Editor’s Note: We felt this entry from our father’s journal should be left intact for it is his account of what happened during and in the immediate aftermath of the plague. James was eight, William and I were toddlers and our sister Annie was conceived during that time. – James, Elizabeth, William and Anastasia.
The world has been to hell and back over the past eight months and it is forever changed. I’ve really had no time to keep up this journal during that time for reasons that will become evident.
We very quickly learned it could be spread through the air by inhaling water droplets from a sneeze or having them settle in the eyes. The first cases that weren’t members of the volunteer group popped up in various places around the world – France, India, Brazil, Canada, UAE, US, Peru, China, Russia, Antigua, Indonesia, etc. and it spread like a wildfire. It had doubled back into Africa and burned through the continent with some countries losing over 70% of their population. Despite the relatively fast action of the ‘first world’ and ‘second world’ nations it took a heavy toll on them, too. The numbers are still being compiled in them but on average they lost between 10-30% of their populations. At the height of the plague the only places on earth that did not have a reported case of it were Greenland, the sub Antarctic and Antarctic bases and Pitcairn Island. Greenland was saved by the quick shut down of all their airports and ports and turning away all who came near. Katie told me that most travel to the Antarctic bases was already shut down for the winter by the time the plague hit so that’s probably why they dodged the bullet and Pitcairn was saved by its sheer remoteness.
The two vaccines were used during the plague. The one produced by USAMRID proved to be the most effective but we couldn’t produce enough in time for it to make much of a difference. Thankfully it will be on hand in case anything like this happens again though I doubt it will. In the aftermath of the plague the days of just showing up at an airport, buying a ticket and hopping on a plane on a whim are essentially over. Every ‘first world’ country now has strict entry regulations and requires anyone who wants to enter their country to be certified they are disease free. The various ‘first world’ governments are beginning to coöperate on a standard certification system to streamline processing at customs points. The days of lax border control and massive immigration are over, too.
The plague wasn’t the only cause of death during that time. The current projection out of the WHO is a third of the world’s population died from the disease and the ‘collateral damage’ from it. That is over two billion people. During the plague every government went into various degrees of panic mode. I know there are many who are shocked and appalled by what happened but I’m really not. It truly was a life or death situation and in times like that governments have to take care of and protect their own citizens first. It’s a governmental form of triage. World trade, banking and travel was essentially shut down for months and in many countries rationing was common, in some starvation reared its ugly head. Martial law, curfews and checkpoints were the norm to try to control the spread of the disease and protect unaffected areas. This led to riots, looting and anarchy which were swiftly and ruthlessly dealt with.
The U.S. stationed National Guard and regular army troops along the borders and one had to prove citizenship or appropriate resident visas for everything. Many of the illegals along the border tried to self deport but the Mexican government wouldn’t allow them back into the country which caused quite a bit of a problem along the southern border. It was less harsh along the northern border – citizens of the U.S. and Canada were allowed to go home but were detained in quarantine until it was determined if they were a carrier or sick. If not they were given transportation back to their families. In the U.S. itself there was some horrible rioting, looting and anarchy but it was not countrywide. It occurred mostly in the large cities of New England, Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Los Angeles and San Francisco. John was smart to get out of Seattle because some of the worst of the rioting occurred there. Detroit was, for all intents and purposes, razed to the ground. The local, state and federal governments simply didn’t have the manpower and assets to handle the situation so they, like the French, cordoned off the area, shut down all services and allowed none to leave.
There were riots all over the UK and Europe with Paris especially hard hit. At the height of the rioting the French government decided they were no longer going to risk the lives of their army members, paramedics, police and firefighters trying to quell the rioting and arson in the banlieues. The government feared it would spread to the rest of the city so they cordoned them off, cut off all electrical, water and sewer services and let the banlieues burn. They shot to kill any who tried to escape and those who couldn’t were faced with disease and starvation because the government was not allowing any deliveries of food into the area. Thousands died during “Les Dix Jours” and the photos of the area in the aftermath are reminiscent of the photos of Dresden at the end of WWII.
Africa and southwest Asia were the hardest hit areas by the plague and, to top it off, there were many deaths due to outbreaks of other diseases, tribal violence and wars. Further outbreaks of disease were, and still are, occurring because they can’t cope with the amount of corpses. In many places they were eventually allowed to rot where they fell. In Africa, from what we can gather, as populations started to dwindle in one tribe or country another would swoop in and take their lands and slaughter all the people who were not of the victor’s tribe or country on those lands. The maps of Africa will have to be redrawn for many of the pre plague countries no longer exist.
