Concentrated equine-based radiation therapy
It’s 8am. I walk into the front doors of the Mayo Clinic, and the humans working in the lobby have stopped starting at me.
At first they were amazed to see a pony working at a hospital—or maybe they were more amazed by a pony wearing a lab coat. But now it’s been a few months since I got this job, they’re starting to not even bat an eye. It’s almost like…I’m one of them.
I checked in with the receptionist at the front. She catches me up with what’s going on in her life, and I do the same. Today she had a milkshake for me.
“Thanks, B,” I said, and flashed a smile. We’re on nickname terms now.
I took the elevator up, and I met one of the oncologists. Today was about six patients to treat. That’s about as many as I can take before I need a break. Some of them had come far and wide to see me.
The official term for it is “concentrated equine-based radiation therapy,” or CERT. But the humans like to call it “unicorn medicine” in the paper. I call it “me.” The therapy is me.
Every unicorn has a unique wave pattern to their magic aura, almost like a fingerprint. This is why some unicorns has red auras, some have green, and so on. My aura is a very pale violet.
And it just so happens to make tumor cells shrink.
My magic doesn't cure every single patient's cancer. For many patients it does cure their cancer with very few side effects, but for some it doesn't cure anything, and leaves them with painful side effects. The humans don’t understand why this is—the latter half of my day is spent being poked and prodded by human researchers trying to figure out the mechanism.
To me, it’s very simple. The patient has to be hopeful. They have to have faith in them getting better. If they’re in a bad mood, I can fire as many magic beams as I want, but it still doesn’t work. If they’re relaxed and happy, it always seems to work to some extent, no matter how advanced their cancer is.
I don’t know very much about human medicine, but I think all medicines have feelings. The pills have feelings. If you’re kind to it and you’re hopeful that it will help you, it’ll feel motivated to heal you. If you’re mean to it and have doubts, it’ll get scared and not have the confidence to treat you.
The doctors laugh at me when I say that. They make fun of me because I don’t have a real medical degree. I have several honorary medical degrees for my contribution to human medicine.
They humans have tried different unicorns with pale violet auras, but very few unicorns have the magic strength and the exact proper wavelength to shrink cancer cells. One of the ponies is me, another one’s stationed in Johns Hopkins, a third one is in Singapore General. I haven’t met any of them personally, but I imagine their day-to-day is very similar to mine.
My first patient of the day was a 67-year-old human with prostate cancer. I see my patients in a very simple treatment room. I have some scanning devices to help me locate the tumor, a small desk, and two chairs: one for the oncologist, one for me.
“What is this?” the patient pointed at me.
“This is the experimental therapy you signed up for sir,” the oncologist explained.
“What do you mean? What’s this animal doing here?” Apparently my lab coat doesn’t give me a hint of credibility.
These are the kind of patients I hate the most. I hate being called animal. It reminds me of when I was a magic kindergarten teacher in Equestria. I always told my students the story of Hearth’s Warming, and the conflict of the earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns that summoned the windigoes. The lesson I always told them is that we should look past our differences, and work together to make things better. Else there’s nothing left but cold, pain, and suffering.
I wish I could’ve given that man that lesson.
After the paperwork is all filled out, the oncologist sits behind the red line, and he leaves the entire treatment to me.
“Excuse me, you? Do? You speak? English?” the patient asked me.
“Yes, I speak English, sir,” I said, rolling my eyes.
I dimmed the lights. “Now, I want you put your arms to your side, and just relax in the chair, sir,” I continued.
“What is the meaning of this? I didn’t pay out of pocket for this.” he said, not following my instructions.
I usually ignore patients like this. “I’m going to fire about ten beams of high-intensity radiation from my horn. Each beam will last about two seconds."
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” the patient said.
I tried to keep my cool. “Don’t worry, sir, it’s completely painless if you relax.” Completely true. If you don’t relax, though, it hurts like hell.
I never tell the patients that.
I took a deep breath, and I concentrated all my magic power into that one short burst. It shoots out as a extremely concentrated violet-colored beam, with nothing but a slight sizzling sound coming from my horn.
