"There is a cure . "
Ramez said after taking another look at the ringing, then put both hands on the papers.
- " Treatment, not surgery, for my condition! "
" Sir, you look pale? Are you all right ? "
" Because I have cancer and haven't eaten anything since last night, and my head is killing me … yeah, I wasn't feeling any better. Thanks for asking. Now, enough of this nonsense, and let's get to the point. "
" There is a Canadian organization called Hotkiss that specializes in developing vaccines . "
" I know her . "
Ramez got up from his metal desk and closed the door. He was nervous for some reason I don't know.
He sat back down at his desk, and I shouted:
- Are you going to talk or what?
He was turning the papers in front of him, then he answered:
- "The Foundation is currently studying an experimental treatment called NSTZ, which specializes in treating brain stem and hypothalamic carcinoma."
"- Experimental?! That's weird. I'm looking around and I can't find the mouse! "
He replied stupidly:
" - mouse? "
"- Yes? Lab rat . "
He understood the sarcasm and began to feel angry, and his voice rose.
- " What? Are you really making fun of me? "
I hit the seat and stood up.
" Adam Wagih wouldn't lie naked in front of you to be a lab rat, what do you think of that approach, you four-eyed clown? "
- " Excuse me, Dr. Adam, but are you crazy? "
I was shocked by the response, so I stammered, and he interrupted me, saying:
" Experimental drug? Yes. Possible side effects? Absolutely. Possible failure? Of course, but come on, why don't you go home and watch the sky waiting for the Angel of Death to pay you a visit? Go on, after all, there are hundreds of people who deserve to live more than you."
Then he got up from his desk, gathering his papers and muttering angrily:
" You arrogant fool."
I looked at him and looked for a long time, although I despised the young man, I looked into his eyes now, and I found him sincere, did he really care about me?
I grabbed his wrist and made him still, and he looked into my eyes, and pity made him calm down.
I mumbled:
- "Has it been tested on humans before?"
He answered me calmly:
- "You'll be the first."
Let's agree that Ramez is a disgusting, ugly bastard? But he's also right.
I looked at my face in the window behind him, in disbelief at the miserable situation things had become.
Oh Adam! You've become a lab rat, and maybe you'll have a barcode printed on your back and be put in a cage naked with your foreskin hanging out for researchers to examine! You'll be mated to a female chimpanzee to monitor genetic inheritance in offspring, or maybe you'll be mated to a male chimpanzee and wait for you to give birth to hybrid offspring!
She sighed in distress.
"- Dr. Adam? "
I was startled and looked at him, I had been very absent-minded lately.
As for him, he continued in a low voice:
- " What did you say? Shall we get down to business? "
I shook my head in despair, he smiled triumphantly and patted my hand. Two completely contradictory actions, I really don't understand this young man!
Enthusiasm returned to his voice, and he said:
" I was sure of that, I already wrote to them and I'm waiting to receive the first shipment of the drug, time is our real enemy now. Don't you agree?"
I nodded as I looked at him.
Wait Ramez, why are you sweating like that? Why are you looking away on purpose? He's lying at some point, I know when someone is lying, and maybe he's not. God knows, I've started to be suspicious of everything this Ramez says, everything except one thing - I put my hand on my heart and one hand up - I swear he's telling the truth about it.
- " Time is our enemy? You mean I might die before we start treatment?"
Ramiz was silent.
I think he searched a lot for an answer, but he didn't find one, or he found one but it was too late for an answer, so he was silent, and I was silent in turn, and we left together, having agreed without speaking, not to speak.
Now, let me tell you a story, the story of a young man named Ramez:
No, it was not a story of suffering or struggle, but on the contrary; Ramez was born to a wealthy father and mother, he was born with a golden spoon in his mouth, a golden plate in his hand, and another golden plate on his head, so to speak.
To make the picture clearer, after understanding three words: "Ramez Fathy El Sawy".
Yes, he is the son of "Fathy El Sawy" in flesh and blood, the owner of the largest real estate investment companies in Egypt and the Middle East. What? Are you asking about his scandal with Salma Ezz, the famous actress?
