Mattie smiled. They were all the same, soldiers.
‘It should do,’ she told him. ‘But only if you take care of it. That means getting you on the timetable with the physical therapist for some rehab, and accepting you’ll have some limitations on what you can do whilst it heals.’
‘So I’m out of training?’ He pulled a face. ‘It isn’t that bad really, ma’am.’
‘If you want to heal fast, then you’ll listen,’ Mattie told him firmly, knowing how these guys could feel pressure to get back to their units before they’d given their bodies chance to fully heal. ‘I’ll be passing it along the chain of command so that your CO knows you need time to heal, but ultimately the more you take care of it now, the faster you will actually be able to get back out there.
‘Do I need an X-ray to confirm it?’ He pulled another face.
Mattie smiled. ‘No, don’t worry. An X-ray won’t detect a herniated disc. It might just rule out other causes, but at this stage I don’t have any reason to suspect anything else.’
He blew out heavily.
‘How long, then?’
‘Piece of string,’ she told him, not unkindly. ‘Come on, let’s get you out of here and into the physical therapy unit. With any luck they might even have a slot this morning.’
As she walked the private out and tasked one of the nurses with getting him an appointment with the physio, she turned back for her next patient’s notes, only to find Kane standing there.
‘Mr Wheeler.’ She plastered a friendly smile on her lips, aware that there were plenty of ears around right at that moment.
‘Major Brigham,’ he acknowledged.
‘I trust you had an informative morning with Major Donal. I know she ran through some of the scenarios we’ve been practising here, so that you see how we can dovetail with medical situations for your guys.’
‘Yes, I have some thoughts on how we can integrate it. When you’re available, I’d like to go back to the map and run you through where our different units are going to be, and when.’
‘Of course.’ Mattie nodded. After all, dealing with this mission for Battle group was the priority. ‘Give me a moment.’
Reaching for the patient list, she made a couple of notes, nodded to the nurse, and gestured for Kane to join her.
‘Shall we, Mr Wheeler?’
And her pulse wasn’t really leaping in her throat at the idea of being alone again with Kane—away from all her sharp-eyed staff.
They might not have clocked anything yet but one wrong move, one misplaced word and they would instantly know something was amiss.
‘I saw one of the scenarios you were looking at was apparently a splenic injury,’ he remarked as they began their walk down the corridor past other colleagues.
‘Yes, blunt splenic injuries were always notoriously challenging to manage when on deployment, not only because field posts may not have angiographic capabilities to confirm hemoperitoneum, in which case the casualty would need immediate evacuation for surgical treatment, but also because NOM of splenic injuries could put the casualty at risk of prolonged hypotension.’
‘NOM?’
‘Sorry, Non-operative management.’
‘Right.’
‘The other question concerns whether the need for immediate splenectomy can differ between those splenic injures in a patient also suffering from severe brain injury and those patients with splenic injury with no severe brain injury.’
Reaching her office door, she opened it and invited Kane inside, before hesitating for a moment then propping it open slightly. When she turned, he was watching her, those deep cocoa pools drawing her in, leaving her breathless. She stopped, almost daring him to comment. But he said nothing, simply waiting for her to round her desk and take her seat before sitting down himself.
‘I think we should start over. Yesterday was a bit of a...’ She searched for the word, her normally sharp brain obviously still a little dented.
‘Shock,’ he supplied wryly.
‘Shock,’ she echoed.
‘I think that’s a wise idea,’ he began seriously, before his lips twitched upwards. ‘Hello, Major Brigham, I’m WO2 Wheeler.’