Bobby Hutchinson - The Family Doctor

“Pacemakers, Doctor. The man in the very next cubicle has a pacemaker. You know you aren’t allowed to use a cell phone in Emerg.”

He did know, of course, but he’d forgotten. His irritation had reached the borderline of outright fury by the time Alf Jensen burst through the door with the results of the X rays.

“It’s about time,” Tony growled. “Fractured, right?” He’d resigned himself to the fact that he’d be hobbling around on a cast for the foreseeable future. His ankle was swollen to more than twice its normal size, and it was so painful he could barely stand the weight of the ice pack a nurse had slapped on it.

Alf closed the door and perched on the side of the bed.

Tony frowned at him, wondering why the hell Alf had such a grim look on his face. “Well? What’s the verdict? If it’s fractured, I know I’ll have to wait for the swelling to go down before we can cast the bloody thing. Let me have a look at the X ray.” He grabbed for it, but Alf quickly moved it out of his reach.

“The ankle looks fine, Tony, no fracture.”

“Well, that’s good news.” It didn’t make it any less painful, but at least a sprain would heal faster. “So let’s just bind it up with a tensor bandage, and I can hobble around on crutches.”

“I’m afraid the X ray picked up something we hadn’t expected.” Alf got up and slipped the negative into the viewing frame. “See this shadow right here?”

Tony frowned and studied the film. It showed an ankle and part of a leg. Alf was pointing to a spot on the fibula, just above the ankle joint.

“There’s a lesion right here, Tony. I had Crompton take a look at it—that’s what took so long. He was up in Surgery and I had to wait until he could break for a minute. He agrees with me that it looks like a possible sarcoma.”

Stunned, Tony gaped at the other doctor. “You’ve got to be joking. Sarcoma? That’s not possible.”

“I wouldn’t joke about a thing like this, Tony, you know that.”

It was a struggle for Tony to keep the utter horror he felt from showing on his face. The ramifications sent a bolt of fear straight into his gut. Sarcoma was a fast-acting cancer. He could lose his leg.

No, he corrected as his stomach knotted and bile wormed its way up into his throat. No could about it. If this were sarcoma, he would lose his leg. He swallowed hard and did his best to control his expression.

“I’ve ordered a CAT scan. They’ll come and take you over there in a minute.” Alf looked uncomfortable and didn’t meet Tony’s gaze. “We could well be wrong. Let’s just keep our fingers crossed. And we have to be grateful for the X ray. If it is sarcoma, the sooner we treat it the better—although I don’t need to tell you that, Tony. You know as well as I do.”

He did, but it wasn’t any comfort. After mouthing another half dozen platitudes, Alf finally left, and for the first time all morning, Tony was relieved to be alone in the tiny room.

He could let go of the rigid control he’d maintained in front of Alf. His fists were knotted, and he realized it was because his hands were trembling. In fact, his whole body was shaking. His stomach felt sick. He could feel his heart hammering against his ribs, as if he’d just run a fast mile, and his breathing was jerky and rapid.

Shock. For the first time in years, he felt on the verge of tears. Jumbled thoughts raced through his head, all of them centered on his small daughter. Losing a leg was one thing, but what if the cancer had spread?

What would become of McKensy if he died? She was only nine, and he was the parent raising her. His ex, Jessica, had left them when McKensy was about to turn four. Jessica wanted to be a jazz singer, and when an offer came to travel with a blues band, she’d taken it.

He and his ex-wife were friends now, but it had been a tough four years. Tony knew Jessica loved their daughter, and she came to visit whenever time and distance permitted, but the life she’d chosen to lead wasn’t one that could include a child.

After his divorce, and after two bad experiences with housekeepers, Tony had asked his mother, Dorothy, to move in with him and McKensy. The timing was right. Dorothy had just sold the family home and bought a condo, which she promptly rented out. The extra income meant she was better off than she’d ever been, and of course Tony paid her well for caring for McKensy.

He was grateful to his mother, but for very good reasons he absolutely didn’t want Dorothy raising his daughter single-handed. His mother was a kind and loving grandmother, but she was also a neurotic and bitter woman, still obsessed with the fact that Tony’s father had walked out on her years before.

He had a brother and two sisters, but to which of them would he entrust his daughter? They all loved McKensy, but their lives were busy and full. Two of them had children of their own. His single sister was plowing her way through med school and had another grueling three years to go.

For a moment, he gave in to the despair that overwhelmed him, and felt the strange sensation of tears welling up in his eyes. Horrified, he used his fist to swipe at the moisture that escaped down his cheeks.

With no warning knock, the door opened. “Tony O’Connor?”

He scrabbled for a tissue and turned his head away until his eyes were dry.

A white-smocked young woman ignored his distress and gave him a wide smile. “Hi, I’m Lisa Bently. I’m here to take you down for a CAT scan.” She released the brakes on the bed and whizzed him out the door and down the hall, chattering as they sped along.

“Wrecked your ankle, huh? I did that last year, out jogging. I fell off the edge of the sidewalk. Hurts like fury, doesn’t it? Here we are. Looks like you’ll have a bit of a wait—this place is crazy today.” She angled the bed against the wall, one of four others.

“Look, Ms.—” Tony had to squint at her name tag. “Ms. Bently, would you just go in and tell the tech that I need this done stat?” He hated to pull rank, but there was no choice in this case. “Tell them the chief of staff is waiting and needs to be seen immediately.”

“Oh, they know, Doctor. But see, it’s first come first served. You’ll have to wait your turn like everybody else. Here’s a couple magazines.”

She plopped two outdated copies of Newsweek on his lap and was gone before he could say another word.

“Hell of a thing, ain’t it?” The elderly man in the bed across the hall propped himself up on his elbow and twisted his head around to talk. “S’posed to be the best medical system in the world, here in Canada, and still you gotta lie around goin’ rotten waiting for some test or another. What’re you in for?”

“My ankle.” Tony tried to be distant without being rude, but the old man was oblivious to subtlety. For the next thirty-five minutes, he regaled Tony with the entire history of his bowels and gall bladder operation. By the time an attendant finally came and wheeled him in, Tony felt numb. He went through the test without saying a single word, grateful for the silence, anxious for the results. When it was over, he asked to see the negatives, but the female attendant insisted that Jensen had to see them first.

“Look, I’m a doctor,” Tony insisted. It was getting harder to summon up his usual authoritative tone. He felt exhausted, and his stomach was upset again. The sense of unreality that had begun with the X ray intensified. Still, he tried. “I’m the chief of staff at this hospital. Surely I have the right to see my own results.”

“Sorry, Doctor.” The older woman shook her head. “You’re Dr. Jensen’s patient, and he didn’t leave any orders of that sort.”

By the time he’d been wheeled back to Emerg, Tony was seething again, focusing on the ridiculousness of the rules rather than thinking about what the results of the scan would reveal. But underneath the justifiable anger, he could feel anxiety eating away at his gut like acid.