Luz Lopez's old and useless American car is on strike again, and now she has to take the bus to the hospital with her sick son Ramiro.Along the way, the son sitting next to her was drowsy.Fortunately, the morning bus was not too crowded, and Ramiro, who was not yet eleven years old, could lie sideways on the seat and rest his head on her lap.She lightly touched her son's cheek with the back of her hand, and Ramiro opened his eyes and smiled weakly at his mother. Ramiro's face felt a little hot to the touch, but not as hot as when he really had a fever.Compared with her son's sore throat, she was more worried about the cut on his lip.The cut made her feel uncomfortable.This Monday, Ramiro broke his lip on the school playground fence.From Wednesday to today, the wound has been swollen and inflamed, and the surrounding area is ulcerated and yellowed.But until Ramiro's throat became inflamed yesterday, he hadn't complained to her about the wound on his lip, only that his throat was uncomfortable.Luz knew her son, it wasn't that the pain was unbearable, he wouldn't complain like that.Ramiro used to get up in the middle of the night to rinse his mouth with mouthwash and take paracetamol tablets, but this morning, he told her that the situation has not improved.

In order to take her son to see a doctor, Luz had to leave today's work.Although she was considered on her way to work as soon as she left the house, absenteeism was always a risk for her.She worked as a waiter in a hotel called Osaka in the Japanese enclave, which has strict attendance requirements for employees.Luz knew that if she missed work one day, no matter how good the reason was, it would not be a good thing for her.The outpatient doctor told them to come in during the morning hours, which was of course the best, so that she could get Ramiro's prescription and send him back to school before lunch, and she could work half a day at the Osaka Hotel .

Although she has lived in San Francisco for more than ten years, Lutz is not at all willing to call this place her home.Opponents of the land reform movement in El Salvador killed first her father, a local newspaper publisher, and then her apolitical brother, a doctor.After that, she fled north to here alone with the child in her belly.Her husband Joseph also came with her and spent nearly three years with her on and off, but just last year, the Immigration Service sent him back.He didn't find a job when he got home, and now lives with her mother, barely getting by. On the way to Juda's clinic on the bus, Luz shifted impatiently in her seat.The clinic wasn't on Judah Street at all, but on Parnassus Road, two blocks from the end of Judah Road.Why don't they call it the Parnassus Clinic?Luz was a little puzzled by the question that popped up in her mind, and shook her head to herself.These insignificant incidents temporarily diverted her thoughts from the urgent task of solving her son's health problems.

Of course, the drift of thoughts is only for a moment.Money—of course money—is always an issue that has to be considered. Luz held Ramiro's hand all the way from the bus stop to the clinic.Luz felt her son's little hand was as cold and weak as the claw of a dead bird.The clinic is a converted two-storey Victorian building.The moment she opened the door, all her hopes for seeing a doctor as soon as possible were dashed.The four walls of the waiting room were lined with collapsible chairs, and more chairs were scattered haphazardly in the middle of the room, and there were no empty seats.On the floor, half a dozen kids were minding their own way with the ancient game of stacking plastic blocks, or old metal cars and trucks so old they didn't even have wheels.

Inside the reception window of the outpatient clinic, four women sat in front of the computer and were busy working.Luz stood outside the window and waited, but no one came to pay her any attention.She cleared her throat on purpose, trying to draw their attention to her presence in such a casual way.One of the women looked up at her, said "wait a minute", and then lowered her head to do things on her own.There is a pager on the window sill that says "Ring this bell for service".Although almost five minutes had passed, Luz didn't want to do anything to urge them to avoid causing dissatisfaction with the female computer operator, thinking that she had told her to wait a while.Otherwise, they would just work slower on purpose as revenge on her.She had to suppress her anger, even though she was impatient to wait.

Finally, the woman who had greeted her earlier sighed, rose reluctantly and went to the window.She stared at Luz with a bored face, stretched out her hand and said, "Please give me the health card." Then she turned to enter some information into the computer, and said without looking up, "Ten dollars." She took the money from Lutz, put it in the drawer, and said, "Your son's first doctor is Whitson, but he is not here today. Do you know any other doctors?" Luz originally wanted to ask why Dr. Whitson was away, but she knew she shouldn't complain.If Dr. Whitson is not there, then he is really not there, and it is impossible to find him even if he asks why. "No," she tried to squeeze out a smile, trying to get close to the woman, "just hurry up."