Hey guys, not everything we hear is true, all celebrities are surrounded by rumors. That goes without saying, and this is not our topic at all. Speaking of rumors, I think you heard the rumor about El-Sawy Sr., when he was still wearing a galabiya in his village of Kafr Hamada in the Abnub district of Assiut. That night, after he lay with his wife Safiya, enduring the smell of the animals that invaded the village, and after she also endured the smell of his sweat, she fell into a deep sleep against her will. As for him, he was still worried, so he got out of his warm bed to complete a job he had not finished. He had started digging a trench under the house a few days ago, and with the enthusiasm of a true farmer, he brought the equipment, then resumed digging all night long in the wide floor of the shed until he was exhausted, and was about to stop if the axe had not suddenly hit a metal surface . It is said that when he lifted the metal cover, he found that tomb, which contained countless treasures of gold, statues, and papyri.
This was the major turning point in Al-Sawy's life. From a farmer who plowed and cultivated a plot of land he inherited from his father, which was generous to him with its crops, to Al-Sawy Pasha, the chief of the notables of Assiut. From the inheritance of his pharaonic ancestors, he founded a contracting company that has now become one of the largest entities in the entire region.
We return once again to Ramez, the sole heir to the throne of El-Sawy, whom his father saw as the support that would complete the journey after him, specifically at that moment when El-Sawy almost had a heart attack, when his only child came to him expressing his desire to be one of the white-robed successors to Hippocrates. After a historic quarrel that the El-Sawy family will never forget, and after poor Ramez was displaced between his wealthy friends and five-star hotels, his mother returned to intercede for him with his father to give up his desire to expel his only child and leave him alone to choose what he wants.
After intercessions from some relatives, Al-Sawy Pasha was forced to return him; he let him return because he knew that one day this disobedient son would fail in his endeavor and return to ask for forgiveness and praise his father's insightful vision, as he was from the Al-Sawy family, and this family was not created for medicine, it was created for bricks and cement only. As for Ramez, he swore that one day he would prove his father wrong.
I won't go into more boring details than that. I think you've seen this story in more than one low-quality Arab movie before. He studied abroad, graduated, became a doctor, then returned to Egypt. End of story.
Let's just say that the father was not very right; Frams was far from a failure. When he chose oncology, he chose it because it was the most challenging field. The challenge for him was not just his challenge to his father, but it became a malignant disease that ran in his blood; he loved to do what others had failed at. If you wanted to kill him, you challenged him to jump from the twentieth floor, and before you could blink, he was on the edge, ready.
But let's say that Ramez is still a green, fresh branch that has just grown. He is a death-maker, a hopeless case-maker. Any self-respecting oncologist goes through three stages:
The first stage : is the stage of optimism. In this stage, the doctor thinks that he has come to save the world from the abyss. He is the awaited Messiah. As soon as he touches the patient, he is healed. He only has to look at the patient with the strong, penetrating gaze of a doctor, and his illness leaves him immediately. The nursing staff dances around him in joy and lifts him up on their shoulders, cheering and chanting. The great doctors, one by one, put their pens on his table in respect, just as scientists used to do with Nobel Prize winners.
The second stage : is the stage of depression, in which he realizes that half of his patients eventually die after months of treatment and strenuous effort, and that he sees a quarter of them only once because at the next examination they are already dead, and as for the last quarter, they fall dead in front of him during the examination. At this stage, he feels surrounded by death, this death is too much, he becomes depressed, loses any sense of humor, does not sleep much or does not sleep at all, seriously thinks about leaving this specialty, or perhaps leaving the medical profession as a whole to rest from this suffering, but when he retracts the idea of resigning, he has reached his third stage as an oncologist, which is the stage characterized by indifference , as his mind has come to see patients as cases, just a number or a file. "Uncle Sherbini" has become a prostate cancer case, "Therese" the forty-year-old woman with three children is file number twenty-three, the eyes become glassy, and the feelings become robotic, and he reaches the complete conviction that emotional numbness is the measure of his professionalism as a doctor
Ramez is now in the first stage - fortunately for me - he is still fighting for me sincerely, and in addition to the fact that I am a well-known public figure, you know the value of my recovery for any doctor's reputation, I am in any case one of his most important projects, and if he passes it, his future will be turned upside down. This is why Ramez is seriously pursuing the case, and he did not know that we were on the verge of causing the death of hundreds of innocent people.