From Ant to Eagle(27)

“I’m sure Sammy would be happy to oblige,” Dad answered.

Simon fumbled awkwardly with a device on the wall, dropping it once, before wrapping what looked like a black strap around Sammy’s arm. He listened with his stethoscope while inflating what I now saw was some sort of balloon. When he was satisfied with what he’d done, he went back to his clipboard and scribbled more notes, never telling us what he was doing or what he thought.

“Stand up and walk across the room,” Simon said.

“You didn’t say, ‘Simon-says,’” Dad joked.

Sammy tried to get out of bed but couldn’t, so Dad went over to help. He managed to get Sammy up standing but he was wobbly and still didn’t look like he was back to himself.

“Okay, never mind, we can just do the exam sitting,” Simon said.

Sammy lay back down and Simon put him through a series of tasks that reminded me of some sort of game: take a breath, open your mouth, turn your head, touch your nose.

At the end of everything, Simon left the room without saying a word. We were all left a little stunned and Dad was chuckling to himself in the corner. “I suppose you don’t need to have personality to become a doctor,” he said.

The nurse who’d drawn Sammy’s blood came back in with two popsicles. “It’ll be another few minutes before the doctor is back, thought you’d like one of these in the meantime,” she said, handing us each one.

Dr. Mitchell came back thirty minutes later, followed closely behind by Simon and his pet clipboard. He appeared hurried and spoke with hardly any pauses. “I can’t say exactly what’s going on with Sammy but I had a look through his blood test results and I think he’s going to have to be admitted.”

“Admitted?” I asked.

“Yes, he’s going to have to stay in the hospital overnight, and possibly for the next few days while we run some tests to figure out what’s going on.”

I looked over at Sammy who appeared more interested in finishing his popsicle than the conversation around him.

“Wait, wait, slow down,” Dad said. “What did his blood tests show?”

“He’s anemic and thrombocytopenic. I can’t say why, and it doesn’t explain his seizure so I think it’s best to admit him and see if they can figure it out.”

Anemic? Thrombocytopenic?

The first word seemed vaguely familiar but the second didn’t even sound English.

Dad seemed to be getting frustrated. “Look, can you just tell us in plain English what you think is going on here. I don’t care if you can’t say exactly, but you must have some idea.”

Dr. Mitchell exhaled and sat down on the side of Sammy’s bed. He proceeded to speak at an exaggeratedly slow pace as if we were all hard of hearing.

“Sammy had a seizure. Think of the brain as a cupboard full of wires. Normally, you open the cupboard and find nice, laid out sets of wires that send signals in a coordinated fashion. A seizure occurs when those wires get all jumbled and start firing in all different directions. What you saw—the thrashing movement, eyes rolling around—is the result of that. So that much we know: Sammy had a seizure. But a seizure is a symptom, not a diagnosis, meaning it tells us something is wrong inside, but not what is wrong. There are many things that cause a seizure—dehydration, low blood sugar, electrolyte abnormalities, infections—many things. Even fever itself can cause a seizure, except I’m worried there’s something more going on here. I’m worried about what has been going on this summer. The weight loss, the bruising, the sweating; I know you were told it was likely mono but I think there’s something more than mono going on here.”

“What do you mean, something more than mono?” Mom asked.

“I mean that fevers and weight loss and fatigue can all be from mono, true, but after two months of fevers I think we need to start thinking of other things. That’s why we’re going to have Sammy stay overnight in the hospital. In the morning we’ll run a few more tests and have the specialists see him.”

“In the morning?” I blurted out. “But Sammy’s sick now! Why can’t the specialists see him now?”

“He’s sick, but not critical. We can wait until morning. Nothing will have changed by then and it would be good to get some rest. It’s been a long day for all of you. The room on the unit he’s going to has a bed for someone to stay, but only one. The rest of you will have to come back tomorrow.”

Sammy hadn’t said a word during the whole discussion and now sat with his eyes half closed, remnants of an unfinished popsicle staining the white sheets at his side. The words ‘more than mono’ kept reverberating in my head while the image of the plastic tube filling with blood stained the inside of my eyelids. At least the image of the flailing had competition. My mind had become a haunted house straight out of a Goosebumps book.

I stayed awake for most of the ride home, but somewhere along the dark highway between the small towns of Ontario I must have fallen asleep because I don’t remember how I got into bed; only the frequent awakenings that followed.





CHAPTER 16

THE NEXT MORNING I HEARD DAD TALKING ON THE PHONE IN A hushed voice as I walked into the kitchen. I still felt tired despite the sun already creeping over the tree line.

“All right, that sounds good. Yes, I’ll be in as soon as I’ve dropped him off.”