Chapter Seventeen
Grace was breathless as she followed Rosie under the red Emergency Department sign and in through the hospital’s sliding doors.
The smell of cleaning fluid with an undertone of vomit assaulted her nose.
Chairs fixed to the floor with brackets were filled with people, some looking bored, others in clear distress.
The woman nearest the door was bent over a bowl at her feet, her arms wrapped around her thighs as she rocked back and forth.
Rosie scanned the room, then let out a breath.
‘Jude!’ She rushed towards her son, who was sitting in a hospital wheelchair, and cupped his face, then kissed his forehead.
Relief at seeing her beloved grandson smiling, albeit weakly, melted the ice that had sat inside Grace since Jude’s friend called to say he was in an ambulance with him on the way to the accident and emergency unit at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital.
‘Hiya Mum.’ Jude looked past Rosie. ‘Grandma. Why are you here?’
‘She was with me when Robin called,’ said Rosie. She stepped back and scrutinized her son. ‘Why are you in a wheelchair? I thought it was just your shoulder.’
‘Relax, it’s because I went a bit wobbly when they put the joint back in.’
‘He almost fainted, then threw up all over the floor,’ a voice behind Grace said. She turned to see a tall young man, so thin his pale skin appeared to be stretched like canvas over a frame.
‘It hurt,’ said Jude. ‘I’d like to see you get parts of your body shoved back into place without vomming.’
‘Robin, thank goodness you were with him.’ Rosie rushed to the man and hugged him.
‘Put him down,’ said Jude, with an amused smile. ‘If his lanky leg hadn’t been in my way, I wouldn’t have tripped and dislocated my shoulder in the first place.’
‘I’ve said I’m sorry,’ said Robin. ‘And if you’d arrived on time, we wouldn’t have been running … but I am still sorry.’
‘Huh,’ said Rosie. ‘That sounds about right.’ She turned to Jude. ‘And what have I told you about looking where you’re going?’
Jude shook his head. ‘I knew this would be my fault.’ He turned to Robin. ‘And I was only fifteen minutes late. We’d only have missed the trailers.’
‘I like the trailers,’ said Robin. ‘And it was twenty minutes … which is actually quite good for you.’
A woman tried to manoeuvre a wheelchair carrying a man twice her size past them. Robin sprang behind Jude and shifted his chair out of the way. Jude tried to stand, but Rosie pushed him back down. ‘Stay there until the doctor says otherwise.’ Jude groaned but did as he was told.
‘I’m just glad you’re okay,’ said Grace, taking in his red-rimmed eyes and the blue sling cradling his arm.
‘You sounded like you were in a lot of pain.’ She wanted to pull him into her and hold him close, but that would probably be inappropriate – after all he was six foot two and twenty-three years old and they were in a public place.
She settled for resting her hand on his uninjured shoulder and giving it a squeeze.
‘It stung, I’m not gonna lie.’
A medic in blue scrubs with a mask hanging loosely around his neck approached. ‘Hi, I’m Dr Hussain.’ He looked at Jude. ‘How are you feeling now. Still dizzy?’
‘No, I’m all good, thanks. Just sore.’ Jude tapped his shoulder lightly.
‘Okay. You can go home now, but take the painkillers and remember what I said about your hypermobility.’
Rosie took a step towards the doctor. ‘Dr Hussain, I’m Rosie Clarke, Jude’s mum.’ She licked her lips and glanced awkwardly from her son to the doctor. ‘Would you mind repeating the information to me. Jude has working memory problems and—’
‘Mum,’ Jude said. ‘I dislocated my shoulder, not my brain. Just because I’ve got ADHD, it doesn’t mean I can’t—’
‘You have an ADHD diagnosis?’ asked the doctor, his eyes narrowing. Grace noticed the change in him and took a step closer to hear the exchange.
‘Yeah, but—’
‘That makes sense.’ He rubbed his hand across his stubbled chin and Grace wondered what on earth he meant by that.
‘Did you know there’s a link between ADHD and benign joint hypermobility syndrome?
One recent study suggests neurodivergent people are four times more likely to be hypermobile than the general population, and from what I see in here day to day,’ he gestured out to the room, ‘I think that’s about right.
’ A nurse caught his eye and tried to wave him over. He lifted his finger and nodded.
‘Really?’ said Rosie, her face full of concern.
‘It’s the gift that keeps on giving,’ said Jude, letting his head slump to his chest.
Grace felt a hollowing out in her centre.
If she was honest with herself, she’d been sceptical about Jude’s diagnosis, quietly believing ADHD was a nebulous, unquantifiable condition, a bit of a fad, even.
But now the doctor was saying it affected other parts of the body, and that was something that could be measured; it suddenly felt more real.
She had doubted her grandson and her daughter.
She’d even questioned the ethics of Jude’s psychiatrist. Her own ignorance had stopped her from properly supporting her family. What a stupid old woman she was.
Dr Hussain pursed his lips. ‘I know it doesn’t always feel like it, but it does have its upsides.’
Jude raised his eyes.
‘We look at the world in a different way, don’t we?’
‘We?’ said Jude, his face brightening.
‘Yep. And to be frank, I’m happy to have the same diagnosis as people like Dave Grohl, Bill Gates, Albert Einstein and Salvador Dali. We can’t prove the last two, but it’s generally accepted it’s more than likely they had ADHD too.’
Grace listened intently. It was time for her to learn more.
‘Are you hypermobile?’ asked Rosie.
Dr Hussain pulled one thumb down with the other until it touched his wrist. ‘That answer your question?’
‘Have you ever dislocated something?’ asked Robin, his hands still on the wheelchair’s handles.
‘I haven’t, but once it’s happened, it’s more likely to happen again, I’m afraid.’ He looked at Jude. ‘You’ll get a letter about rehabilitation, make sure you do exactly what the physiotherapist tells you, and be careful in future.’
‘Will do, thanks Doctor.’
‘All the best.’ Dr Hussain nodded at them and made his way down the hospital corridor, towards the beckoning nurse, his Crocs squeaking on the shiny linoleum.
In Rosie’s car on the way home, Jude stretched out in the back seat, eyes closed.
Rosie kept glancing at him in the rear-view mirror, like a mother checking her baby on their way back from the maternity unit.
As they sat in the traffic approaching The Blackwall Tunnel, Rosie glanced across at Grace, her lips tight. ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’
Grace turned to her daughter, her face illuminated then thrown into shadow as cars passed in the opposite direction.
‘What?’ The guilt of having doubted the veracity of Jude’s condition wasn’t the only thing bothering her, but she needed to hear it from her daughter’s mouth before allowing the reality of it to soak in.
‘That I also happen to be hypermobile.’
‘Yes,’ said Grace. ‘That did occur to me. And your father was too.’