During the plague all the boats from Africa heading to Europe were turned back without exception. Some of passengers on one boat had armed themselves with machine guns and RPG’s in Tunisia before departing and fired on Italian navy ships – they were promptly sunk. This led to a short outcry from various human rights activists who were shouted down. The French cleaned out the refugee camps at Calais and tried to send them back to where they came from but their countries of origin wouldn’t take them. Their fate is still to be determined but the one thing the French government has stated is they will not be allowed to stay nor go to any other European country unless it is their country of origin. This had led to accusations of discrimination and racism by open border and immigration advocates but those were quickly squashed.
The Russians, Chinese and Indians were even harsher but their situations were dire. Not only did they have the plague to deal with they had fallout and radiation sickness on top of it. Iran is gone. The Iranians decided it was a good time to invade Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States while the rest of the world was busy with the plague and the war they started ended less than a half an hour later — the Saudis fired twenty nuclear missiles at them and destroyed ten of the most populous cities in Iran and their major nuclear and military facilities. The fallout from that has spread around the world with Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, the central Asian countries, Siberia, Nepal, Tibet and western China the most affected by it. From what we can gather Pakistan and Afghanistan are absolute basket cases. In between the plague, tribal/religious warfare, radiation sickness and subsequent outbreaks of more mundane diseases such as cholera, dysentery, typhus, etc. the governments have ceased to function. No one really knows what is going on there – it’s too dangerous for anyone to go in and find out. The Russians, Chinese and Indians have sealed their borders and the Americans have pulled out their military assets and citizens from the area. They evacuated everyone they could and destroyed what they had to leave behind. The middle east is also a basket case with Israel being about the only sane place there. It is a battered and beleaguered island in a sea of total chaos.
One of the largest changes in the aftermath of the plague is that no one, at least in the ‘first world’, has any patience for the open borders and immigration advocates anymore. Too many have died. Another thing no one has patience for is the UN. It proved to be totally ineffective and a great hindrance during the crisis. The world is still recovering from the plague and very harsh lessons were learned. Changes will be made in how the governments of the world act and interact, what those will be in the end no one knows at the moment but if I were to guess the UN will be ‘collateral damage’ and its building on the east side of Manhattan will probably end up becoming some very expensive townhouses.
In our little part of the world things went surprisingly quite well. Thanks to the quick quarantine of the area we had only 18 reported cases and those came early in the plague — they were presumably infected by Calum’s father when he went to visit his mum at High Trees early that Sunday morning. There were some problems early on as the exodus from the cities began but those people were turned away by the army and, all things considered, those problems were few. The government quickly closed all the roads and those few that made it as far as north Cornwall had walked out and used their skills in trekking and camping to avoid cities, towns and the road blocks get to Cornwall via farmlands and forests. All the people who were a part of the original quarantine died except for George. They let him out after a month, he took over Tony’s GP duties and Tony was reassigned. The field hospital saw plenty of action and I worked many long days being the only surgeon in the area after the first three weeks. I had to learn and perform surgeries that were not in my area of specialty. Fortunately I had assisted in many of them so I had at least seen them done before. I must admit I did a very good job repairing a soldier’s leg which had been broken in 12 places when the vehicle he was riding in blew a tire and smashed into a stone outcropping on the moor. I’d never performed orthopedic surgery before …I’d assisted on many in my capacity as a vascular surgeon but never performed one. I also performed Neurosurgery and delivered three babies – one of the deliveries was a Caesarian section.
The citizens of Port Wenn and rest of the quarantine area were allowed greater freedom of movement within the area after the second month – they still had to practice preventive measures but at least they were allowed out of their houses. The army allowed the fishing fleet out with soldier escorts and they provided food not only for the quarantine area but the field hospital and areas inland along the quarantine area border such as Wadebridge and Bodmin which helped. Farmers managed to get some of their crops in and that proved to be a great boon. Stephan’s ‘School of the Air’ worked great. The children took to it and seemed to enjoy it by all accounts. I got to see James a couple of times during the quarantine, he and the rest of the family were faring well. James was trying to learn everything he could about viruses and asked me a million questions. He no longer wants to be a surgeon when he grows up, he wants to be a pathologist and microbiologist. “I want to be able to cure diseases so nothing like this will happen ever again.” I suggested he think about going into Patho-biotechnology and explained it to him. He replied “That sounds like what you’re doing, Daddy!”
