Chapter 5 #2
“I don’t think that could have happened when he fell.
He was wearing his brace and everything, but they’re saying one of his vertebrae is collapsing and they need to either replace it or put a metal pin in it.
Something.” The very thought made him gag because that was a hard row to hoe.
He knew some bull riders and some bronc riders who’d had that happen to them, and it always seemed like just about the time they recovered, something else would happen and their back would go out again.
“Well, shit.” Momma’s curse should have surprised him, but it didn’t. She was a champion at it. “That poor boy can’t afford it.”
“Well, he can’t afford to not be able to walk, either. Does he have anybody else that’s like a power of attorney?”
“Not that I know of.” Cam could hear her take a sip of what he figured had to be her coffee. “I’ll ask around, but you’ve got to convince him to do this somehow.”
“I’ll do my best. Can you come watch the girls?”
“I can. I’ll be there in two shakes. Seriously.”
“Thanks, Momma. I appreciate it. If nothing else, he doesn’t need to be trying to drive himself home.”
And God knew Mitch was stubborn enough to do just that. He would try, and he would wreck the truck or something, and it would all be over.
“What else can I do?” Momma was up and moving. He could hear her putting things together.
“See what you can find out about putting a crowdfunding thing together or something. He’s going to need it, and I imagine he’s too proud to do it himself.”
“There’s nothing I love more than raising money for a good cause.” Doors slammed, he knew she was leaving the house to get in the car.
“No, you love gossiping more than you love anything else. But you are an amazing fundraiser. I’m going to get the girls all in the house so I can just leave when you come.
” He headed back for the barn because they needed to get Sarah where the other two were, not the other way around.
If she got hurt by Fire or Rosie or some other animal in the barn, and he’d never forgive himself.
“Love you, baby. I’ll be there in five.” She hung up on him.
Cam snorted. “Yeah, Momma, I love you too. Sarah, come on, honey. I need you to go to the house.”
Sarah popped out of the barn, parasol in her hands almost held like a sword. “What’s going on?”
“Your daddy’s having a little trouble with the doctor. They don’t want him to drive home by himself. I’m gonna go. My mom’s coming to watch you guys.”
“Your momma’s real nice.” Her lip quivered, the bottom one because it stuck out a little bit, so he noticed, but she didn’t break.
“She is, and she’s kind of bringing all sorts of stuff for you guys to do. I heard her gathering things and putting them in a bag.” His mom was the one who was good with kids. He didn’t know what the hell to do with them, and he sure as heck couldn’t take these kids to the hospital with him.
The hand not holding the parasol slipped into his, and it felt so tiny compared to his hand. So delicate. As if she might just… He didn’t know. She wasn’t going to break. She was a strong girl, but he felt terrible for her.
“Daddy’s gonna be okay, isn’t he?”
“Sure is. I’ve seen people recover from way worse than what your daddy’s got. He just needs to have some patience and let himself rest. We’re going to help him with that, right?”
She squeezed his hand as hard as her fingers could. “We are. I trust you, Cam.”
Jesus fucking Christ on a purple sparkly pogo stick. How was he supposed to feel about that?
How could he feel about that?
He had no idea, but he smiled at her and got her into the house and felt like the Grinch with Cindy Lou Who. But that was okay; she didn’t know that.
Because really, he was fixin’ to go make her daddy mad as a wet hen…
Still, Cam was hellacious relieved when the crunch of gravel announced his mom pulling in.
Mom had two big tote bags filled with God knew what, and she came right up to him. “Hey, baby. You okay?”
“Yep. I need to go see Mitch, but I’m fine.” He cut his eyes to the kids. “I’ll call you soon.”
“I’ll hang out until you’re back.” She smiled and waved him off.
“Thanks.” He grabbed his keys and headed out to the truck, glad to be out from under the weight of those three solemn stares. The back of his neck felt itchy, and he hated being out of his depth.
Lord.
He got to the ER, because he knew Mitch still had to be there since he wasn’t wanting to be admitted… Or at least he hoped he’d find Mitch there.
Mitch was there, perched on the edge of a chair, cheeks flushed a dull, dark red, near-black eyes shooting daggers. Poor guy looked about mad enough to eat the devil, horns and all.
