Chapter 2
Emery
Iloved my job. To my very core. I was six when I decided I wanted to be a doctor at Russell Crossing Family and Urgent Care and that never wavered.
The second I finished my family med residency, I hightailed it back home, knowing that Dr. Hastings had a place for me at the clinic.
A year later, I was still finding my feet, but even though I worked long hours and was on call more often than not, I had no problem getting out of bed every day, ready to get to work.
Sundays were my short days, covering the Urgent Care side of things from noon until five p.m.. when the nurse practitioner, Luz Hernandez, took over. She called Dr. Hastings when she needed a consult, so once I saw this last patient, I was free for the day.
It was my one and only non-negotiable. Sunday brunch was sacred to my family.
We didn’t go to church and we weren’t religious, but that time together Sunday mornings was important to us all.
With a family as large as we were, it was hard to stay connected, even though we all talked constantly.
But on Sundays, Mom cooked a huge brunch and everyone had to be there, unless they got special dispensation from the matriarch.
And usually that was only for my youngest siblings, who were attending college.
I was anxious to get home. I was not going to let myself think about why.
Lindsey stuck her head through the open door of my office. “Emery? Patient in room two is ready for you.”
I gave her a smile. “Thanks. I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”
I read over Margot Rawlings’ chart, carefully studying the triage notes, then the x-ray. I scoffed at the remote radiologist’s report, locked my computer, and headed to the treatment room. Knocking before I entered, I waited for the patient’s response before I went in.
“Hi, Margot. I’m Dr. Harrington.”
She shot me a wary kind of look but shook my hand when I offered it. I logged into the laptop in the room, clicked into her chart, then sat on the wheeled stool before giving her my full attention.
“What’s going on today?”
Margot rolled her eyes. “I already told the nurse.”
“I know,” I said with a nod. “But I’d like to hear it directly from you.”
She was quiet for a few seconds then let out a put upon sigh. “I was carrying the baby and the dog. When I stepped off the bottom step, I rolled my ankle. Now it’s all swollen and I can’t put any weight on it.”
I pushed off, sliding across the floor so I was at the foot of the exam table. “Can I take a look?”
Margot nodded and waved a hand, but the expression on her face told me she thought I was being ridiculous.
I’d encountered it before. Patients seemed to think that since it was my job to examine them it was weird when I asked them if I could.
But I was a stickler for consent. Yes, it was implied since they’d come to see me, but I wanted to know it was freely given.
“Did your foot roll in or out?” I asked as I gently poked at her ankle. It was definitely tender, swollen, and a little warm. She held in a wince as I manipulated it, but I saw the way her face tightened.
“In.” Her voice was a little tense.
I nodded and gently laid a finger on the calcaneofibular ligament. “Okay, and does it hurt more here?”
Her breath caught. “Yes.”
“Okay.” I set her foot back down and slid across the floor again. “The good news is that your x-rays don’t show any breaks. It seems you’ve strained your ligament there. What you have is a really bad sprain.”
“Okay.” She said the word slowly, drawing it out. “So what does that mean?”
“Do you know about R.I.C.E?” At her blank look, I elaborated. “Rest, ice, compression, and elevation.”
“Oh. Yes. I do.”
“Great.” I took a few seconds to type a few lines of notes.
“We’ll get your ankle wrapped and into a brace.
I suggest you stay off it for a couple of weeks.
We’ll send you home with crutches, but they can be a pain, so if you want, you can look into renting or buying a knee walker.
Ever seen those? It’s like a little scooter that you can rest your knee on? ”
She scowled at me. “I can use crutches, you know.”
I blinked. “Well, sure. But we’ve seen a lot of good success with healing since the knee walkers have come on the market.
Patients are more apt to use them since they’re easier.
But you can do whatever you like, as long as you give your ankle time to recover.
In the meantime, I’ll write you a referral for physical therapy—”
“No.”