I smiled “Yes but the approach we’re taking is more mechanical. Patho-biotechnology takes a different approach. They re-engineer existing life forms into ones that can heal. They are essentially using bad bugs to do good things.” I then told him about the research institute I was asked to head and added “We plan to bring Patho-biotechnology into the fold there. It’s logical…we’re both trying to accomplish much the same thing but taking different approaches to achieve our goals. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to see some excellent results from a hybridization of the two disciplines. There are limitations on both but together we may overcome them.”
Al and Paul were allowed to come back to the farm once they expanded the quarantine area to Wadebridge a month after the last occurrence of the plague. The government was being smart during this I think for they instated martial law and triage procedures right away and stuck to them. Instead of trying to keep people in a plague infested area they concentrated their efforts on protecting the healthy. It is a subtle difference to be sure but it seemed to work for it kept the healthy protected so they could work and produce to aid the afflicted areas. Most of the healthy areas were rural and that is where the majority of food comes from which eased some of the problems the large cities were facing.
I managed to talk to Robert, Chris, Don and Ruth once or twice during that time. Robert was exhausted and at the breaking point — all the hospitals in London were bedlam. A couple of hospitals had been attacked and burned during the worst of the rioting and a couple of surgeons who I had taught had died in them. I was saddened to learn that Edith had caught the plague and died. She had been working in the maternity ward and her glove had been punctured when the patient she was working on went into convulsions. Despite everything that I’d gone through with her I always wished her well and I would never wish a death like that on anyone. Robert said she opted for euthanasia which the government allowed to be offered during the crisis by emergency decree. It was better for the patients and the medical staff. There was nothing that could be done medically for them once they broke with it and it preserved precious medical supplies and freed up beds which were both running in short supply by the time the order was issued. It caused a bit of controversy because some of the doctors refused to perform euthanasia due to their personal beliefs – Robert cut through that by shuffling staff so the ones who refused to perform it were nowhere near the wards where it was being done. There was no judgment or repercussions on those who refused – it was a hard decision and we all understood it. I wrestled with the decision myself and decided that in this one instance it would be the best for the patients who wanted it. The decision still haunts me though I was never was requested to euthanize a patient.
Chris was being run ragged but his situation was nowhere near as bad as the situation Robert was dealing with. It was still bad, though. Jenny and the children were staying on the farm and he spent months living in his office at the hospital. His worst problems occurred halfway through the plague when the supply chain was breaking down but he managed to get through it. Don was acting as a local GP for the Mamhead area and Ruth was assisting him. They did have a problem with some refugees trying to break into their home while they were working but the army swiftly dealt with them. During our conversation Don told me he had “a greater appreciation for what I went through in Port Wenn” after trying to treat some of the patients he was confronted with. Ruth had to treat some of them because they refused to be treated by “some damned Yankee.”
My parents spent six months on the ship and are finally home for a while. When the plague hit Singapore allowed them to dock to take on fuel and supplies only then they were sent to Australia where they stayed in quarantine at Perth until they were allowed to leave. My father worked during that time as the ship’s doctor. The man who had been the ship’s doctor was an Australian citizen and had been conscripted into national service. Cunard offered to hire him for the job on a permanent basis and after some discussion they decided to accept it. The doctor’s quarters on the ship are large enough to house my parents in relative comfort and they’ll get to see the world once the cruise line gets up and running again. Currently they are back in Britain and my father is back at work. He won’t be resigning his GP position until Cunard tells him they are ready to start up operations again.
Katie’s brother and nephew rode out the whole works in style by the sound of it. Sean’s fishing lodge is not accessible by road, can generate its own electricity and had plenty of supplies. They fished, hunted and watched the world almost self-destruct on the TV while sipping 25 year old scotch. The lodge is at least 300 miles as the eagle flies from the nearest city with a population of over 100,000, 100 miles for the nearest town with a population over 10,000 and on a lake surrounded by 10,000 foot plus mountains.