The woman looked it up on her computer monitor, tapped a few keys and replied, "Dr. Jadella will be available to see Ramiro in twenty-five minutes. You sit in the waiting room and we'll see you." call you." "Where is there a seat here?!" Luz blurted out. The woman looked up from Luz's shoulder and glanced at the waiting room behind her, throwing out a sentence: "Someone will make a seat soon." Then she stopped looking at her and called: "The next one .” While Ramiro was waking up and sleeping, Luz casually picked up the latest issue of "San Francisco" magazine from the pile of books next to him.The same issue was littered in the waiting room, with the same Anglo-American businessman's face on the cover.Reading things in English was no problem for Luz, and she quickly understood why there were all piles of the same magazine here.The cover story had to do with Tim Markham, the head of Parnassus Health Maintenance Organization, the health insurance company she was insured for.He has a beautiful wife, three well-behaved children and a dog, and lives in a mansion by the sea.In all the photos published in the magazine, he is smiling.

Luz glanced around in the waiting room, and found that no one around was smiling. She stared at the smiling face on the magazine cover for a while, then looked down at her son who was dozing beside her, raised her head to look at the clock on the wall, and returned her eyes to Markham's smiling face, Continue reading the article.Things are going well for this Markham life, and while his health insurance company is currently going through some growing pains, he's still in control.During this period, the policyholders of his company continued to enjoy good medical services. For him, this was the most important point, and it was also the goal he really cared about and pursued throughout his life.

I don't know how long it took until I finally heard a nurse named Ramiro.Luz closed the magazine and stuffed it into her bag, and walked down a long corridor with her son to a small room without windows.The room contained a medical examination table covered with plastic sheeting, a sink, a cabinet and a small bookshelf.There are a few pictures of old California mountains and seaside scenery posted on the wall, which must have added a lot of color to the house at the beginning, but now it looks dull, with several places peeled off from the wall, and the curled edges are warped angular. Ramiro lay down on the examination table and told his mother that he felt a little cold, so Luz took off her coat and put it on her son.She sat in an orange plastic chair, took a magazine out of her bag, and continued reading while she waited for the attending doctor to arrive.

At twenty-two past twelve Dr. Jadella knocked on the door and entered.While looking down at the medical form in his hand carefully, he introduced himself concisely and procedurally to Luz. "It's been a busy day," he said apologetically, "I hope I didn't keep you waiting too long." Lutz looked pleased. "Not too long." "Today we are a little short of staff. There are twenty doctors in total, and eight of them are overwhelmed by patients infected with this virus." He shook his head feebly, "Are you Ramiro?" "Yes." Ramiro opened his eyes and sat up.

