Patrick Dismuke

A 15-year old boy, African-American boy with Ricschsprung's disease, a disorder where one is born without the intestinal cells that help to digest food. As such, Patrick cannot eat on his own and must be fed with a nutrition drip. The drip leads to his enormous health problems. Patrick has been a patient at Hermann hospital on and off for all of his fifteen years. He is much beloved by the hospital staff, and is a fairly normal fifteen year old save his tiny size. He likes sports, Nintendo games and so on but cannot play sports and rarely has time for Nintendo or school due to his condition.

Patrick routinely faces life-threatening infections and illnesses, but resists thinking about his own death. For this reason, the hospital staff often avoid discussing his condition with him. He loves the hospital more than his own home, which is...