Chapter 2
COLLAPSE: DEFENSE COLLAPSES AROUND THE SLOT
One Year Later
I’ve taken hits that have shattered bones. Torn cartilage. Been slapped on the ineligible bench—unwillingly. Temporarily. But nothing has ever terrified me as much as waiting for the head of Greenwich Hospital’s neurology and neurosurgery department to give me test results that will change my life.
I’ve been in this position before but never with quite so much riding on the results of the doctor walking through the door. The last few times, my parents flew in from Ireland to support me. They asked if I needed them this time, but I told them no.
After all, this isn’t my first visit; it isn’t even my third.
It took my coach, my agent, and practically an act of God to slide into the first available cancellation Dr. Bryan Moser had available.
Even then, it’s been a long six months where I’ve done nothing but watch my team survive without me on the ice.
Now, the day of reckoning is here. Despite the fact I pushed hard—calling almost weekly for any cancellation—apparently, the good doctor reserves those only if you’re an emergency case.
Apparently, my situation doesn’t qualify me as, “…being in urgent distress.” If he only knew, I think furiously. There’s almost a desperation for me to get back on the ice. Not external pressure, but from me.
Otherwise, what did you ruin your heart for? The insidious part of me prods. Immediately, bringing her to mind.
Not that she’s ever been far from it.
But right now, I can’t focus on the past. I shove that to the back of my heart and focus on the more preeminent feeling coursing through my veins—terror.
I’ve already been told by the Kings’ coaches, this is a Hail Mary to get back on the ice. I’ve already been checked out at NYU Langone, UCSF Health, and New York—Presbyterian—Columbia. Still, none of them have Moser’s reputation.
Whipping out my cell, I reread the information my best friend and agent, Mark, dug up about him. “Dr. Bryan Moser has taken on obscure neurology cases in his career and made them his bitch either by treating them medically or surgically. If anyone can get you cleared to play, he’s it.”
Reading Mark’s synopsis aloud doesn’t make me feel better. I close the screen without reciting the last part. If he can’t, that’s it. We’ll work together to enact the clause to terminate your contract with the Kings due to medical incapacitation.
Unable to continue on to the PR spin he laid out, I press the button on my phone to close the screen. “All these years, all the work,” I murmur.
The idea it might be swept away in the next few moments has my knee bouncing up and down in a physical manifestation of the anxiety coursing through my veins. Unwillingly, my mind drifts back to my first serious injury in college.
I inform my father, “Wrist sprained. Not broken. No surgery. Not season-ending.”
“I figured you weren’t too banged up when I saw your signal.”
“Good. I’m glad you saw it.”
He retorts, “I’m grateful Amy thought of it.”
Before he can say anything else, there’s a knock at the door. “Let me call you back, Da.”
“Rest up. We’ll catch up soon.”
I gingerly maneuver myself out of bed to open the door. Immediately, I’m staring into Amy’s worried eyes. Her mouth opens to speak, but I beat her to it. “I’m okay.”
“Yeah, well, that doesn’t mean it didn’t scare me.” Amy surges through the door with an overstuffed backpack slung over her shoulder. “Watching you being carted off the ice was horrible.”
I toe the door shut behind her and watch as she carefully places her backpack on the floor. “It was fine,” I lie. My wrist throbs in agony but I don’t want Amy worried about that. Still, I make no objections when she urges me back to bed before carefully laying a fresh ice pack on it.
I’m not surprised when she asks, “Have you eaten?”
“No.”
She turns away from her bag exasperated, “Brennan.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“But you also have to take something to avoid aggravating your stomach from the pain meds,” she reminds me.
I grumble. “It’s just a prescription dose of…”
That’s when she stuns me by lifting out a bag from one of our favorite restaurants.
“Then the soup I bought should be just enough.” Steam curls faintly when she lifts the lid, filling the room with the smell of chicken and herbs and something warm that could only come from the woman I love taking care of me.
“You didn’t have to—”
“I know.” She says it softly as she places it in my hand.
Something in my chest cracks open. I already knew I was in love with Amy, but her presence helps calm me down in a way I knew I’d always rely on.
Setting the bowl aside with my good hand, I turn slightly—enough that she has to lift her head to look at me.
Her eyes are soft, open, full of something that looked a lot like worry and a lot like love. “Why are you so good to me?”
Her expression went startled, like the question itself was strange. “Because I love you.”
Back in the present, it strikes me as significant when I realize Amy’s the only one who ever treated my injuries like something to be soothed instead of overcome.
I’m debating pacing off some of my nervous energy when I hear the door open behind me.
“Mr. McCallister? I apologize for being late. I was tied up in rounds this morning.”
I surge to my feet and hold out my hand. “Brennan McCallister.”
“A pleasure. I know you by reputation. I’m more of a F1fan, myself.”