The human didn’t relax. I could tell he was in absolute agony during the procedure. His face was all contorted, almost like a poison had been injected into him. When I finished, he didn’t even say a word—I think the pain had paralyzed him. A nurse came and wheeled him away, and he stared at me with a look of horror. All the way down the hall.
It was only me and oncologist in the room. It was silent.
“He…he looked like he was in a lot of pain, didn’t he?” I asked the oncologist.
“Every cancer patient responds to treatment differently,” he replied. “It’s true for any treatment.”
“I heard him…whimpering a little at the end. Did you?”
“I’m not sure. But you’re probably right. You have more sensitive hearing than I do.”
“Oh.”
It was silent again.
“Are you all right?” he asked me.
“Yeah. I just need a minute.”
My horn only made a sizzling sound when I tried to use it, so I pushed the door open with my flank and took the elevator up to the rooftop. I took in a few deep breaths of the cold winter air. After I had teared up for a bit and told myself that I was just having a bad day—a single bad day—I went back indoors, and I had a snack of baby carrots in the break room.
I get a few cases in the childhood cancer ward. Those are my favorite ones. They see me walk in, and they smile at me. The doctor tells them that I’ll be treating them, and most of them don’t bat an eye. They probably think is how all cancer patients get treated. I put on my magic kindergarten smile and I explain the procedure to them only once. And they nod their head like it all makes perfect sense to them.
Later in the afternoon, I treated a 7-year-old human girl with lymphoma. There wasn’t enough space in the treatment room for her parents to be inside, but she wasn’t even scared. Her parents stood outside and watched from the window, and the girl didn’t even turn to the window.
After about ten short bursts, the treatment was done. I quickly galloped up to her and I asked her if it hurt.
“No.”
“Did it feel like…anything?” I asked.
“Just a little tickle.”
I sighed with relief. “Good. That’s how it’s supposed to feel like.”
I had a little break before my next patient, so I took off my lab coat and played with the girl in the playroom for a while. We played with the human dollhouse for a while, then I sat next to her and I told her the story of Hearth’s Warming, and the windigoes that threatented to freeze the whole world. She loved the story.
“Did this happen in the pony land you come from?” she asked.
I chuckled. “Yes, but it’s called ‘Equestria.’”
“Why did you leave Equestria?”
“Because…” I looked into the human’s eyes for a minute, and then I said, “…I really want to take good care of…nice kids like you.”
Did I imagine that I was going to be healing human patients with cancer? No way. I started out as a magic kindergarten teacher in Canterlot. Teaching little foals show to levitate objects, basic transformation spells, that sort of thing. I loved my job. The school-foals and the parents all loved me.
And then I made a mistake. After twelve years as a teacher…I got mad at one of my mischievous students, and…I…I guess I hit her a little too hard. She cried sharply in pain…and just before…she uttered a little whimper. The news got out in Canterlot, and a huge scandal erupted. I lost many of my friends, and I gained many enemies. I fled Equestria to save myself. I crossed the portal late at night—I remember it was after midnight, and I didn’t even hear a single cricket chirp.
That face of agony on that little foal’s face when I hit her—it flashes back in my memory sometimes. Actually, it flashes back whenever a cancer patient is hurting from my treatment.
In many ways, humans aren’t that different from ponies. I think about that man I saw in the beginning of the day. That look of agony on his face. The little whimper as he was being wheeled out. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was a reincarnation of that little foal I hit.
“Are you okay?” the human girl waved her fingered hand over my face.
I snapped out of my daze. I smiled. “Nothing. It’s all in the past now.”
“What’s all in the past?”
“Nothing.”
“Okay,” she said.
“Okay,” I repeated.
I checked the clock on the wall. It was about time for my next patient. The girl’s parents came to take their daughter home.
“How are you feeling, dear?” the girl’s mother asked her.
“Good,” she said, with a big smile.
“Thank you so much,” the mother said to me. “I haven’t seen her so full of energy since she was first diagnosed.”
“You’re welcome. Have a good afternoon!”
“Thank you! Say bye, honey."
“Bye!” the girl waved.
“Bye!” I waved back.
I sat for a moment by myself in the playroom. Staring at the toys and colorful pictures around the room.
And for a moment, I felt like I was back in magic kindergarten.