Chapter 6

There's a lot of false glorification in the world. Some people call it hype. Jerry used to call it B.S. Thanks to Madison Avenue and its penchant for making each new product sound like the answer to everything that has plagued mankind since the creation, the bar has been lowered across the board. People who don't deserve it are touted as something special. I'm not saying it's evil or malicious or anything like that. But when a particular brand of lipstick is supposed to solve all problems with one's love life, it makes it that much more difficult to point out anything that's actually good.

When Jill told me her daddy was a great doctor, I pretty much let it in one ear and out the other. Just another little girl whose father could do no wrong in her eyes. If anything, I envied her, that she could feel that way about her parent.

I thought about that fragile little girl in the emergency room who had climbed up on my lap, under attack by one of mankind's most dreaded enemies. Just the mention of the word 'CANCER' was enough to make grown men quiver and feel sick. John had stood up for her when she was too weak to do it on her own. The odds against success on such a venture would have made most men give up before they started. He certainly wasn't under any obligation to do anything about it. Once he diagnosed and pointed to the cure, his job was done. Most doctors would have shaken their heads, tsk, tsked and left for their 2:30 tee time. John O'Hara did whatever it took to convince both the hospital and the drug manufacturer to do what was right this time, not what was common or expected. I don't mean to downplay the techs and other hospital staff who volunteered their time, but I'm sure getting them to help was nothing compared to the other two. Heck, all he'd have to do is show me that poor girl and I'd give up one Saturday night a month to help save her life.

I wondered if Jamie's grandmother was aware of what he'd done for Jamie. Knowing John, he probably invented some special program for children or something like that to justify the free treatments, taking no credit for himself.

Jamie was too young to understand much of what was going on. She was aware that she was sick and that the treatments were supposed to help her to get better but I'm sure she had no idea how bad things really were and what a miracle John had pulled out of his hat. Can a child that young really understand the concept of death?

The door whiisshed open and another orderly pushed a wheelchair through carrying a boy of around eight years old, holding his left arm against his chest with his right hand. He was wearing a pair of grass stained jeans and a football jersey. My orderly said, "Did you score?"

He grinned and said, "Yeah. I got the winning touchdown."

"Good for you."

The kid still had a smile on his face as he went out of sight down the hallway.

I was pushed into the room he'd come out of and helped onto the table by my orderly and a tiny little girl who looked to be about Jill's age. The first thing she did was take pictures of my wrist from four different angles. That required moving my body around on the table, flipping me over a couple of times into something simulating some advanced yoga position only obtainable the last three months before total enlightenment, then admonishing me to hold still while she went in a little room and pushed the button. Then, after making sure I didn't have anything in my pockets, she posed me in more positions than if they were taking test shots for a spread in Playboy, taking pictures of my butt from every angle possible and a few I wouldn't have thought of if I was doing it. The only difference is that she let me keep my pants on.

When it was all over they put me back in my wheelchair and the little girl used a remote control to flip through the x-rays on a monitor that was built into the wall. She pointed out a crack running up one of the bones in my wrist. Depending upon the angle, it looked from two to five inches long. When I commented on the difference, she smiled and said, "That's why we put you through all those gyrations.

There wasn't anything to see in the other shots.

She said, "Do you have children?"

"Yes. A boy and a girl."

"Well, you've certainly got the pelvis for it. I bet you didn't have much trouble giving birth."

"No, I didn't. Both births were fairly easy although my daughter took her time to make an appearance."

"Well, I've got three. My doctor told me they'd tear me apart if I had them naturally. I had C-sections for all three. A quick shot to put me to sleep then in and out. I wouldn't have it any other way."

"I didn't have any shots."

"Really? How could you handle it?"

"I don't know. I've never used anything, not even an aspirin. No alcohol, either."

"That's great if you can do it. I can't imagine going through labor wide awake. And I usually need a couple of glasses of wine to wind down after a hectic day in here."

"You don't look old enough to have three children. What did you do? Start when you were twelve?"

