An Eternal Circle

"Adam, a little while ago I said you were a walking miracle and I meant precisely that because by all medical definitions you should be dead!" The words hit Adam like a hammer blow and he reeled at the shock of the blunt statement, waiting for Werner to deliver the coup de grace with some other shocking revelation where lingering, painful death was just around the corner. He let his words sink in while Adam simply stared in unpleasant surprise and Tyra opened her mouth to say something but no sound emerged. "When was the last time you had a chest X-ray - not recently I assume?" "I think today was the first time. We only ever had routine jabs and inspections for head-lice at school. I've never smoked or experienced shortness of breath so I guess it's kind of gotten overlooked. Is there a problem, Werner - something we should know about?" and he suddenly felt the serpentine coils of fear slithering dispassionately in his stomach as he envisaged the shadowy outline of the carcinoma so effectively detected by Werner's all-seeing scanner. "Not exactly...," Werner seemed a little evasive. "Let me put your minds at rest by telling you first and foremost the scan detected nothing we might construe as malignant or ominous. There was no trace of cancerous cells in the epithelial tissue of the skin or the lining of the internal organs and even the alimentary canal remains clear. To all intents and purposes you are probably one of the finest living, breathing specimens of humanity I've ever seen...," and once again his voice assumed a note of distance and reluctance to continue. "For God's sake, man!" Adam exploded at last as the first twinges of irrational fear began to exert themselves. "Get to the point, will you! The suspense is unbearable. Sorry, I didn't mean to shout. I know this must be difficult for you too." "Please, don't apologise. I can fully understand how it must appear on the surface. Bear with me and I'll try to make sense of this in layman's terms so there can be no confusion or misunderstanding. There is no logical explanation in medical parlance to account for the damage beneath those two scars on your chest. Let's talk about the first injury, the one to the sternum which carries the first seven pairs of anterior ribs and offers a degree of protection to the lungs. We all saw the rent in Crixus' chest and were agreed it was a mortal injury for the gladius blade had penetrated into the chest cavity and pierced the lung for what was in all likelihood a distance of about eighteen centimetres. "I have to tell you the MRI scanner does not tell lies and that it did, indeed, detect a trauma site on your right lung but it was not of the nature you feared most. There is a vertical line of healed scar-tissue whose dimensions correspond to the width of the gladius blade retrieved from Crixus' casket and match precisely the length of the scar upon your chest. And if that is not enough, the degree of penetration into the lung also tallies with the figure of eighteen centimetres. This does not appear to restrict the function of the organ and would suggest an old injury which has healed extremely well. "Taken in isolation this could be passed off as a remarkable example of a fit and healthy body repairing itself without attracting too much attention from medical circles. It is the injury to the sternum itself which will generate much of the discussion where you are concerned and I can offer no explanation as to why you feel no discomfort resulting from it. As in the case of Crixus, the bone has been cleaved vertically for a distance of seven and a half centimetres which suggests the gladius did not enter directly on a horizontal plane but was inclined slightly downward which would support the theory of an overhand thrust by a slightly shorter adversary. "The bone has not encysted which would normally be expected in a lesser kind of injury and yet there is nothing to indicate it is recent. If I'm honest I expected to find something to bear out the marks on your chest but I am completely at odds with those things the scan has revealed and we've only covered half of it yet. Would you like to take a short break while you gather your thoughts or shall I continue? I appreciate it must be rather difficult to absorb all of this." "I think you should lay your cards on the table and then we can decide where we stand after we've heard all the evidence. Are you in agreement, Tyra? Shall we press on?" "Absolutely," she replied without the least hesitation. "We've come this far. Could there possibly be much more, Werner?" "I'm afraid there is, Tyra, and it defies all the rules and boundaries of medical science for if anyone had told me three months ago I'd discover those things I have seen with my own eyes in the last five days I would have dismissed it as the ravings of a fanciful imagination and strongly recommended a course of psychiatric therapy. Okay, if you're quite sure about this, I'll concentrate on the remainder of our findings where Adam is concerned and then we can wrap it up until tomorrow......"