“There you are. I want to go; let’s go.”
“We’re not going.” Not yet. “You said you needed surgery. If you need to get that vertebrae fixed, you’ll have to let someone in there.”
“I can’t afford surgery!” That blush just got darker, angrier. “Not only that, but I have girls to take care of. The damn thing’s just gonna have to heal on its own.”
“Getting surgery will help that. That’s how it works.” Cam hated it, but sometimes it was true.
Pure panic was written on Mitch’s face. “Look, man, just get me home. Please, it’s all I’m asking. I appreciate your help. I really do. But—”
Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. “Can I at least talk to the surgeon?”
“What? No.”
“Come on. Let me talk to the surgeon for a minute, then I won’t have guilt about dropping you off. I mean, that way if you just die while you’re sitting there with the girls, I’ll know that I did everything in my power.”
Mitch stared at him. “I’m gonna hit you with a rock.”
He snorted. “You couldn’t pick a rock up right now to hit me anyway.”
Mitch closed his eyes, and Cam swore he could see the stubborn asshole counting to ten. “Look, I’m just trying to appeal to your better nature. I need to go home, be with my girls.”
“And I’m all over that. You think I want to hang out with you and your kids? I don’t. I want to get on the road and get back to roping, but I told my mother I would come up here, and here I am.”
He was here, and somehow he had these little girls thinking he was some kind of a hero, which he was not. Especially that middle one—she made him want to not disappoint her. It was unnatural. “But I have to see the surgeon so I know everything’s all right.”
It was as good an excuse as any because as much of a shit as Mitch was—and Mitch was a pain in the ass—the man didn’t deserve to be abandoned with three children and a broken back. And, if they had to, they’d figure out some way to come up with the money.
“Fine, fine. You want to meet the surgeon? She’s a harridan. She’s just a money-grubbing harridan.”
“I’ll tell her you said that. You can introduce me.”
Mitch flipped him off and then tried to stand, groaning softly, pain written on his face, clear as day.
“Jesus Christ. Can’t you just sit there?
I’ll go up and talk to the folks at the front desk and get them to send somebody out.
” He stomped up to the front desk, leaned in close so Mitch wouldn’t hear.
“Look, I’m going to be able to convince Mitchell Gonzales to get this surgery.
Can you get the doctor here to talk to me? ”
The young lady glanced at him, her eyes rimmed with the biggest fake lashes he’d ever seen—it was like she was growing tarantulas. Then she nodded to him, winked. “That’s not a problem, just give us a few minutes. I’ll have the doctor paged.”
“Good deal.” The sooner they got Mitch fixed, the sooner Cam could leave. Get out of this mess of complications and get back to his easy no-stress life.
He might have to block Momma’s number when he went back on the road.
Too bad he couldn’t do it now, but he would need her to help with the kids and the money and all.
He paced while he waited for the doctor because Mitch was sitting there with his head in his hands, which was quite a feat considering he was wearing a back brace, and ignoring him entirely.
Sooner rather than later, a trim-looking doctor with severely pulled-back hair and a stern expression marched out from the back and looked at him. “You’re here about Mitchell Gonzales?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And how are you related to him?”
His brain ran around wildly like a squirrel in a hamster ball. “I’m a friend, but I have his permission to speak to you.” He glanced at Mitch, who wouldn’t look up at them, but he knew the man had to hear what he was saying.
She pursed her lips, glancing over at Mitch and then looking back at him. “All right, what is it you need to know?”
“What’s the deal? What kind of surgery is he going to have?
How long is the recovery? What is the basic idea of the costs?
He needs to be able to make an informed decision, and personally, I don’t think he was listening to you if you’ve told him all of this already.
” Now out of the corner of his eye, he could see Mitch drop his hands and glare, but he didn’t care. It was the truth.
“That’s a lot of information. Your best bet is to have him talk to his financial advisor about the costs, but he is going to require surgery on his vertebra.
It is basically starting to fall apart. Ideally, I will be able to do a vertebroplasty.
It’s a minimally invasive procedure wherein I go in and inject a bone cement into the bone, and it fills in all the cracks and stabilizes everything.
