Kent stared impatiently at the door, waiting for somebody to come back. He jumped when his phone rang and answered it.
“Where are you?! You’re supposed to be out there finding that morph.”
“I’m at the hospital.”
“What are you doing there? I just got a call from Carl that he needs to be bailed out from jail. What did you to get into?”
Kent groaned, “Carl flipped out about finding the morph and attacked me.”
“So you called the cops on him?”
“I didn’t, he attacked some other guy that tried to stop him.”
“You two idiots are gonna run me to an early grave. Get out of there and go get Carl, then the two of you go find that morph. We can’t afford for him to find someone to tell about us.”
“I have to wait for the doctor to find out if something’s broken.”
“Nothing’s broken, you wuss. Get out there find that morph.”
Kent sighed, “Fine. I’ll be right there.” He hung up and dropped his phone on his chest to rub his face.
The door opened and a doctor walked in, “Afternoon, Mr. Tanner. It looks like you do have a hairline fracture in your ulna, so we will get you something more permanent than that splint, but you should be fine in a few weeks. There doesn’t appear to be any serious damage to your knee, just some fluid buildup, maybe a little micro-tearing that wouldn’t show on our equipment. We could schedule you to get it drained or just wrap it up for you and let your body take care of itself. What do you think?”
Kent stared at his knee, “Just wrap it up. I need to get out of here.”
“Are you sure? It is going to be very tender for quite a while. You will need to stay off it until it heals.”
Kent groaned, “How long would it take to drain it?”
The doctor tapped at the digital pad he was carrying, “Well, your injury isn’t life threatening, so it could take a few hours before we could get to it.”
Kent contemplated the pros and cons of telling his uncle he can’t walk for weeks or the rest of the day. Both would make him furious and he wouldn't accept either. “I'm kind of in a position where I can't miss work. There's something urgent going on right now.”
“The surgery would have the quickest recovery time. In either case, I can get you a brace to help stabilize and protect it and some crutches, but you need to stay off of it as much as possible.”
His phone chirped and he looked: [Avl?] He grunted in frustration, “Not a good time, Yawner.”
The doctor raised his eyebrows, “I’ll see what I can do about getting you moved up the list, but I can't guarantee anything. Do you want to do the surgery?”
Kent sent his reply: [At ER. Out soon.] “I don't think I can. There's a lot going on right now that I need to get back to.”
“Okay, we’ll get it wrapped and get you that brace and crutches, as well as the cast for your arm. Should get you out in about an hour.” The doctor turned for the door.
Kent checked the response: [Srs? Drv?] “Hey doc? Can I drive?”
The doctor turned back with a smirk, “Could you drive before? Sorry, old joke. Since it's your left knee, that could be the best way to stay off it. As long as that's all you’re doing. No lifting and loading. Use the crutches when you get out.”
“Sounds good. Can I come back tomorrow for the surgery?” He smiled and replied to the text with a thumbs up.
“The sooner the better. You could come back later tonight, but I won't be here. You would just…” he looked at the tablet in his hand. “Huh. Well, lucky you. I put your surgery in just in case and someone has already picked it up. If you’re still interested, it would only keep you here a little longer.”
“How much longer?”
“Well, we get your arm taken care of first and prep you for surgery, get your knee drained, add some anti-biotic gel, get you cleaned up, and should be done in two, two and a half hours.”
“You said it would be a few hours before.”
“That was just to get on the board, but you’re there now, so we skipped that part.”
Kent considered the timing and the pain starting to come back. “Okay, let’s do this.”
“Great. I’ll send someone in to get things going.” The doctor smiled and left.
Kent smirked, then quickly sent another message: [need a few hours]