I froze, then turned toward her. “PT will help you strengthen the strained ligament and make sure you don’t lose mobility in the ankle.”
“I’m not going.”
There was something in her tone, something I couldn’t quite catch. I pushed my glasses up my nose and slid away from the computer. I didn’t get into her space, but I made sure she saw that she had my full attention and that I was willing to listen when I asked gently, “Why not?”
Margot stared at me for a long moment, studying me maybe. After a few more seconds, she sighed. “I’ve gone that route before for a knee injury a few years ago. I’m not putting myself through that again.”
I opened my mouth to extol the benefits of PT but shut it before speaking.
I knew patients who didn’t want to do physical therapy because it hurt, because it was expensive, because it took time away from their day that they needed.
For a second there, I’d been ready to assume her reasoning.
And that would make me not only a shitty human, but an even worse doctor.
“What part of physical therapy don’t you like?”
Margot scoffed. “The part where they tell me if I just lose weight, then I’ll be fine.”
Ah. Well that made sense. Not the reasoning because that was bullshit. An injury was an injury on any size patient and it needed the same care. Just because Margot was plus-sized didn’t mean she should be treated any less.
It was one of my biggest issues with healthcare in this country, only second to the way privatized health insurance screwed most of the population. But the only thing I could do to fix it was treat every one of my patients with the dignity they deserved.
“Fair enough. Tell you what, I’ll show you some exercises you should do, twice a day, for the next couple of weeks. I’ll write it all up in your discharge so you have them. Then I’ll see you back here in, say, three weeks and we’ll assess your healing and discuss next steps. How does that sound?”
Margot squinted. “And is one of those next steps going to be a diet?”
“Margot, your vitals are outstanding. Your blood work from three months ago is perfect. If you want to lose weight, we can discuss that, but I’m not going to make it an issue. You’re as healthy as a horse.”
She blinked at me and then let out a chuckle. “And you should know, with the last name Harrington.”
I laughed. “True enough. And really, it’s a stupid idiom because anyone who knows horses knows that one wrong move or even look at them funny, and they’ve got a problem. But really, you’re healthy and strong. You wanna try doing PT on your own and see if it improves, I’m all for it.”
Her whole demeanor shifted. I thought she’d been tense from pain, and that was still there a little bit, but she softened and offered me a real smile. I returned it.
We spent the next ten minutes going over the stretches I thought best for helping her heal. I wasn’t a physical therapist but part of the beauty of family medicine was knowing a little bit about everything. Plus, it had been one of my favorite rotations in my third year of med school.
I wrote up the notes quickly and clicked all the right buttons so that Margot would have all the information she needed on her discharge. Then I shook Margot’s hand again and left, letting Lindsey know she could go back in and wrap Margot’s ankle and get her fitted with crutches.
I speed walked back to my office so I could finish the rest of my notes for today. I was ready to get out of here.
I was lucky that I loved my family and they loved me back just as much. Because of that, I didn’t mind still living in my childhood bedroom and, despite being twenty-nine and a whole ass doctor, still relying on my mom for meals. At least I did my own laundry and cleaned up after myself.
It still felt like a weight lifted off my shoulders the instant I drove onto the property.
Bodhi and Crew, the two oldest, had lived elsewhere before my parents bought the spread that became Blue Creek Ranch, but my twin sister, Demi, and I had come home from the hospital to this house.
One of my favorite pictures was from that day, Gigi Fern holding the both of us, sitting in a rocking chair when the living room still had flower wallpaper.
We’d been a year and a half when Gigi Fern passed away, so I didn’t have any active memories of her.
But my parents and my oldest brother did.
We all talked about the woman who had helped my mom and dad when they’d been teen parents, who had been a mother to them when their own parents abandoned them for their choices.
It was because of Gigi Fern that my parents had been able to buy this property, and that we had everything we did now, even our last name.
So even though I hadn’t ever really known her, I always sent a little grateful thought into the universe when I drove up the long drive.