” She met his gaze head-on, waving a hand.
“If, however, when we do all of the scans, we find that that’s not going to work, then I’ll have to do some sort of fusion where I go in with screws and plates. ”
“This vertebrae-plasty. Is it safe?”
“It’s as safe as any spinal operation can be. The biggest risks are bleeding and blood clots. Whereas the side effects of actually opening him up and putting in screws and plates are far more worrisome.”
He chewed his lower lip, nodding, mulling all of that over. “And what about the recovery times?”
“Well, recovery time for a vertebroplasty is actually far reduced from the recovery time for any kind of spinal surgery. Depending on how well it reduces his pain, he could be back to normal activities in a matter of weeks. A month, maybe less. A lot of people can get back to regular activities within a week or two, but his pain level and the progression of this breakdown of the vertebra have been extreme.”
Cam snorted, “You mean he’s been a stubborn bastard. Pardon my French.”
A smile finally cracked her face a little bit. “That’s exactly what I mean. I would really like to admit him today and just get this done.”
“You have all the stuff to do that here?”
“We do. We do spinal procedures in this hospital. So we just need him to agree to it.”
“Is there a financial person available, do you think?” He knew Mitch would never agree to get admitted to the hospital without knowing what all this was going to cost.
“Let me make a call.” She pulled out her phone and stepped away from him. He imagined she was going to call the admin office to see if there was anybody who could talk to them.
“I’ll be right back,” he murmured, and she waved her hand, her back turned to him. He headed back over to Mitch, who gave him a mulish look as soon as he got within range.
“I can’t afford surgery right now, Cam. Bills are still coming in from when I was in the hospital from breaking my back.”
“What’s cost if you pay cash?”
“Eight thousand.”
“Dammit. Well, we can start a GoFundMe, right?”
“Sure, but when does that actually work?” Mitch grimaced wildly, and Cam could see the muscles in his back spasming, see the pain in the way Mitch’s arms moved involuntarily, his hands clenching.
“The doctor is getting us a financial advisor to talk to, and we’re going to do it.”
“Who appointed you my new mommy?” Mitch tried to stand up, but he couldn’t. His legs simply wouldn’t do it.
“I reckon it was a cross between my mom and your girls. Come on, Mitch, let’s think about this logically. If we get this surgery, especially if they can do this minimally invasive injection thing, you could be back on your feet in two to three weeks, she says.”
“I can’t. I can’t do it.” Mitch stared at him, those dark brown eyes like two holes in a blanket. “Just get me out of here.”
“No.” The word fell flat, like a turd in a punch bowl, right between them, but Cam meant it.
He was going to sit here and wait for the financial advisor, and they were going to talk about this, and then he was going to figure out how to get Mitch the money he needed to do this surgery.
It was like a crusade now. He was going to do this.
“Damn it, Cam. Why did I call you?”
“I’m guessing because you didn’t have anybody else to call.
Stop being so stubborn, okay? Think about your daughters.
If you do this thing with the plasty or whatever she called it, downtime is minimal.
You could be back with your girls in a couple of days and maybe not back on a roof, but certainly back to doing some kind of work in no time.
” Why couldn’t Mitch see that this was the ideal?
Surgery was the solution. Cam knew it, even though sometimes he’d had to make that tough choice himself.
He’d broken his wrist a couple of years ago, and he’d had to let it heal the hard way, which had sucked because it never did feel right after that. Now he could probably have the surgery, but again like Mitch, he didn’t want to be out of circulation that long.
Mitch blew out a breath, but he didn’t get to answer because the doctor came over. “Someone is coming from financial. They’ll meet you here because I know you’re having a hard time, Mitch, and you don’t want to be in a wheelchair going through the whole hospital up to the front.”
Mitch opened his mouth, but Cam interrupted him. “That’s great, thank you. That’s perfect.” Had to strike while the iron was hot and while Mitch felt like shit. Because otherwise, he wouldn’t get this done.
And dammit, they were going to do this.
If Mitch could recover in just a couple of weeks, he could be back on the road in no time. And those girls would have their daddy back. It was a win-win all the way around.
He’d be the hero, Mitch would be all fixed up, and life would get back to normal.
Thank God.