Helen's Affordable Healthcare

Monday...

Wait, you're telling me she practices medicine in her basement but she didn't go to med school and she doesn't have a license to practice?" Penny says.

"Hey, not so loud. We are in a Starbucks you know?" Louise whispers emphatically.

"But Louise, isn't that ... well not to put too fine a point on it, illegal and dangerous?" Penny whispers.

"Do you ever drive over the speed limit Penny?" Louise asks.

Penny refuses to get drawn into such a sophomoric argument. "You can't compare my going 68 in a 65 with someone operating on people in their basement!" Penny says as she stands up from the comfy chair. She winces and nearly passes out from the pain.

"So, you don't want her card then?" Louise says.

"I never said that, did I?" Penny snaps as she takes the card.

The idea does have some appeal to Penny's libertarian side. Was it the excessive regulation, bureaucracy, and governmental interference that had caused the healthcare costs in the country to skyrocket over the past thirty years? She suspects that those factors hadn't helped.

When Penny pictures a basement, the image she imagines a dusty, musty, and poorly lit place, but she is considering Helen as a viable alternative. The pain from her inflamed appendix has gotten so bad she is only able to sleep a couple hours every night and since she has no insurance, she feels her options are rather limited.

"I'll think about it," Penny says as she pockets the card.

"Don't think too long. She's strictly off-the-grid, not on YELP etc. She could get in a lot of trouble if she was caught," Louise says.

"Check! I won't think too long. My appendix won't let me." Penny turns to go.

"One more thing," Louise says and steps closer to Penny, so she can whisper. Seriously, she is good at what she does and she takes not chances. You're thinking that doesn't sound like someone who prints business cards now does it? But look at the card carefully will you? That number there? It's only good until tomorrow 1:30 PM. Also, there's a code written on the back of the card. See?" Louis says.

Penny turns the card over and sees the single word 'dagger' written on the back in red ink.

"And you need one more code that I will give you now, just as soon as you swear that you will call her."

Penny can't believe she's deciding something so important while standing up in a Starbucks but she promises that she will call Helen. Then Louise gives her the second code word; prenatal.

Tuesday...

Penny can't believe she's doing this but she's standing on Helen's porch about to knock. Sensing her doubts, her appendix shoots a stab of pain up her spine and a horde of fiery, rusty needles down into her legs. Penny lets the sensations subside just a bit and then rings the bell. After several long seconds, the creaky door opens inward.

"Are you madam dagger?" Penny says somberly, reminding herself to not laugh.

"I am. Are you here about my prenatal classes?" Madam Dagger, aka Helen, says.

"I am."

Helen steps aside, gestures for Penny to enter.

The instant the door closes, several hands find Penny, pin her face first, against the wall.

"Are you a cop!?" Helen asks, her face inches from Penny's.

"No, I swear! I'm Lou .. a friend of a friend. She gave me your number. I just need my appendix removed! I swear! Ow! that hurts my wrist!"

Helen quickly pats Penny down. Looking for a weapon or a wire is Penny's guess. She finds neither.

"Easy Frank. She's clean," Helen says to the gorilla in a suit.

Frank releases her and slips away somewhere.

"So, care for a tour of the place?" Helen asks.

The basement is not at all what Penny had expected. It is clean, white, brightly lit, seemingly well stocked and full of legitimate looking hospital equipment. Not that Penny would know for sure.

"So it looks good, when can we do this?" Penny says, eager to set a date for the procedure.

"Well dear, whatever do you mean? Aren't you in pain NOW? Are you sleeping well NOW? Then why not we just go ahead and do it NOW?"

The mere idea of sweet relief has hooked her.

"But usually these things ...," Penny starts and then laughs. "Well I guess that's one of the benefits of running a small operation! You can schedule things quickly!"

"The sonogram shows that it needs to come out. You see this lighter line here?" Helen had asked while pointing at an indecipherable image on a monitor.

"Uh huh," Penny says though it all looks like clouds of gray to her.

"That's a thinning section of the organ's wall that's threatening to rupture. I'm surprised it hasn't already."

"So I'm ready. Oh, and before I forget, I'll probably be groggy afterwards? Here's your money as promised," Penny says as she lays two one hundred dollar bills and three twenties onto Helen's desk.

Helen doesn't even count it. Let's get you prepped then already. Liza here will help you with that.

Penny turns with a jump. She had thought it was just the two of them in the basement.

TWO Hours Later...

