The Deadliest Strain

Chapter Twenty-Nine

First tell me how this thing works," Josh told his dad.

There was no let's do it and get it done with Josh. Tests and medications had become part of the twelve-year-old's life. He was curious and worried about every X-ray, every needle, every microgram of drugs injected into him. He wanted to be part of every decision. David and Sally encouraged their son's curiosity. They wanted him to be involved with his own care. They both knew that cancer was a chronic disease, so Josh would have to be aware of what was going on with his body for his entire life.

David sat down next to him on the bunk.

Their room was in the bow of the boat, on the starboard side. They shared the cabin with two other boys, their fathers, and two Sea Grant lab instructors. The port cabin was occupied by the females on the trip. The skipper and the mate shared a cabin farther aft. The large galley where everyone took their meals was also used as a lab, and David knew a couple of the men from the research center had berths there. The whole experience made for close quarters, but no one complained.

Josh and David were the only ones who'd come below deck. Everyone else was hanging around above, either waiting for the video feed from the divers or hanging over the railing in anticipation of the samples that the two men would send up.

"You put on that sweatshirt and I'll tell you," David said.

Josh tugged a hooded sweatshirt out of his bag and pulled it on. It was a new one that he'd gotten as part of the cost of the trip, and David smiled at the words on it. I've gone off the deep end. Cape Henlopen Ocean Research Experience.

"This is not like one of those giant Q-tips that they stick in your throat and make you gag, is it?" Josh asked.

"No, nothing like that." David opened his briefcase and grabbed the medicine bag out of it. "This is very simple. In fact, anybody can do it themselves."

"I can make myself gag?"

"No gagging involved, I promise you. That's the beauty of it." David dug out the one sample tester he had left at the bottom of the medicine bag. "I'm telling you, Josh, the company is going to sell a million of these things in a little while. There isn't going to be a household in America that doesn't have a stash of these."

The twelve-year-old sat on the edge of the bunk looking at him with a bored look. "Dad, can you just read me the instructions?"

"No formal instructions needed. It has just three simple steps. But to keep us from getting sued by every moron with a lawyer for a brother-in-law, the three steps are written inside, on the tester itself."

To the sales force, the five-hundred-piece sample lot — made individually in the prototype lab — had been pure gold. Each person was instructed to give out only one sample to each of their top clients. Nothing had been said, but David had expected that each sales rep probably kept a few for themselves or their families. David had done that, too.

"Okay, this is how it works…" He put the Strep-Tester in Josh's palm.

"It looks just a like Band-Aid," Josh commented.

"Exactly." David nodded with a grin. "Except you can't say 'Band-Aid' or Johnson & Johnson will sue us. The ads will say 'small, flexible, disposable, individually wrapped' or something like that."

"That's actually pretty cool."

"Thanks. Okay, this is what you do. You tear open the outer wrapper. Then you just peel the shiny clear membrane away from the gauzy side until a pink circle in the middle is exposed. It'll look like a little bubble in the middle. Then you stick out your tongue and press the pink circle onto the middle of your tongue…."

"Does it taste disgusting?"

"No. It's strawberry-flavored." As Josh shot him a suspicious look, David gave him a Scout's honor sign. "Besides, you're not going to eat it. You just press it on your tongue."

Josh had yet to open the package. "I thought it's supposed to check your throat?"

"It is," David explained. 'This Strep-Tester is so sensitive that it recognizes the strep bacteria from anywhere in your mouth."

"Does this mean I can just touch my teeth with the tester?"

"Yes, you can. But that might be a little bit more complicated than it needs to be."

David thought his son had a career in the FDA. Josh's tenacity in getting all the answers was superior to anything the Food and Drug Administration had put Reynolds Pharmaceuticals through.

"Okay, then what?"

"You just press the clear membrane back over the pink circle and hold it for ten seconds."

"So the bubble is on the inside," Josh pointed out.

David nodded. "We can go through the steps as you're testing yourself," he suggested.

"No, not yet." Josh held on to the strip, not ready to give it up yet. "Do I need a stopwatch for counting ten seconds?"

"No. All you have to do is count. 1001, 1002… you know how to count."

"Then what happens?" the twelve-year-old asked.

"After ten seconds, if you have strep, then the clear membrane turns bright blue," David explained.

"And if I don't?"

"If you don't have strep, it stays clear and you can still see the pink circle. If you don't have strep now, you might be fighting a virus or it might be too early to show up positive. But either way, you can still check it again later with another Strep-Tester."

Holding the strip's edge, Josh raised it to the light as if checking to see what was inside through the wrapping. "What do you do with it after you're done? Save it for your doctor to see?"

"No, the company recommends you flush it down the toilet. They're water soluble," David told him. "This doesn't replace what the doctor might want to do in his office. Most likely, in a couple of months, they'll be using these Strep-Tests in their offices, too. It'll save them a lot of money over the traditional tests."

"If I have to go through it all over again at the doctor's office, then what's this good for?" Josh complained.

"This will eliminate unnecessary trips for parents or for people who think they might have strep throat but then find out when they go to their doctors that it's only a viral infection and they have to wait it out."

"Won't the doctors lose money on this?"

Josh's intelligence always amazed David. At his young age, he was aware of how businesses worked — especially when it came to the medical field.

"The loss to them will be minimal. Doctors are mostly swamped with patients. Besides, this is something we're doing for the patients. That's the group that will be benefiting from it."

"And you can buy these in any store?"

"Pretty soon you'll be able to. Come on, try it out."

Josh looked at the Strep-Tester again. "How many of these do you have?"

"This is the last one I have with me. I had two of them, but I gave one to Philip a couple of days ago."

"Did he use it?" Josh asked.

"I never asked him. He might have."

"If this is your last one," Josh persisted, "what happens if someone else ends up needing it?"

"You're the most important person on this boat, pal. You come first."

"Sure… after Philip," the boy drawled with a crooked smile.

The voices of kids could be heard from the deck above them.

"Okay, wise guy." David gave him a gentle shove and snatched the strip out of his hand. "You've put it off long enough. There's all kinds of excitement going on upstairs, and you're missing it, grilling me with all these questions."

"Seriously, Dad. What happens if Mom needs it next week?"

"I'll have tons of these by next week." David ripped the wrapper off the Strep-Tester.

"I might do it wrong and ruin it. It might be too early for the testing. Maybe we should wait another day…."

Strip in hand, David looked into his son's face. "You're nervous about this. How come?"

Josh shrugged. "I don't know. I just don't have a good feeling about it."

David tapped the rim of his son's baseball cap. "Considering everything that you've been through… after all the needles and tests, after how brave you've been through it all, this is nothing. It's just a simple test."

David held it out to him. He didn't want to force Josh. He wanted his son to do it himself.

Josh nodded. "Okay. I'm sorry, Dad."

The boy took the Strep-Tester out of David's hand and very gently peeled back the clear paper.

"It looks like a zit," he said, looking at the pink circle. Both of them burst out laughing. "Okay, now press it on your tongue."