Loved and Free

Chapter 2: Mateo

Mateo wasn't new to the town. He spent the summer here interning at a diabetic clinic while he was in school. Mateo was six foot and dark red skin, for a Peruvian. He had curly hair that he usually had pulled back in a bun and dark eyes to match. He had some tattoos in various, hidden places  when he was in his work clothes, but he really loved to learn medicine and nothing could stop him. 

He had landed an official intern position at the office. He spent majority of his day there and the rest at his home. Which was an apartment above the office. The office was on the strip of a small town in South Carolina. He was lonely but wasn't very confident in his ability to talk to people. 

Mateo was taking patient after patient and going through the list, with the help of Doctor Jacobs, who he was interning under. He was loved by many of his teacher's patients. He had a new patient coming in today -- Evelyn Locke. He had never seen her file. She was in her early fifties. Diabetic. He was somewhat excited because this would be his first new patient in his office. 

She was Doctor Jacobs' patient first, and he seemed to be eager to pass her on to Mateo as his first student patient. When Mateo received the file for her, it wasn't a lot. Just a couple of notes about her having diabetes and copies of medicines he prescribed her. Mateo just assumed that Jacobs and her didn't talk a lot, she was probably hiding a lot of her health problems from him so he wouldn't prescribe her anymore because the list of medicine was longer than the visit notes.

Evelyn was right on time. She slowly walked in and went to the window with the nurse. "Evelyn Locke to see Doctor Diaz." 

"Okay. He will be with you shortly. Have a seat and fill out this paperwork." The nurse instructed. She handed Evelyn a clipboard with the normal new patient paperwork and a pen and pointed to the chairs in the waiting area. Evelyn found a seat and started on the paperwork.

Shortly after, Sara Beth walked into the office, texting her friends, sat beside her mom. Evelyn filled all the new patient paperwork out and handed it to the front desk lady. After a couple of minutes, Mateo came to the door leading to the rooms, "Mrs. Locke? Right this way." 

Mateo watched this woman, walking pretty well to be in her shape, smile at him. He looked around the office as well and noticed beside her was, he assumed, her daughter. She got to the doorway, "How are you today?"

"Good. Better than usual." She said as she made her way to the check up area. "This is my oldest daughter, Sara Beth."

Mateo smiled at her, she returned the smile. They talked a little about her last doctor and why she didn't care for him. He listened very well and took detailed notes. He studied how she acted, her breath, the way her hand was when she lifted while talking. After a while he said, "Well. You have been great with learning and doing what you need to do. Amazing actually."

"Thank you. I'm trying to get better so that I can visit Scotland with youngest daughter and her boyfriend next year. That is where he is from. They're there right now and the pictures are beautiful." She showed Mateo the pictures of a brunette girl and guy with two dogs at castles, landscapes, bars, and lakes. Mateo couldn't help but smile. 

"Really? That's good. Nice pictures by the way. Beautiful family. I promise you, I will do everything thing I can to get you there. But I do need you to lighten up on the red meat. And if you can't try deer meat. It's leaner than cow. Umm, your blood sugars have been amazing. I can't wait to be your doctor." He said while looking at her chart. "I feel like next month would be amazing to see you again. The fifth?"

"Perfect."

"Alright." He looked up toward her daughter, Sara Beth, "Your mom is doing great. I just want to make sure she stays this way."

"Whatever." the daughter said as she went back to texting. "She's going to pull through regardless."

Mateo went back to talking to his patient, telling her what he expects to see the next visit. He also told her that it is a life change, "you can't quit something and go back to it when all the tests come back clean."

"I understand. Trust me." Evelyn returned.

"Okay. So no more red meat and I would like you to walk. Anywhere and for however long. But I want to time or kind of measure it. Maybe go to a high school football field and walk around the track, it's the best way to track it. One lap a day or until you feel like you can walk around again. I would love by the end of the year to see you walking it four times, a mile." Mateo wrote all of what he said in his notes for her file.

"That is a stretch, but I think I can do it." Evelyn said.

The visit with Evelyn ended. He went to chart his paperwork. "Lisa." He called the nurse to him. 

"Yes?"

"Mrs. Locke was Doctor Jacobs' patient, right?" He asked her. 

"Yes sir." She answered, "Since she got on disability. Four years ago."

"So why is there so little about her in the system. Or even on paper." He asked out loud, while trying to find all he could, even using the last names of her ex husbands, maiden name, and the last name of her deceased husband. Still not a lot of information. He discovered all this with the help of Lisa. He watched in amazement thinking that this town is too small for everyone to know everyone's business.

The nurse finally came back, "Doctor Jacobs said she refused a lot of treatments so he had very little to go with."

"That doesn't make any sense!" Mateo slammed his fist on his desk, "There should be some kind of file that states that she refused all the treatments. There is none. There is none that even suggest she was a patient to him! Not even vitals, blood sugars, nothing." He turned to the nurse after taking a big breath, "I'm sorry. It's not your fault. It just doesn't make sense. She was so excited to be trying the treatment that I recommended her before we got to medicine." He shook his head, "Is my next patient here?"

"I will go look." The nurse said. She left and came back, "He is."