A young female athlete breaks her leg playing soccer. After treating the fracture the doctor sees the potential of a more serious condition and calls her back. While he is doing the tests she begins to study the diagnosis, treatment and outcome of the treatment and in doing so she encounters something disturbing. Are all the surgeries being done for this condition necessary?
“Mom, did you hurt when they cut your breasts?”
“Yes, I did. And I cried because it hurt and I cried because I lost something. And now I look at it and realize how little I lost.” She hugged her daughter and they held each other.
“Oh, God, mom, it had to be hard for you, with nobody.”
“Your father was there, I pushed him away. I refused his help.”
“Did you ever tell him that?”
“No, why?”
“Because I remember him trying to help and being frustrated because it seemed like it wasn’t helping.”
“You were only about eight at that time. Do you remember that?”
“I remember you holding your chest and my wondering if you were having a heart attack or something.”
“My chest felt like it was burning.”
“I know. My leg feels like that at times.”
“Let me tell you something that may help a little. If it is like my surgery, it hurts bad but it gets better. It takes time.”
Laura released her hold on her mother. “Am I hurting you by hugging you?”
“You would hurt me more if you didn’t.”
They had a good cry together. They were still wiping their eyes when her dad came in. “How are things today?”
“A lot better.”
The fourth day Laura woke at about 6 AM. Her leg hurt but definitely less than the night before. She felt the need for a bowel movement. She put on the light for the nurse.
“I have to go the bathroom.”
“Let’s see, they still have in the catheter, that should be fine for now.”
“I mean take a crap.”
“Oh, let me get a bedpan.” She left and came back carrying the metal pot. She helped Laura on it and waited until she was done, wiped her and took the pan.
When she was gone Laura pulled back the sheet to look at her leg. There was really nothing to see she concluded after a few seconds. With sheet over her legs eight inches above knee level it would have appeared that she had a full-length leg cast on her right leg. There was one big difference. At about six inches above the knee level the cast rounded and there was a metal pole where before there was a cast covering her leg.
She wondered where they had put the cast they took off. She now wished she had it. If it could be slipped on instead of the one that was there now she would look like someone with a broken leg. “Not an amputee” she thought. “I could pass for someone with a broken leg.” She wrinkled up her nose and said to herself, “They certainly threw it away. And they cut it into at least six pieces. But I could piece if together.” She wished she had asked them to keep it. As strange as it seemed, it was the last real item she had that proved she once had a leg.
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