Chapter 22
“All the things that Gram signed up for. Who is going to do those things now?”
Wesley stared at Birdie and then blinked. And then he shrugged his shoulders. “I guess they just won’t get done.”
“You don’t know my gram very well. She’s going to kill herself to do them.”
“Then you and I’ll take it over until she can.”
“That’s a lot of stuff!” She didn’t even want to do it. And it was her gram! He couldn’t possibly know what he was talking about.
“One person did it. Surely the two of us together can get it done. What else are we doing?” He grinned. “Besides hiding.”
“That’s not funny.” It was too close to the truth. Probably for both of them, but for her in particular. Maybe he could joke about it, but she didn’t want to be found out.
“We’ll talk to her about it. She’s not going to be laid up forever. After she gets the cast on, she might be able to get around, once the pain isn’t so bad.”
“I’ll have to have someone watch her if I’m running around doing all of her things.”
“What about Becky? She has us as customers in the evening, but it didn’t sound like she was too busy any other time. Maybe she’d be happy to have something to do, and she was going to be a nurse.”
“I want to worry about something, and you’re making it impossible.”
He laughed. “Is that my job?”
“If it is, you’re doing it admirably. I probably should give you a raise. ”
“I’d take a raise.”
He had her laughing again, and suddenly all the worry that she had had didn’t exactly evaporate, but it didn’t feel so heavy either. She felt like she could handle things. She felt like she had been reminded that God was beside her, and Wesley was there too. He sat in the chair, his ankle resting on his knee, looking relaxed and confident.
He wasn’t filling the silence with idle chitchat, but he was being reasonable and rational and making her laugh. She couldn’t think of anyone else she’d rather have.
“Oh. By the way, Gramps texted me back. I guess he got up to go to the bathroom and put his glasses on long enough to check his phone. Anyway, he knows where we are, and if you need anything handled, he’s there.”
“Thanks for letting me know,” she said, sitting in the chair thinking about how grateful she was that this had happened when Wesley was around. And then, rather than thinking about what might have happened if he hadn’t been there, she thought about how perfect God’s timing was, that He allowed it to happen when she had help. When she had someone beside her. Even though she could have called multiple people or hired someone if she had to. It was just nice that she hadn’t had to.
A noise in the hall had them turning their heads toward the door as the bed with Gram in it came through, then the nurse.
“All right. She did well. Got the pictures that we need, and after the doctor looks at them and possibly consults with some other people, he will be in to talk with you,” the nurse said as he pushed Gram’s hospital bed back in the room.
“My water?” she asked, not in a strident tone, but with enough confidence that Birdie was sure it would get someone running.
“I’ll be back with it. I figured your family would like to see you first.”
“I suppose you’re right. They don’t know that you didn’t take me back there to murder me on the X-ray table.”
Birdie smiled. She seemed like she was feeling a lot better. Her voice had its old spunk back to it, and she was ordering people around. Definitely her gram was back.
She exchanged a smile with Wesley. Everything had turned out so much better than she thought.
Her gram got settled, with her blankets tucked in, and the nurse came back with her water .
“Thank you,” she said, giving him a kind look. Almost a queenly look. Birdie had to bite back another grin.
“My pleasure, ma’am. The doctor’s going to be in here shortly.” He walked out without saying anything more.
“Did they give you an idea of how they thought it was broken?” Birdie asked, knowing that she was assuming that the leg was broken, but she kind of felt like her gram had lived long enough that she ought to know.
“No, and I didn’t get a good look at the pictures. Or I probably could have figured it out on my own.”
“Mrs. Pollock?” the doctor said, walking in the room with an iPad in front of him. He scrolled up and then looked up over the top of it at Gram.
“I’ve heard you’re quite a character,” he said by way of greeting, holding his hand out. “I’m Dr. Studer.”
“Good to meet you, doc,” Gram said. “I’ll have you know it’s past my bedtime.”
“All right. We’ll try to get you taken care of and out of here as quickly as possible.” He held his hand out to Birdie. “Dr. Studer.”
“Nice to meet you, doctor. I really like the efficiency of this hospital. I feel like we barely have time to catch our breath before something else is happening. And that’s not the complaint you usually hear in the emergency room.”
“No, it’s not,” the doctor said, walking over and holding his hand out to Wesley, who had stood up, shaking his hand and looking him in the eye. “Wesley Moffat,” he said, and the doctor nodded, squinting his eyes a bit. “Think I’ve heard of you. Or you have a name that’s similar to somebody famous.”
“I get that all the time,” Wesley said without missing a beat. Birdie wanted to snort. But she didn’t.
“All right, I’ve got some good news for you. The leg is fractured but not broken. You can see on this X-ray right here.” He held the iPad up for Gram to look at. Birdie leaned over so she could see too. Wesley moved to the other side so all three of them were looking at it.
“See this little thing right here that looks like a hair. That’s the crack in your bone. It could have been a lot worse, and often is in folks your age. I bet you’re pretty active.”
“I am, and I don’t want this to change that, so get me better as fast as you can.”
“We don’t want to rush things and can’t to some extent. If you want it to go faster, you’re going to have to talk to the Lord about that.”
That comment made Birdie like the man even more. The fact that he wasn’t trying to say that something else was causing the healing but gave God the credit He deserved. It was probably a crazy thing, but it made her trust the doctor more.
