Chapter 20 #2
“I know his shoulder well, have it mapped by touch, if you will, and I can say he has a slight swelling, no tearing and, based on the pain response, a slight strain.” This was a big fat lie.
The strain was more than slight, but she was hoping in the next few days after her booster that he would heal at a rate fast enough to catch up.
As she ran the calculations through her head, she figured he could heal by the end of the bye week layoff to the same point as if it were a slight strain.
If no one interfered with her treatment.
“I’m recommending aggressive icing with the automatic icepack in a sling and rest with regular doses of aspirin. No more than that. We don’t want to interfere with the pain as the main tool for determining progress.”
Ralph vigorously nodded his head. Coach Parker nodded and seemed good. Trent looked like he wanted to kiss her, but she tossed that impression aside and stared into the disgruntled faces of Dr. Briscoe and the orthopedist.
“An MRI is standard and it’s not going to do any harm. I’m the team physician and—”
“I’m his personal physician,” Charline said. “I’ll arrange for the MRI. Bottom line is, he doesn’t go back out on the field right now. Are we agreed on that?”
“Yes, certainly.”
“Then there’s no problem and no hurry. This is a bye week. I’m confident we can have him back for the next game in close to top form.”
“We’ll see. I have the final say on that,” Dr. Briscoe said.
Trent said, “I think I might have a say in it too.”
“You’re all full of shit,” the coach said. “I have the final say.”
Charline tried not to let her fear show, tried to keep her professional calm in place, but it was so hard. This was why doctors didn’t treat family members, at least not in emergencies.
The coach stared them all down and turned to Trent.
“You heard the lady, boy, get some ice on that shoulder and make yourself comfortable.” He turned to Nunley.
“Get a screen in here so he can watch the second half of the game. Trent, we’ll get you the closed-circuit version and a headset so you can give some guidance to your backup where needed.
Least you can do if you’re going to be lying around in here icing.
” The QB coach sighed and added, “Now let’s see if the lead you abandoned us with will hold up. ”
When Trent’s head dropped at that last remark, Charline’s chest squeezed like the coach had wrung it with his fists.
She would have been angry at the man for his harsh words, but she reminded herself he’d been on her side, so she put a hand over Trent’s and leaned close, finding she wanted to comfort him.
As soon as the training room door closed behind the last of them, Trent let the screaming pain in his shoulder release in the form of a string of oaths.
“What the f—ck happened to make my shoulder feel like a swarm of ground hornets attacked it?”
Charlie’s eyes widened for a moment before she returned to helping Ralph prep the sling with the automatic icing machine, passing him equipment as he needed it, as if they worked together all the time.
In a non-sequitur, his brain registered the fact that Charlie and Nunley made a good pair.
The nature of that thought nearly made him swear aloud again. What the f—ck was wrong with him?
“Did they give you anything before I got here, for the pain?”
“No. I refused it.”
“Good.” She smiled. That removed his temptation to continue swearing at the pain and life and football, since that was his life. For the moment. He ejected the thought from his head faster than a throwaway with an offensive lineman bearing down on him.
While Charlie adjusted the sling rigged with a hose attached to a pump sending ice water to his shoulder, two young kids wheeled in the screen and hooked it up.
“Take this.” She held out a cup of water and two aspirin with that pure Snow White face of hers showing nothing but concern under the businesslike sternness.
“If you say so. I’m putting myself in your hands.”
“You’ve been in my hands from the start,” she said, the business tone covering up the nerves and the concern, but not completely. He could see it. There was a quiver, a very slight quiver in her voice.
“Ain’t that the truth.” He added in a whisper as he took her arm and pulled her close to his good side. “In more ways than one.”
The disbelief on her face changed to almost a smile, almost pleasure. It was close enough to make him relax. He swallowed the aspirin without the water. He held on to the cup, stopping himself from crushing it. The anger simmered close to the surface.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen, Doc.” He spoke for her ears only. She averted her eyes and nodded, but she didn’t answer him, didn’t reassure him, didn’t deny it. Nothing but acknowledgment.
Then he realized she must be just as disappointed as he was.