An edge laces my voice when I ask, “If I’d been a driver, would that have gotten me in sooner?”
“No. But if your scans had presented me with an astrocytoma, I’d have adjusted my schedule.”
“What’s that?”
“A cancerous brain tumor. One I removed and was checking on before I walked in.”
Appropriately rebuked, I swallow down my shameful entitlement. Now I get what Moser’s staff has been trying to tell me.
Instead of lingering on the subject, Moser gestures for me to resume my seat. Moving behind his desk, he lifts the tablet that’s been perfectly centered there since I walked in. Tapping it awake, he’s silent for a few moments before setting it aside and folding his fingers together.
I know—I just know—even before he starts talking, the news isn’t going to be what I want it to be.
“You’re tenacious.”
That’s not what I was expecting him to lead with. “What makes you say that?”
“I have all of your scans and records. I see you’ve received diagnoses and opinions from specialists—who happen to be three of my peers. While that kind of persistence is admirable on the ice, I’m not certain what you expect me to express that will be different, Mr. McCallister.”
Taking a deep breath, I ask, “What does my fortitude get me?”
“Blunt honesty.” He lifts the tablet again, pressing buttons.
Behind him, a wall panel opens up, revealing a screen that has to be as large as the one in my living room.
Spinning in his chair, he rises even as he throws up images as fast as I slap pucks.
“I’ve reviewed every image you’ve had since your misfortune.
Four hospitals—including ours. Four sets of MRIs. ”
“Yes.” My adrenaline spikes as he recounts the play-by-play of my medical journey up until now.
“It’s not unusual for people to seek out second or third opinions based on diagnoses due to specialists coming to the table with different strengths.
We train differently, utilize different technology.
But it’s rare at our level of expertise you’re going to be diagnosed with something drastically different. ”
The last bit of hope I had shrivels inside my chest. This time, with this doctor, it feels irrefutable.
Final.
Game over.
I force myself to focus as Moser speaks.
“This last concussion caused more disruption than your previous ones. The swelling has receded, yes. But what worries me and my colleagues most are the microstructural changes. These shearing injuries.” He gestures to areas on the screen, but the shapes are just blobs to my untrained eye.
“They’re no longer healing cleanly. Because of your repetitive head injuries, they’re accumulating. ”
“What does that mean—accumulating?”
He spins away from the monitor to face me. I think I see anger flash briefly before he masks it. My confusion must be evident because his blunt edge softens. “Have none of my colleagues spoken with you why they won’t clear you to play, Brennan?”
I shake my head, the nausea churning in my stomach having nothing to do with the concussion I’ve been recovering from these last few months.
“Right. I’m going to give you complete transparency. Are you ready for that?”
I brace myself mentally.
“What I see on these images could place you in a higher-risk category for long-term neurological complications if immediate steps aren’t taken. Things like mood instability, impulse control issues, and memory problems.”
“So, how do we fix it?” Before he can answer, I barrel on. “Medication? I have no problem with that.”
Moser sits back down and rubs his hand across his forehead. “No. I mean, yes. There are therapies if you show signs of individual symptoms but…”
“But what? Why can’t I be cleared to play?” I demand.
“Because what I’m seeing on these scans are precursors I’ve studied in humans who would have potentially received a diagnosis of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy—that is if it could be diagnosed in a living person. Because it can’t.”
My breath sticks in my throat. My already battered and bruised head pounds harder. No, none of the other specialists had laid it out this bluntly. They told me I couldn’t play; that I had to give up pro hockey. But Moser is giving me the missing piece—the why the other three doctors skirted around.
The question is, whether or not I’ll survive hearing the news.
He leans forward. “As a professional athlete, I can’t begin to imagine what hearing this news means to you.
If you continue to take significant hits—checks, falls, even body-to-body collisions—there’s a real possibility you won’t bounce back.
You could end up with permanent cognitive changes.
Personality changes. Things even I can’t undo. ”
A cold weight settles in my chest. “So, that’s it?”
“Clearing you to play—at any level, even recreationally—would be reckless.”
“What about the rest of my life?”
“For the most part, you can lead a normal life. I recommend you to take precautions—like a helmet—for activities which might result in injury. Things like that.”
“But you can’t clear me to play with that same device?”
He shakes his head. “It would go against every ethical standard I have. I’m sorry.”
I open and close my mouth to deny his words, but I can’t speak. Then the moment of realization hits, knocking the air out of my lungs. I can’t fathom a life where I’m not playing with a Kings’ jersey on.
Everything I’ve worked for, everything I’ve fought through—it all slips through my fingers with one conversation.
Including the reminder of what I threw away.
All I can do is sit there, trying to breathe through the reality that the sport that made me might be the thing that destroys me if I don’t walk away.
The question is, who am I if not a pro hockey player?