Nolan had been walking for a good twenty minutes up a steep hill until he leaned against a fence to rest. His thighs were on fire as the exercise had been more than what he was used to, but this out of the way hospital was quite the journey. St. Markus Mary was a veterans hospital so it was located on the edge of town rather than in the heart of the city.
It has been founded by Buddhist monks rather than a Franciscan order so it was badly in the need of more money and better management. The ceiling tiles in the walkway to the hospital were caving in. A Tibetan monk on a ladder gave him a toothless grin as he wondered if the dude was qualified to be doing pipe work. The waiting room was crowded with screaming children running around and throwing toys while older women with wrinkled foreheads knitted away with thick headphones. It smelled like sweat and strangely of turmeric.
