The Clay Lion Read Online Free

about a doctor who used his trip to save his patient.  I don’t need
you to do all that, but I think I need your help.  I want to try to fix it
myself, but I can’t figure out what caused Branson’s disease.  I need more
information.  Information that I think you might have access to. 
Please.  Please say you’ll help me.”
    Before I realized what I was doing, I told him
everything.  A man I barely knew.  In the cold and snow, in the
middle of the clinic parking lot, I implored him to help me figure out what had
caused my brother’s illness.
    We stood there, me shivering in my too thin
jacket, him looking as if he had been punched in the gut.  There was
silence as I waited.  In that moment, it was as if I was balancing on the
tip of a pin.  I would either fall forward into the hope of my future or
backward into the despair of my past.  But I was going to fall.  And
Dr. Rudlough would decide in which direction I would
be going.
    He looked at his watch.  “I’ve got a few
minutes,” he said.  “It’s cold.  Why don’t we go back inside?”
     
     
     
     
    C HAPTER F OUR
     
     
     
     
    Dr. Rudlough , or Bill
as I would come to call him, spent the next several weeks with me at his side
scouring all available resources in the search for the source of Branson’s
disease.  My first order of business was to go through Branson’s medical
records with a fine tooth comb.  I made a note of every sneeze, sniffle,
and infection from birth on.  I traced the origin of each vaccination by
lot and serial number.  I made lists of every medication he took and each
bump, bruise, and scratch for which he was seen by a physician.  I also
rummaged through family calendars and photos in an attempt to correlate times
and dates of any “medical experience.”
    It took weeks to accumulate a full picture of
Branson’s medical history.  My days were spent pouring over old files. 
I made lists of the places we had traveled and the possible contaminants to
which he had been exposed.  I compiled lists of water toxicity from the
municipality, air quality reports from the local power plants, and soil samples
from our property to be tested for trace elements.  I left no stone
unturned.  I rarely slept.  I barely ate.  My parents watched me
from afar, pleased that I was moving through the world with purpose, yet
concerned that the purpose was consuming my every waking moment. 
    For his part, Dr. Rudlough devoted his personal time to researching the disease itself.  As a
physician, he had access to databases and medical documentation that were
restricted to me.  He compiled lists of the known causes of pulmonary
fibrosis and reached out to other physicians who had experience treating the
disease.  Many were willing to share information about their deceased
patients’ exposures and histories.  Together, over the weeks, with the
help of others in the field, we began to put together a skeleton outline of
exposures that kept reappearing.
    Finally, we made a list of each event in
Branson’s history that could have possibly led to the scarring of his
lungs.  Unfortunately for me, it was extensive.  Of those patients
that had a known cause for the disease, the time between exposure and the onset
of symptoms was relatively short.  It was the only detail I had going for
me.  The odds were that whatever caused Branson’s lungs to destroy
themselves initiated the progression of the disease fairly late in his
life.  The law only allowed me to spend six months with him in the
past.  The timing of exactly which six months to choose would be crucial
to Branson’s survival.  Out of all the possible exposures in the last year
of Branson’s life, we narrowed the best cases down to merely two. 
    In the middle of the tenth grade, Branson
developed an extensive rash on his shins.  We assumed it was a reaction to
wearing his soccer shin guards, and the doctor prescribed a medication called
methotrexate sodium to help