn't lie. Operation was off the table. The growths were to close to the cerebral cortex, and with the amount of tumors present the odds of a successful procedure bordered close to zero even with magical aid.
Dr. Cassidy kicked her legs onto the long table. The lights flickered over from the lab down the hall. Had the doctor been epileptic sitting in that room for the hours that she had, her probability of having an epileptic episode would have been through the roof. She wasn't on call. Hell she could have gone home. Yet she sat there obsessing. Running her hooves through her mane she sighed. The poor doctor read through the file and thought back to eight hours ago when she had to break the news.
She walked through the door of her patients room. Her hooves where shaking. Ever since she took up residency at Ponyville a couple of weeks ago not once did she have to do something like this. The sight before her almost triggered a gag reflex. A middle aged mare with a dark mane, a brown coat, and a spoon and pot cutie mark was holding the hoof of the patient in the hospital bed. He looked exhausted, and it was understandable. It was late probably the young colts bed time. There was still a net and bandages around his head from the biopsy. His dark red mane tuffed through the bandages. His eyes fluttered shut as he finally succumbed to sleep. The mother looked up from her sleeping child at the doctor and smiled.
" Hello doctor do you have the results back?" Her voice cheery but shaky. It reflected a unease which was appropriate for the moment.
Dr. Cassidy placed her clip board on the bed table and gulped. There was no easy was to say it. She didn't want to. It was eating her alive. How could she tell this mare? How do you tell someone that the person they love is going to die in a week. It wasn't fair. Why did she have to tell them? Maybe she could get another resident to do this. Maybe?
" Um doctor?" She was pulled back from her thoughts by the mother across the bed.
" Yes, sorry I am afraid I have some bad news Mrs. Pots." Her tone tried to have an empathetic tone but failed. She was still new to this.
The mothers face went pale. The scariest words ever to be uttered by a doctor just came out of the one in front of her. She pulled herself closer to her sleeping boy. " What?"
Dr. Cassidy took her glasses from her green eyes and put them in her coat pocket. She had to stop her self from shaking so bad in front of the patients mother. " I am regret to inform you.", Her eyes glanced at the colt lying in the bed, " That the biopsy confirms our diagnosis. Your son has stage four terminal brain cancer. It's inoperable. I am so sorry."
The room when dead quiet. The machine monitoring heart rate beeped and beeped every second of the longest silence of Dr. Cassidy's life. Mrs Pots looked down at her son. Her face was empty. A single year ran down her cheek. She walked over to try and comfort the shell shocked mother.
" We can try radiation treatment. But at this stage the chances of success aren't good. I am so sorry. I am so so sorry." A terrible feeling twisted inside the doctors stomach. As she reached out to console the mother her hoof was swatted away.
" Please leave me Dr. Cassidy. I need to be alone with my son for a little bit." She drew even closer to her son cradling his sleeping head in her hooves, tears where running down her face like a faucet but her expression never changed. Her look was that of emptiness. Like staring into a dark abyss. Like a thousand years couldn't change the echoes of pain in her eyes. It was as if she was looking at the face of death.
Dr. Cassidy backed away. She retreated out the door and into the hall. Nurses and aids passed her by as she slumped back against the wall.
" Holy buck." An incredible knot formed in her stomach. It hurt. Its pain was immaculate. Nausea hit her and she ran to the nearest bathroom. Dr. Cassidy regurgitated her dinner into the toilet of one of the stalls. Her hooves started shaking violently.
She started crying. She curled into a ball on the bathroom floor. " I can't do this. I can't do this. I can't do this. Oh Faust help me I can't do this."
The door of the room opened and it pulled Cassidy from her horrible memories of events that earlier transpired. She looked over to see who it was at this odd hour. A large mare walked in. Her ethereal dark blue mane flowed in a way more majestic than the night sky. Possibly because it was. Little stars twinkled like her deep indigo eyes. Her wings, horn, and crown meant it could only be one pony.
" Princess Luna!" Dr. Cassidy cried out as she fell backwards in her chair, files flying every which direction.
" I must have dosed off if you're here." She got up and straighted her glasses. Flustered she bowed before her princesses.
" No. Do not bow. Now is not the time for that. I know what it is that you plan on doing. You must not so this." Luna's voice was on every level serious. Her expression portrayed the same.
Dr. Cassidy looked over at the the resignation form she had with her patient files. "Princess I..." She trailed of. Her eyes started to water. " It's not fair." She collapsed of the ground and started to bawl her eyes out. " Why!" She curled into a ball.
Luna knelt down and stretched her wing over her crying subject. A couple minutes passed as Dr. Cassidy let it out. She never imagined that this would be so painful. Other doctors had telling a terminal patient the bad news down to a science. She never thought her first time would be this bad. But then again what did she expect?
" I don't know what to do princess. I just. It sucks." She wiped the tears from her eyes and looked into Luna's.
" I know my dear. Many that I knew have passed. It does as you say suck. But letting your pain make you throw away a promising career over a bad case is not a way to handle it. Look at this." Luna's horn lot up . Cassidy looked as she was now in a crowed of hundreds in the Canterlot Palace. She saw herself at the front and she looked older. She was receiving an award from Princess Celestia. All around her the crowed was applauding. The liquid sun flowed through the stain glass windows. Pouring onto her older figure. It looked almost holy.
" Dr. Cassidy you are the new Dean of Medicine at Cantelot General. Congratulations." The princesses voice reverberated throughout the hall. Suddenly all the crowed stared to fade away. The liquid light melted away till it was a flickering fluorescence. She was back in the Ontology Department. She got up and looked around. Luna was in the corner shimmering in the darkness like a mirage.
" You cannot let death deter you from your destiny my little pony." She slowly started to fade away.
Dr. Cassidy leaned on the table still trying to process the vision Luna showed her. " But it hurts so bad. To have to look into look into their eyes and tell them that they're not going to make it. It's to much." Her face was pleading. Not in the sense of desperation but in want of reason.
"It will not be easy. You will face many hardships. Death will always darken your doorstep. But you must will yourself to rise above it. For that is what one must do." Luna had by now all but disappeared. " Do you understand my dear doctor?"
Dr. Cassidy looked into the darkness and shook her head. " Understand? No. I will never understand why a child must die. Or why a mare will be widowed. Why some might live who don't deserve it while others that deserve it don't. I will never understand death." She sat down in her chair with a solemn look. Her dream swirling around her. The feeling of falling and flying came over her. " But I do accept it. Not because I want to but because I must."
Author's Note
I don't know how I have any time to do this. Please make sure to like, comment, and subscribe. And don't forget to use the Oxford Comma. Love you guys.
