Olivia's Diary: The Framed Villainess

37 The Doctor

So far every day for three weeks without fail, Olivia had come to school complaining that her stomach hurt. The teacher thought she was making it up to get out of lessons at first, But then Olivia would throw up. They would call her mother, and her mother would come and pick her up.

Her mother apologized and said that the doctor she took Olivia to said it was just a stomach bug, and that Olivia would get over it with some antibiotics over the weekend.

But when Olivia got sick again the second week, her mother Audrey said that it was strange because Olivia was fine that weekend. She asked the nurse what she thought it could be so she could have the doctor check for it.

Because Audrey had asked the nurse about it, the school nurse stopped suspecting something was amiss.

But this was the third week that Olivia had been sick like this.

Audrey didn't realize that after the third week of Olivia being sick, the school had to call a doctor in to see if he could figure out why Olivia was getting sick. He was young and didn't dress like a child thought a doctor should dress. He did that deliberately because he knew many kids were afraid of doctors. He even made sure the school nurses called him by his first or last name while he was with the child in question. Kids opened up about their home situation so much better if he wasn't an authority figure. He was a genius.

He had not only graduated with his doctorate in pediatrics, but also in cardiology, and in psychology. He had a triple doctorate. He even wrote a few thesis papers looking at the psychology of traumatized and abused children. These kids saw doctors as a threat to the little bit of safety and security they had. So they wouldn't be honest with the doctors.

So he tried this approach, and it worked. The kids opened up to him when they thought he was there waiting as a patient to see the doctor.

Olivia seemed really scared when she was told that a doctor was coming to see her. She was visibly shaking. He looked at the shivering kid with pity. There were signs of abuse on her upper arms. It looked like she had been gripped very tightly. But this was not what he had been called about.

He had been called in because Olivia was having stomach issues for three weeks, and no doctors notes had been delivered to the school in spite of the attempts made by the school nurse to get one.

The young doctor came into the nurses office and asked her, "Are you waiting for the doctor too?"

Olivia looked at him, and saw that he wasn't the doctor. Doctor's on TV had a white coat. So he was waiting too?

Olivia nodded. "Mom said doctor's are nansty people who put bad things into needles and stab you with them. Do you think the nancy doctor will bring his needles?"

Her mother told her that? No wonder the kid was terrified. He shook his head. "I'm not sure," He tried to never outright lie to the children he was seeing. He might not tell them the whole truth, but he didn't deliberately lie to them.

"Tell you what..." The doctor began. "While you're sitting here; why don't you tell me what's wrong, and in exchange I'll give you a sticker."

"You have stickers?" Olivia's eyes lit up. "Do you have ballerina stickers?"

He always kept a variety of stickers on hand. But this was definitely fate. He just bought ballerina stickers yesterday. "I DO have ballerina stickers! Do you like ballerina's a lot?"

Olivia nodded, but then held onto her stomach in pain. She was tired of throwing up, this time she was determined not to throw up.

"Does your tummy hurt?" He asked her. Olivia nodded.

"What happened to make your tummy hurt?" Kids always knew more than most adults thought. Olivia looked around to make sure the scary doctor hadn't shown up yet.

Seeing that he wasn't there Olivia told him secretively, "Mom said that my dad will come back if I get sick. So she makes me eat gross breakfast every morning. When I throw up, I can go home and wait for my dad to come. But it's been a really long time since I got sick, and he doesn't come, so..." At this point Olivia started tearing up. "I don't want to get sick anymore! I don't want him to come if I have to get sick!"

The school nurse heard everything. She had thought Olivia's case sounded funny, and regretted not asking the child about it before. She should have asked the doctor to come sooner!

Olivia couldn't hold it in anymore and threw up on the nice man's clothes and then she passed out. The school doctor immediately understood the situation and had Olivia sent to the hospital.

He explained everything Olivia had told him to the attending Physician. They pumped her stomach and had the contents tested. Olivia had been poisoned. Child Protective services had been called. When Olivia woke up she was scared and alone. She had a big need;e sticking out of her arm. She started screaming when she saw it. The nurses rushed in and finally had to sedate her because she wouldn't calm down.

The young cold was screaming "I want my mom!" She kept crying for her and trying to reach for the needle in her arm until she passed out. The nurses could finally let go of the child.

The first few hours after she woke up again she kept trying to pull out the needle, but would make herself cry. She couldn't pull out the needle. She couldn't see her mother. Her father that she had never met didn't come even though she had gotten sick. And the doctors at the hospital were scary.

Everything at the hospital was scary. Her mother had told her a long time ago that doctors like to put bad things in shots, and in food, and then the doctors would feed bad kids poison, and stick the needles full of bad things in their arms.

Olivia wanted to beg them to let her go home. She didn't want to be poisoned, and they had already put the big needles in her arm. She stopped reacting to anything. The child Psychiatrist who came in couldn't get her to respond no matter what. No one knew why she was behaving the way she was. She was already too traumatized by them that she no longer spoke to them, or asked them to let her go. She didn't even ask for her mother anymore.

She was seven. She didn't know what an anti-vaccer was. Or that the vaccines were good for her to prevent her from getting sick. She didn't know the medicines the doctors gave her was for her own good. She didn't know that the one who had been poisoning her was her mother, and not the doctor's. Olivia stayed in the hospital forever.

Owen Carter had finally gotten the message that his daughter was sick when he got a phone call from child protective services. When he got to the hospital he saw a lifeless little thing that stared off into space. She didn't even respond when he said he was her dad.

"What's wrong with her?" Owen Carter asked.

"We're not sure," The doctor said. We ran scans on her, but we're not showing any brain damage from the poison."

"Poison!?" Owen looked at the doctor in shock. "She was poisoned!?"

"Mr. Carter I thought you knew," the Doctor explained. "She was poisoned over a period of three weeks. If this had gone on any longer she would have died."

For once in his life Owen Carter had a regret. He regretted that he had left his child in the hands of a crazy lady. He knew Audrey was unstable. But he left the kid with her anyway.

Olivia spent all that time in the hospital in that lifeless state. She didn't respond at all. Owen tried getting her to respond. "Please say something kid. Look at me at least once. If you do that I can take you home." Olivia didn't respond. He even clapped to see if she would blink. Nothing. The lights weren't on and nobody was home. He gave up. He left her in the hands of social services. They were the professionals right? He didn't have the time to deal with a kid who acted like a statue. His family would never accept it if he brought home a defective child.