The guy wanted miracles and he wanted them yesterday. Sean knew this particular coach’s priority wasn’t the long-term welfare of the kid lying in the OR, but the future of his team. As a sports injury specialist he dealt with players and coaches all the time. Some were great. Others made him wish he’d chosen law instead of medicine.
The moment the boy’s father saw Sean he sprang forward like a Rottweiler pouncing on an intruder.
“Well?”
The coach was drinking water from a plastic cup. “You fixed it?”
He made it sound like a hole in a roof, Sean thought. Slap a new shingle on and it will be as good as new. Change the tire and get the car back on the road.
“Surgery is only the beginning. It’s going to be a long process.”
“Maybe you should have got him into surgery sooner instead of waiting.”
Maybe you should stop practicing armchair medicine.
Noticing the boy’s mother digging her nails into her legs, Sean decided not to lock horns. “All the research shows that the outcome is better when surgery is carried out on a pain-free mobile joint.” He’d told them the same thing a week before but neither the coach nor the father had wanted to listen then and they didn’t want to listen now.
“How soon can he play again?”
Sean wondered what it must be like for the boy, growing up with these two on his back.
“It’s too early to set a timetable for return. If you push too hard, he won’t be playing at all. The focus now is on rehab. He has to take that seriously. So do you.” This time his tone was as blunt as his words. He’d seen promising careers ruined by coaches who pushed too hard too soon, and by players without the patience to understand that the body didn’t heal according to a sporting schedule.
“It’s a competitive world, Dr. O’Neil. Staying at the top takes determination.”
Sean wondered if the coach was talking about his player or himself. “It also takes a healthy body.”
The boy’s mother, silent until now, stood up. “Is he all right?” The question earned her a scowl from her husband.
“Hell, woman, I just asked him that! Try listening.”
“You didn’t ask.” Her voice shook. “You asked if he’d play again. That’s all you care about. He’s a person, Jim, not a machine. He’s our son.”
“At his age I was—”
“I know what you were doing at his age and I tell you if you carry on like this you will destroy your relationship with him. He will hate you forever.”
“He should be thanking me for pushing him. He has talent. Ambition. It needs to be nurtured.”
“It’s your ambition, Jim. This was your ambition and now you’re trying to live all your dreams through your son. And what you’re doing isn’t nurturing. You put pressure on him and then layer more and more on until the boy is crushed under the weight of it.” The words burst out of her and she paused for a moment as if she’d shocked herself. “I apologize, Dr. O’Neil.”
“No need to apologize. I understand your concern.”
Tension snapped his muscles tight. No one understood the pressures of family expectation better than he did. He’d been raised with it.
Do you know how it feels to be crushed by the weight of someone else’s dreams? Do you know how that feels, Sean?
The voice in his head was so real he rocked on his feet and had to stop himself glancing over his shoulder to check his father wasn’t standing there. He’d been dead two years, but sometimes it felt like yesterday.
He thrust the sudden wash of grief aside, uncomfortable with the sudden intrusion of the personal into his professional life.
He was more in need of sleep than he’d thought.
“Scott’s doing fine, Mrs. Turner. Everything went smoothly. You’ll be able to see him soon.”
The tension left the woman’s body. “Thank you, Doctor. I— You’ve been so good to him right from the start. And to me. When he starts playing—” she shot her husband a look “—how do we know the same thing won’t happen again? He wasn’t even near another player. He just crumpled.”
“Eighty percent of ACL tears are non-contact.” Sean ignored both the woman’s husband and the coach and focused on her. He felt sorry for her, the referee in a game of ambition. “The anterior cruciate ligament connects your thigh to your shin. It doesn’t do a whole lot if you’re just going about your normal day, but it’s an essential part of controlling the rotation forces developed during twisting actions.”