"No, I'm a crusty old broad. I'll be thirty in a couple of weeks."

We talked about how young she looked and then started comparing the sizes of our children and could have easily spent the rest of the evening talking if my orderly hadn't gotten impatient and pushed me back into the hallway and onto the elevator.

Our next stop was what I'd call the fixit room. I have no idea what the real name is. Once they know what needs to be done, this is where they send you. This is for the relatively minor stuff. I imagine if I'd come in with a heart attack or a bullet wound that I'd have gone somewhere else and there would have been a team of people running around yelling "stat!"

This room was primarily a bunch of metal tables that could be made private by pulling a screen closed, similar to the shower curtain I'd yanked off the wall when I slipped. Like the curtain in a semi-private room they shut when you use the bedpan so they don't have to wheel your roommate and all your visitors into the hallway.

We passed my football buddy on the way in. He was sitting up on table dangling his legs. His left arm had a cast on it from his hand up to his bicep. It was resting on a rack that had been clipped to the table he was sitting on. He gave us a half-hearted smile and a tentative wave with his good hand as we passed by.

Once again I was helped up on a table. This time my orderly told me I might have to wait a while. He pulled the curtain partway closed, blocking the rest of the room from my sight. I sat the edge of the table with my legs hanging over, swinging slightly and stared at the curtain.

I didn't have to wait long. I heard a familiar voice say "Now what have you done?" and turned to see June walk through the open part of the curtain in her blue nurse's uniform.

"I did exactly what I'm always telling the kids not to do."

"Well, I was told that you might be embarrassed so I'm here to take a look at you."

"I didn't know you worked in Emergency."

"I don't. I work in Maternity. John asked if I could spare a few minutes for you and it's pretty slow tonight so here I am."

"Well, I appreciate it."

She grabbed my folder and looked through it quickly, slowing down at one point and going back to a previous page. She nodded and continued where she was before, then went over to the wall behind my table. There was a monitor mounted on the wall with a portable scanner like they use at Home Depot. She scanned one of my labels and of couple of folders came up on the monitor. They were marked 'buttocks' and 'right wrist'. She clicked on the first one and bunch of thumbnails came up.

"Just like Jack," I said.

"I don't think Jack would take these."

"I meant the way they're organized."

"Mmm." She scanned through the x-rays then turned around.

"OK. On your stomach."

I rolled over, then twisted around so my legs were on the table. June poked and prodded, had me twist one way and another, raise and rotate my legs one at a time. "Here we go," she said, then grabbed my sweatpants and pulled the back of them down below my butt. She just had them down for a few seconds, then lifted them up.

"You probably damaged your pride worse than your butt. I can see some discoloration on the right side so you're going to have a nice bruise tomorrow. Give it a few days and you'll be fine. Now, I've got a question for you. How come you landed on your right side instead of coming down flat on your back?"

"I grabbed the shower curtain on the way down."

"Oh. I see."

She wrote some things down in the folder, then put it back it it's holder. "Just take care of where you sit and try not to back into anything for the next couple of days and you'll be fine. There should be someone here shortly to take a look at your wrist."

"Thanks a lot, June. I really appreciate this. Is the doctor going to have to check up on you since you're just a nurse?"

"No. You'd be surprised what they'll let an RN do."

She left and I was once more stuck looking at the curtain. I listened to the low voices, mainly giving orders, joking here, calming someone there, punctuated by the occasional sound of surgical instruments hitting a metal tray.

I heard a swishing noise, then felt somebody's hand on my shoulder. I shook myself awake and looked up to see a man dressed in green. He had the traditional stethoscope hanging from his neck, a close cropped beard and a fringe of hair around a mostly bald head. The remaining hair on his head was all gray; his beard was mostly gray with a couple of areas of stubborn red hairs mixed in with the gray, like the last remaining white blood cells heroically striving to fight off an infection that had overwhelmed them. He had a badge that declared him to be "Dr. 'RED' Malford".