Maybe more. Though he didn’t know how that could be, because right now Trent wanted to do some damage, to vent his anger and frustration.
He knew it would pass, he’d see to it. He needed to be constructive.
But goddamn it. This was not supposed to happen.
“You can go now,” Trent said to the two kids as soon as the picture of the game popped onto the screen. He picked up the headset and put it on.
“Get in close on the QB. I want to watch his footwork.” There was some static and then an answer in the affirmative. He felt Charlie watching him and turned to her, switching off his microphone.
“I’ll be all right. We’ll get through this. I need to play the rest of the game as backup coach first.” He winked at her, knowing she’d be annoyed by it, but it was too automatic for him not to.
She didn’t quite roll her eyes, but he could tell she wanted to. He laughed. Tension in his back released at the same time he felt a sharp twinge in his rotator cuff.
“The pain is sharp now because of the fresh trauma. It should ease,” she said. She stood next to him where he lay halfway back on a pseudo examining table, one of the most damn uncomfortable places he could be.
“Let me go get you both some chairs to sit in,” Ralph said. “I’ll be right back.”
“God bless you, Nunley. Not that it’ll do you any good. You’re going to hell with the rest of us.”
Ralph gave him the finger as he walked from the room.
That made Trent smile for real. He watched the backup quarterback’s feet in the next play and gave the kid some feedback when he sat on the bench and the defense took over.
Then he took off the headset and looked at Charlie.
He realized he loved looking at her. The too-pale-yet-perfect face, soft and sweet with the big expressive brown eyes, made her always look vulnerable.
“I’m thinking I should set you up with a regimen of booster serum injections, Trent. Healing sudden trauma is what it was made for.” She was all business, confident, but she was asking his permission.
“Do you need to do some testing or measuring or something first? Could the booster serum you gave me have been the cause of the injury?”
“No. That two-hundred-fifty-pound guy grinding your shoulder into the ground was the cause of the injury. I watched every excruciating second of it. Trust me. You need the booster serum now. I’m doubling the dose since you only have ten to twelve days for full recovery.
Less than that before one of your team doctors will call us out on it and ruin everything. ”
“What do you mean by ruin everything?”
“I mean they’ll take over your treatment and prevent further injections, stop the protocol cold in its tracks. Then the benefits will steadily decline. I’ll be missing some data, but that won’t be crucial for my reporting. I have enough other subjects still in the study for legitimate findings.”
“Would they find the serum in my system? They might question the injection site.”
“No. It’s a designer serum, matched to work with your system, not some supplement store version or currently available prescription version of HGH. And you know as well as I do, they expect you to have injections of pain medication and that would explain the injection site.”
“But I’d be done as John Doe.”
She nodded. “Your ten million smacks will have gone for nothing.”
“Not nothing. Your research is a good cause.”
She smiled and then added in a softer voice, “Your participation would be over. There would be no more reason for our engagement.”
“Don’t worry, Doc.” He knew the brightness in his voice was artificial, but he needed it to ease the discomfort of her words.
“I have no intention of letting the team physicians interfere with you, with the study, or with us.” He saw the question in her eyes at his last words but he had no idea what the answer was.
He himself didn’t know what he meant by us.
But there was undeniably an us, that much he knew. There was a team, Trent & Charlie. And he liked their team.
“Okay.” She nodded. “No more meds—only aspirin to help prevent clotting. Don’t let them inject you with anything.
They’ll probably try steroids. Tell them the shoulder doesn’t hurt.
Don’t move it. Rest, icing, and the booster serum.
That’s it. We can’t have anything interfering with or corrupting the tests and measurements of the effect of the booster serum.
Not just for research—for your benefit, too.
So we’re on top of your recovery progress. ”
She went to her black bag and brought it to him, opening it up.
“I almost feel guilty. This is a good chance to test the healing qualities of the booster. The body naturally makes more HGH when injured and this version and dosage of the drug was designed to enhance that process.”
Taking the needle out of her bag, she carefully added the vial of booster serum and prepped the injection site higher than usual on his shoulder.
“I’ll need to make this close to the site of the trauma. It will hurt.”