Cupid's Christmas (Serendipity #3)(42)
“Only family is allowed in the Exam Rooms, are you—”
Before she finished the question both men answered, “Yes.”
Okay then.” The nurse’s finger moved slowly down a list of names, “Ah, here they are,” she said. “Lindsay Gray is in Exam Room Seven.” She pointed a finger down the hallway. “And it looks like Eleanor Barrow is still in Radiology. When they bring her back, she’ll be in Room Eight, you can wait there if you’d like.”
The two men walked the long hallway together and when they arrived at Room Seven, John went in with Matthew. Lindsay was groggy, but awake. She began to explain most of what had happened. “…the car…almost dark…no headlights…Eleanor shoved me out of the way…but…”
“Did you actually see the car hit her?” John asked. His words had the weariness of someone trying to tread water in an ocean of tears. “Do you think there’s any chance…”
While Matthew stood by Lindsay’s bedside, John lowered himself into a chair in the far corner of the room, and allowed his head to drop into the cradle of his hands. Although his sobs were silent, his shoulders shook as violently as the earth does when a crater opens up.
Doctor Ramon Shameer was not only the hospital’s Chief of Orthopedic Surgery, he was also an expert diagnostician and to date he had never been wrong. When Eleanor Barrow was rolled into the Emergency Room, he knew without question she had a broken back along with the obvious cuts and lacerations on her face and hands. But protocol is protocol, so the still unconscious woman was taken to Radiology for a CT scan to confirm what Doctor Shameer already knew.
Eleanor was carefully transferred from the gurney to the scanner bed then Willa, a nurse technician who’d been doing this for nine years, moved to the adjoining room and began the test. Although the woman was still unconscious, Willa followed the same procedure she’d always used. Once the scanner bed began its slide into the tunnel, Willa’s voice echoed through the speakers. “We are now going to begin the test,” she said. “You will hear whirring and clicking sounds but please remain still. If you feel claustrophobic, or need help, let me know by speaking. Do not attempt to move or get up.”
The whirring began and with each click, the scanner bed inched its way back out of the tunnel, but what appeared on Willa’s screen was not what she expected. “Something‘s wrong,” she grumbled and ran the test a second time. When the result was the same, she paged Doctor Shameer to Radiology.
He eyed the results. “You’ve made a mistake somewhere,” he said, “run the test again.” This time he stood alongside of her as she did. The scanner bed was halfway through the tunnel when Eleanor blinked her eyes, saw the rings of red light circling her and said, “Where am I?”
“You’re in Radiology,” the speaker voice answered. “Please remain still, I’ll be right in.”
Seconds later both Nurse Willa and Doctor Shameer entered the room.
“You’re awake,” he said, stating the obvious.
“Yes,” Eleanor replied, “and I want to get up.” With the scanner bed out of the tunnel, she could sit up, but when she made a move to do so, Doctor Shameer pounced on her. “You can’t move,” he said. “Your back is broken.”
Nurse Willa said nothing because she’d already seen the first two scans.
Eleanor eyed them with a strange expression. “There’s nothing wrong with my back,” she said. “I feel fine. My knee’s a bit sore but other than that…”
Doctor Shameer’s mouth dropped open. “Impossible!” he stammered. “Can you wiggle your toes?”
“Of course,” Eleanor wiggled the toes on both feet. Before she left the CT scan room Doctor Shameer had her do any number of things to prove in fact her back was not broken. And only after a lengthy series of CT scans and X-rays, did he concede that she did not have a single broken bone in her entire body.
After nearly three hours, Eleanor was returned to Emergency Exam Room Eight, and Doctor Shameer headed off to the records room to re-check every diagnosis he’d ever made. Two days later he took a leave of absence, claiming such a mistake had to have been caused by overwork.
I feel a bit guilty about sabotaging Doctor Shameer’s career as I did, but it all worked out for the best. Looking ahead, I can tell you he’ll take Midu on that vacation he’s been promising her for the past ten years. And, on moonlit night in Fiji when the romance in the air is thicker than the humidity, they’ll create a baby girl who will one day be the world’s leading heart surgeon.
Had I not acted as I did, I can say for certain six lives would have been destroyed. Eleanor would have spent the remainder of her years in a wheelchair. Believing herself to be a burden, she would have refused to marry John and she would have settled for having Ray live with her.
Filled with the remorse of guilt, Ray would have become unbearable. He and Traci would have long-running arguments and in the end she’d have filed for a divorce claiming that Ray was impossible to live with.
And Lindsay, ah yes, hers would have been the saddest story of all. Had Eleanor not come to love the girl as she had, Lindsay would have been crushed beneath the automobile. Instead of being rescued, her dog would be killed by an eighteen-wheeler on the Interstate. And Matthew, unable to forget the love of his life, would have taken to drink and closed the doors to the Kindness Animal Clinic less than a year later.