During our time at the cottage Katie learned how to run a small farm from the soldiers before they were reassigned and she kept things going well for Al and Paul until they came back. She was especially proud that all the animals lived and were healthy. The twins grew in all ways and they were happy – they loved being at the farm. They now walk and run well, use a spoon and fork, can throw and kick a ball and climb up and down stairs well. Both of them are their mother’s child for they have inherited what John told me their mother did at that age – take all their clothes and nappies off and run around naked and laughing at the most inopportune times. It frustrates me to no end but Katie is finding it highly amusing. They have also noticed they are not the same – William has ‘boy parts’ and Elizabeth has ‘girl parts’. It is hard to explain to toddlers why they have different parts…
Their verbal skills have improved immensely and the last month we were there Katie had begun to potty train them because both of them were telling her they were going to pee before they did. By that time Al and Paul were back at the farm and Paul still had the potty chair she had used for David so she loaned it to us along with some larger clothes she had in storage from when David was that age. To our utter surprise it took all of one week to get them reasonably potty trained. I remembered it took Louisa and I almost two months to get James to the same stage it took William and Elizabeth to get to in one week. Katie had also started to teach them how to read and to count just to give them something to do, neither one of us expected any of it to stick– the reading wasn’t going so well but she had them able to count up to five by the time we returned home. They can also name the pictures of animals and other objects in their books and can put together the simple puzzles Katie made for them out of wood.
Katie, the twins and I stayed at the cottage for almost seven months. We were finally allowed to go home a couple of weeks ago and we are so glad to be home. Houston weathered both the storm of the plague and a category 2 hurricane while we were gone. There wasn’t the rioting and anarchy that Europe experienced in Houston or in Texas as a whole. The state and local government acted swiftly and in cooperation with various civilian entities such as businesses, charities and churches/temples/mosques were quite organized to provide as best they could for the population as a whole. From what Foghorn told me many neighborhoods organized their own ‘militias’ in cooperation with local law enforcement to guard their neighborhoods from intruders and people helped each other the best they could. I found that rather surprising but Foghorn said it was a ‘natural occurrence’ during hurricanes and floods and people adopted and adapted it to the plague. I remembered the story Don had told me long ago of what happened during Tropical Storm Allison when the whole medical center was flooded, without power and had to be evacuated. People from all over came in at great effort through the flood with offers to help in any way they could. Many hauled their motorboats and jet skis down to help move people back and forth through the water. There was one patient that couldn’t be moved and was waiting on a transplant. Some construction and electrical contractors heard about it on the news and loaded up a couple of generators and portable air conditioners on dump trucks (which were about the only vehicles outside of boats that could get through the water) and hauled them to the hospital. They wired them up to power one OR and the ICU. One of the local TV stations helicopters flew the organ from IAH to the hospital because it was the only way to get it there. None of these people or companies was specifically asked to help, they had just heard the hospital and the patient was in need and they, as they say here, “got ‘er done.”
We arrived home to find that our house suffered some minor damage from the hurricane though we did lose a tree and part of the fence in the back garden. Jerry, Claire, Peter and Minh had been taking care of the house in our absence and had gone over to close the hurricane shutters which kept the windows intact. They had the tree removed and the fence repaired as soon as they possibly could and we reimbursed them for the expense. I went back to work the day after we came home to find that, thankfully, not much had changed at the hospital all things considered. All our friends survived though there were some losses – in my department we lost a couple of interns due to the plague and there were losses in every other department, too. Justine was more than happy to go back to being my administrative assistant though she did say she would miss the extra money. She had stayed as acting department head until I came back at Foghorn’s request because she was doing such a fine job at it and had Claire resume her usual duties when she finally came back to work. Claire is back to her usual self and Jake is a healthy five month old boy who has his mother’s lungs. It seems that perhaps there was an unconscious desire to reaffirm life in many during the plague because the pregnancy rate as a whole is up. Ryan and Matsuko are expecting a baby next May, Pam and Karl are expecting one in March and Peter and Minh are expecting one in January. Foghorn and Chandra are going to be grandparents, too. It appears that Katie and I were not immune to the urge, either. We are going to have a baby girl in late November!
The songs of the night animals, the gentle rain on the patio roof and “Waterwheels” by John Klemmer are combining to make a very pleasant and insular sound. Katie is asleep next to me, her head resting in my lap. She is heavy with child and very tired after a long day of chasing after our two rather rambunctious children. So far everything has gone well, the baby has her blood type so Rh factor isn’t a problem and is well developed and healthy. She is a girl which means the problems from the testosterone William was dumping into her blood is not a factor, either. I can feel the little flutters and bumps of our daughter moving around inside her. In fact I suspect she is pushing on the wall of her uterus with her foot at the moment. I leaned over and whispered to her “Be nice to your mama, sweetheart, she’s sleeping.”