"Wow! I can't tell you how much better I feel already!"

"Well there will be some tenderness after your anesthesia wear off but your nasty appendix will bother you no more."

"If you start to swell up like a balloon, you may have an infection and you need to come right back here if that happens. Do you understand me?"

Penny nods yes but she's still so woozy from the anesthesia that none of what Helen says seems terribly important to Penny at the moment. She's pain free and, for her, that's enough for now.

Wednesday...

Penny awakes at her normal time. She gingerly gets out of bed; keeping an eye on any of her movements that normally trigger her pain.

There's nothing. No pain! She's ecstatic. She bounces on the balls of her feet. No pain from the usual spots. Some mild tenderness from her incision but nothing like what she's been dealing with for the past four weeks.

She takes her morning walk, showers, enjoys her breakfast and decides to have a good day.

She enjoys her pain free existence. It lasts nearly four hours.

She had been taking an afternoon nap and the pain that blossomed in her abdomen dwarfed every single bit of pain she'd had from her inflamed appendix.

Did she not take it out?

Am I hemorrhaging now?

Am I dying?

She stands again and notices her belly is greatly distended. It feels like gas but she can't release any in the normal manner.

Maybe a post surgical infection? Had Helen mentioned something like that yesterday?

She feels something move inside.

Oh no! I am hemorrhaging. I'm going to die.

Unbelievably she can feel her abdominal wall expand outwards. The skin already feels like it's ripping.

She manages to drive herself back to Helen's Hospital of quack medicine and bogus cures but there is no answer when she knocks.

She circles the house. She bends down and sees that all foundation casement windows have been boarded over from the inside. She continues around to the back yard. She finds a stairway leading down. At the bottom is a wooden door with four glass panels in the window. It's dark inside. Maybe the OR is shut on Wednesdays? She doesn't care. She needs answers. She needs to see Helen and she expects both are on the other side of this flimsy door. She elbows the glass in one of the panels, reaches thru, unlocks the single lock, enters the dark basement.

A kick of pain causes her to stop and bite her palm to keep from shouting in the room. This room is far darker, dirtier, mustier, than the room she was in yesterday.

She hears the backdoor close with a bang. The lights go on.

"Oops! Did I startle you dear?" Helen asks from behind her. Frank and Liza are there, both wearing OR scrubs.

But there's something all wrong. The room is poorly lit, it's dirty, rusty, decrepit. Yet there in front of her is a cold looking stainless steel table equipped with heavy leather straps, a head harness, a drain at one end.

"What's going ..." Penny starts but then Frank and Liza have taken her by her upper arms and are roughly securing her to the cold, rusty table. The fluorescent light above the table flickers wildly and Penny is filled with dread.

"You're right on time dear," Helen says as Liza begins cutting off Penny's clothes.

Liza finishes snipping Penny out of her slacks and the metal is so cold on her legs she shivers uncontrollably.

Helen produces an ancient, dirty looking stethoscope from somewhere and is pressing the cold head of the instrument to her distended belly. Something is very, very wrong. How can a human stomach expand so far in just a few hours?

"Helen, I think I am having a post surgical infection and that ..."

Helen slides forward on her stool and punches Penny in the face. "Shut up you vapid idiot."

She slides back to the Penny's abdomen chuckling to herself. Frank secures Penny's head into the cold rusty headgear.

"Post surgical infection my ass! That surgery was flawless! And you were out of pain. Well for a few hours at least. Before your thirty three pound bundle of joy began to grow within you that is."

Thirty three pounds? Bundle of joy? What is she talking about?

"Now if this were a normal delivery room, we would be equipped to offer both Caesarean or natural childbirth options. Here, unfortunately for you, we only offer the latter. We find that the demon's initial formation is greatly stimulated when the childbirth is totally natural. As in NO DRUGS at all natural," Helen says grinning.

"I'm pregnant? With a demon?"

"Yes you're pregnant. Yes it's a demon that's about to begin making its way down your birthing canal. And yeah the room is ugly but we find the demons prefer it if their first experience on earth reminds them at least a little bit of hell. We have supplied the decor end of that stimuli. You will be providing the wailing and gnashing of teeth portion just as soon as little Kasdeya begins clawing his way out. You see you got a twofer special yesterday! Appendix extraction, which was again executed perfectly by the way and an artificial insemination with a demon seed.

Mercifully the shock causes Penny to pass out. But then the contractions start and they are only the start of the ordeal.