The younger woman turned to me and smiled as she shook her head to tell me I shouldn’t pay attention. “You’ll be all right,” she added, and turned to look firmly at the closed door as if she could will it to open.
I closed my eyes again. When I opened them, I realized I must have fallen asleep, because the two women were gone and there were two other gurneys lined up behind me. Finally, the doors opened again, the African American lady was wheeled out, and I was wheeled in. The young man bringing me to the X-ray machine was the nicest and warmest of anyone I had met so far. He assured me that he would do everything to make this easy and comfortable.
“Do you know where my mother is?” I asked him. Since he was being so nice, I thought he would give me an answer.
“Sorry,” he said. “I’m just the X-ray technician. I’m sure someone will be getting your mother to visit you afterward.”
“She was hit by the car, too,” I said. “Was she here already?”
He paused, thought for a moment, and shook his head. “She’s probably with the doctor somewhere else right now,” he replied. “Let’s get you going.”
After my X-rays were taken, another nurse arrived to wheel me out and back into the elevator.
“Where am I going?” I asked.
“To wait for the doctor,” she replied. “He’ll look at your X-rays first. We have an examination room open for you, and I want to get you into it before someone else gets in there.”
“What about my mother? She was in the accident, too.”
“I don’t know anything about her,” she said. “I just came on duty.”
She got me into the elevator and then out and into an examination room. I don’t know how long I was in there before the doctor arrived, but I know I was in and out of sleep, and I was very thirsty. I called for someone to please get me some water, but everyone seemed too busy to hear me.
When my doctor finally arrived, I was surprised at how young he looked. He had curly light brown hair and a round face with thin lips and a small nose, so small it looked as if half of it had still not emerged. In fact, it looked as if his facial features were sinking into his skull. His hazel eyes were that deeply set. His skin was as soft and clear as a little boy’s skin. Maybe he hadn’t begun to shave yet, I thought, which I knew was silly.
“Okay, now,” he said, as if we had been having a conversation that had been interrup
ted. “I’m Dr. Decker, one of the ER doctors here. I’ve called for Dr. Milan to look at you. He’s an orthopedic specialist. The reason,” he said, “is that you have a serious fracture of the femur.”
“I don’t know what that is,” I said.
“It means your thigh bone.”
He held up the X-ray for me to see and pointed to my right leg bone.
“This is your thigh bone. There are four distinct parts to it, and your injury is at the head. See?” he asked as if he were teaching a class. “Look where the edge of my finger is.”
I nodded, even though I had no idea what he was pointing to.
“The reason it’s serious for someone your age is that it can and most likely will affect the growth plate, the soft area of the bone located at the epiphysis near the head of the femur. As a result of all this, your right leg might end up a bit shorter than your left. So we want a specialist to handle the cast, okay? It might be a while.”
“My head hurts, too, and so does my arm and my neck and shoulders.”
“You’ve been banged up quite a bit. Luckily, nothing else is broken, but you do have a slight concussion. That’s why you’re nauseous and dizzy. In fact, I’m amazed you don’t have a broken arm.”
He lifted my right arm, and I saw the black-and-blue marks. They were ugly and frightening. I couldn’t help but start to cry.
“Easy,” he said. “I’ll have the nurse give you something for the nausea. I don’t want to give you anything else until Dr. Milan can get here. Okay?”
“What about my mother?”
“Your mother? What about her?”
“She was hit by the car first.”
He nodded. “I’ll check on it,” he said. He patted my hand and left.
I expected the nurse to come in soon, but a long time went by before anyone came, and she wasn’t a nurse. She wasn’t wearing a uniform. She was an older lady with short gray hair that looked plastered around her head. She wore a pair of glasses with lenses so thick they looked more like the protective glasses mechanics wear. She approached me and lifted her clipboard.