"how do you feel?" "Not very well. My throat..." Dr. Jadella drew a stick from the barrel of instruments on the cabinet and said to Ramiro, "Okay, let me look at it. Will you stick your tongue out as far as you can and say 'ah'?" The examination took only about ten seconds, after which Dr. Jadella placed a hand on the boy's neck and gently felt around with his fingertips. "Is this where it hurts? How do you feel?" "Yes, it hurts when I swallow." Five minutes later, Luz and Ramiro had left the gate of the clinic and were on their way home.They were there for two full hours, paying ten dollars—more than she made in an hour—in addition to her full day's wages.It took less than a minute for Dr. Jadella to examine Ramiro and diagnose his sore throat as a viral cause, saying that all he needed was paracetamol tablets for children and an over-the-counter medicine for sore throats. up.He also explained the pathological mechanism of the virus, saying that the symptoms they cause will disappear on their own in about two weeks, no matter which virus came first. This sounds like a joke!Luz thought so, but she didn't smile. Two days later, Ramiro's condition took a turn for the worse, but Luz had to insist on going to work.They had warned her about the absenteeism last time, and if she didn't want to work in the hotel anymore, there were many people who would be happy to take her job.In this case, she had no choice but to take Ramiro to the night emergency after get off work. On the bus, she put her arms around her son, who was sitting next to her, wrapping her coat tightly around his small, shivering body.The child curled up in his mother's warm arms and soon fell asleep.His breathing sounded like someone squeezing a paper bag inside his lungs, and his coughing sounded like the throaty throaty sound of a seal roaring. Tonight, not many people came to Parnassus Clinic to see a doctor, Luz paid ten dollars at the outpatient window.Half an hour later it was completely dark when she heard Ramiro's name being called.She roused her son and followed a stocky man to a room similar in size and furnishings to Dr. None of the old and faded decorative paintings were posted. Without waiting for anyone to remind him, Ramiro obediently climbed onto the plastic-covered examination table, curled his knees in front of his chest, and closed his eyes.Just like last time, Luz covered her son with her coat, sat on the plastic chair next to her and continued to wait for the doctor.A knock on the door woke Luz, who was dozing off in a daze. "I want to take a nap too," the woman who entered said softly in fluent Spanish."Dr. Judith Cohen" was written on her badge on her chest.After looking down at the medical book in her hand, she looked up at Luz and said, "Okay, tell me about Ramiro. Where did he hurt himself?" "At school. He fell and hurt himself, but he just yelled that he had a bad throat," Luz replied. Dr. Cohen frowned, picked up a spatula, and examined Ramiro's throat.She took a little longer than Dr. Jadella, and then she turned to Luz and said in Spanish: "His throat doesn't look very good, and to be honest, the appearance of this wound on his mouth really makes me think." Not feeling well. I'm going to do a culture for further confirmation. Also, in case it's not a virus, I'll prescribe some antibiotics." "But the other doctor—" "Really?" She stretched out her hand and waved it decisively, interrupting Luz involuntarily, "Okay. What do you want to say?" "Another doctor said it was a virus, but now says it might not be a virus, which confuses me." Dr. Cohen, who was around Lutz's age, explained in a sympathetic tone: "Sometimes a virus can cause a reinfection, and antibiotics are needed to treat it. It seems to me that the wound It's infected." "Then this medicine will work for it?" The doctor nodded and prescribed a prescription. "Does Ramiro have any allergies? Okay, that's it. If his wound doesn't heal, I will consider prescribing him a higher unit dose of antibiotics. I will tell you when the culture results are back. you." "When will that be? The test result?" "Usually it takes two to three days." "It will take three days? Then can we give him a larger dose of antibiotics now? In that case, I will save the trip in the middle and don't have to come here again." The doctor shook his head and rejected Luz's idea. "You don't need to come here again. If we think we need to change another prescription, I will let you know by phone." Luz waited for the doctor's voice to finish for a while, before muttering in a low voice: "Two prescriptions, it will cost money." Dr. Cohen felt sympathetic and let out a few "tsk tsk" exclamations. "I feel bad about it, but I really don't want to prescribe more antibiotics than Ramiro actually needs." She touched Luz's arm reassuringly. "He'll be fine, you don't have to worry." Luz wanted to give Dr. Cohen a smile to thank her for her relief, but she didn't feel like she could even smile now.How could she not be worried?Ramiro's condition was not improving at all, in fact, she knew in her heart that his condition was getting worse.Thinking of this, she couldn't help feeling sad.Although he tried his best to control his emotions and not lose his composure in front of others, tears still rolled out of his eyes and trickled down his cheeks.Angrily, she quickly wiped away her tears with her hands.Seeing this scene, the doctor said to her with concern: "Are you really worried?" Luz nodded silently, and then said, "I'm afraid..." The doctor slowly sat down on the chair next to Luz, leaned sideways towards her, and whispered eagerly, "Everything will be fine, really. He's just infected, that's all. Antibiotics clear up the infection within a few days." "But in my heart...feels..." She choked up and hesitated to speak. Dr. Cohen straightened up, but still said softly: "You mother and son are both very tired. The most important thing for you to do now is to go home and get a good sleep. When you wake up, things will be better. " Luz felt that this was the end of the matter, and there was nothing else to do.She met the doctor's gaze for a long time before mechanically nodding and thanking her.After that, she and her shivering son, who was tightly wrapped up, left the clinic. On this cold and terrible night, they followed the way home and disappeared into the lonely night.