My mind drifted into a meditative state and, as it usually has of late, my thoughts turn to Aunt Joan. Tonight the question she asked me so long ago popped into my mind “How do you feel about being a father?” When she asked that question I was mortified and frightened. What would she say to me today about the subject? I don’t know but I think I’ve done a good job so far, though the real test comes when they are teenagers. The most surprising thing to me is that I enjoy being one. The man she asked that question to hated the thought – he was an inflexible, rigid man who liked peace, quiet and order in his life. He was also afraid he’d end up being abusive to his child like his parents were to him. Fortunately that man is dead and buried, may he rest in peace. What would she say to me tonight if she were sitting here tonight? I pondered that question for some time while watching the rain making the water in the pool dance.
In my mind I was transported back to the gazebo on the farm and her voice eventually came to me “I knew you’d be a good father if you set your mind to it. You’ve excelled at everything else in your life though this is the hardest thing you’ve ever tackled. There are no absolutes because every child is a very different and complex being. You still have a long way to go before they are ready to fledge and you aren’t getting any younger. By the time that little girl your wife is carrying reaches her twenties you will be well into your seventies! Have you thought about that? I worry about how much you’re taking on, too. You know you’re going to burn out if you don’t change things. More importantly your work is going to take you away from your family when they’ll need you the most. How are you going to balance that? Yes, Katie does a fantastic job with them but she needs your help, too. God knows she’ll need it! In a little over a month you’ll have two children on the verge of the ‘terrible two’s’ and a baby. Have you seriously thought about that? Already you’re putting in more twelve hour days than eight, you see your children at breakfast and dinner with about an hour of interaction with them before they go to bed. That isn’t enough! You are going to have to find a balance and you already know that means giving something up.”
I replied “Yes, I know. The problem is I can’t decide and realistically it is too early to make that choice…”
She cut me off “No it isn’t! You already know what has to go; you just don’t want to give it up. You are at a fork in the road and know which path you must take, you’re just afraid to because you’ll be leaving a lot behind to take it. You also know where you need to go, too.”
That comment puzzled me and she expanded on it “You felt it at the gazebo that day you took the twins for a walk. You need to get out of the city; your wife needs it more than you do. She isn’t a creature of the city and you know it. You saw how happy she was at the farm despite that horrible plague. Yes, I know she tells you she is happy and she is but it is the happiness of the caged bird who still remembers its home. If you two hadn’t met and married she’d would have gone back to New Zealand, built her home on her land at Lake Wakatipu and spent her summers sailing. Think about those places and all the others she’s lived in and been to and ask yourself if someone like her can find true happiness in a big city.
“You also felt it at the gazebo that day. You pushed that thought into a box in your mind but it’s been gnawing its way out. You don’t want to live in a big city any more than she does. In case you haven’t noticed you’ve changed much in the last three years and the things you once thought important aren’t. You know it deep in your heart but you can’t find a way to reach a balance with them but now you have the opportunity.”
In my mind the sun was setting over the sea and the sounds of the waves crashing against the cliffs rumbled softly in the distance. She was right but what was the solution to the problem? I have to be in a large city to do my work but I longed for the quiet and beauty of the countryside. How can I possibly balance the two?
Joan knew what I was thinking and said “The solution is before you, you’re just afraid of it. The path you must take is research. That is where your greatest glory lies. You know that your days as a surgeon are coming to an end, already you have just a twinge of arthritis. You’ve been able to deny it but you know that signals the beginning of the end of surgery for you. They have put you in charge and you can place that institution just about anywhere. You also know that the people who would be working at it want out of the cities just as much as you do now – that smiting plague showed them some home truths about life in the big city. So why don’t you put it in a place where you know you and your family will be happiest?”
I replied “It’s not that simple, many factors must be taken into account…”
Joan cut me off again “That’s rubbish and you know it! You see that woman sleeping next to you? Ask her. She knows the world better than you do and she’ll find a place that will satisfy both your requirements and hers. I’ve said all I’m going to say on the subject and you need to sleep on the matter. The solutions are simple; your overthinking them is making them hard. Take your wife to bed and sleep on it…”
Katie sat up and rubbed her eyes “What time is it? I’m sorry I fell asleep.”
I stood and helped her up “It’s past midnight. We should get to bed.”
Martin & Katie 