“Now, something like this usually takes six to eight weeks to heal. That’s in an average adult. You’re a little bit older, but you have being active in your favor, and I see you have pretty good bones, just looking at these X-rays. The fact that the break wasn’t any worse than what it was is likely due to that. Possibly, you’ll be on the lower end of that time estimate, but again, we don’t want to rush things. So, the good news is, you’re not going to have to stay off your leg. Once the pain eases, you can get around all you want to. But the bad news is, we are definitely going to be casting your foot along with your lower leg.” He grinned. “More good news is that we don’t have to cast your knee. As long as the healing takes place the way it needs to. If it doesn’t, we’ll take more draconian measures.”
“All right. Where do I go to get the cast?”
“That is something I wanted to talk to you about. We actually happen to have an orthopedic surgeon in the building tonight, and that’s how I’m able to give you all of this information. Usually an ER doctor just tells you it’s fractured and makes an appointment for the orthopedics, and puts the splint on and gets you some pain meds. We can cast it tonight if you want to. He said he’d come on down and do that.”
“All right. Send him down.”
“Well, you said it was past your bedtime, and you wanted to get home, so I don’t want to hold you up. I can sign off on these orders and you can be out of here in fifteen minutes. Or if you decide to get it casted, it’s probably going to be another hour or two.”
“Let’s cast it tonight,” her gram said, surprising no one.
“All right. I’ll go out and talk to Dr. Lemen, and he’ll be in with his staff. You’ll talk to him, and then one of his staff will put the actual cast on.”
“Interesting,” Gram said, although Birdie didn’t think she cared. She just wanted to get it taken care of. And Birdie couldn’t blame her.
The doctor left, and Gram looked steadily at Birdie. “He said I’d be able to get around as soon as I can handle the pain. So I wouldn’t need you for any more than a week. Do you think you could handle everything I signed up for? ”
Birdie had to laugh at herself. Gram had barely even allowed the doctor to get out of the room before she was trying to take care of all of the things that she did.
If she was going to do what she wanted to do, she would say no. She didn’t want to take over all of Gram’s responsibilities. She hadn’t signed up for them, and she’d cautioned Gram not to sign up for them either.
“I don’t want to let anyone down, and I just spent all that time talking to the pastor.”
Birdie knew the pastor would understand. After all, Gram had a broken leg! But she also knew how important those things were to Gram. And even more than that, she knew that Gram would do it for her.
But first and foremost, she should do things for people, regardless of how they treated her. Still Gram had been so good for her, she could hardly not do anything Gram asked and even things she didn’t.
“I’ll do whatever I need to, for as long as I need to, to keep your obligations met. You know I would never let you down. Not if I can help it.” That was the truth.
“And I’ll give her a hand. We already talked about it, and Birdie knew that you were going to need some help. I know she was happy to do it for you.”
Gram snorted. “Probably not, especially since she tried to talk me into not signing up for so much. And now, I have to admit that she was right. Which is great, but I appreciate you guys making sure that not only am I taken care of here, but the things that are important to me are taken care of.”
“Our pleasure,” Wesley said easily.
“What famous person do you have the same name as?” Gram asked in an abrupt subject change, narrowing her eyes at Wesley.
“Somebody by the name of Wesley,” Wesley said, shrugging his shoulders and grinning.
Birdie coughed out a laugh. “You asked for that one, Gram.”
“It’s the pain meds they gave me. They’re making me a little loopy.”
“I think you’re naturally a little loopy. And did they give you pain meds?”
“I don’t think so. I just pretended to myself they did. I keep thinking that my leg should feel better any time.”
She grinned again, grateful that not only was her gram okay, but that her sense of humor was back and she sounded almost like herself .
“Excuse me,” a voice said from the side of the room, and Birdie moved over. “I need to give Mrs. Pollock her pain meds.” A girl, wearing scrubs and looking young, came in holding a pack of pills in her hand.
“All right. You already have your water. Do you think you can swallow these?” she asked, holding up the little packet of meds.
“If it’s gonna help me with my pain, I can swallow anything,” Gram said.
Birdie moved back and stood beside Wesley. “Thank you. I do really appreciate everything you’ve done.”
“Sounds to me like our jobs are just starting.”
The aide had not left the room before a man wearing a white coat came in.
He introduced himself as Dr. Lemen and was a little more businesslike than the first doctor.
He explained what was going on and asked again if it was okay with Gram to have a cast put on her leg.
She had to sign some release forms, and while she was doing that, several techs came in with the supplies necessary to do the cast.
“It’s a little crowded in here. I’m gonna go out and pull the car around, and hang out in the waiting room. If that’s okay with you,” Wesley said as they shuffled around trying to get things organized in the small room.
“Sure. That’s fine. I think I’ll stay in here, just in case Gram needs me, but it looks to me like they’re not going to be taking a long time for anything.”
“I wish all hospital emergency rooms were like this. I know Blueberry Beach is probably a less populated area, and this is a great hospital, but it’s very nice.”
“I agree,” she said as he walked out.
She didn’t want him to go, feeling like she was losing some of her support.
But the Lord was still there, and she wasn’t going to worry. Still, she felt a little wobbly as she faced the room without Wesley. Funny how it didn’t take long at all for her to get used to having him by her side.