Nick left early for the hospital that morning, knowing the sooner he got there, the sooner he would be able to go home. He packed an overnight bag, unsure of how long he would have to stay. At the hospital, he had checked in at the admitting desk and was soon led to a private room upstairs. He had been forced to change out of his street clothes and into a thin hospital gown and had then climbed into his bed, where he had waited impatiently for almost an hour. Now, finally, a doctor had come to see him.
“I’m fine,” Nick replied. “And you can call me Nick, by the way.” It didn’t really matter, but he thought it might put him more at ease if the doctor called him by his nickname. Nickolas was too formal.
“Okay, Nick,” said Dr. Kingsbury. “I’m an orthopedic specialist, and I’m here to check out your leg. Your x-rays were sent here from the clinic you visited last week, and they show not only a fracture in your tibia, but also a small hole in the bone.”
“Yeah, that’s what the doc at the clinic said. So when can we get started on those tests?” Nick didn’t mean to sound rude, but he couldn’t help but feel impatient, nervous as he was. All he wanted to do was get the tests over with and go home as soon as possible.
Dr. Kingsbury laughed lightly. “I don’t usually see patients as eager as you,” she commented. “Well, the first thing I’d like to do is get your history, and then I’ll send a nurse in to draw some blood. After that, I want to run a CT scan. That’s a type of x-ray that gives a three-dimensional view of the inside of the body, rather than the typical black and white pictures. It will give me a better view of your leg bone.”
“Okay...” Nick said, shifting nervously in his bed. “What else?”
“I’m not sure yet; that will depend on the results of your bloodwork and scan,” answered the doctor. “Now, before we get started, I’d like to ask you a few questions. How exactly did you fracture your leg?”
His cheeks reddening, Nick hesitantly explained about how he had bumped his leg on the side of the bathtub. Dr. Kingsbury did not seem amused, however, and only nodded, jotting down something on the clipboard she held.
“Tell me, did you have any pain in your leg before the injury?” she questioned next.
“Um... yeah, I guess I did a little bit,” Nick said slowly, recalling several times when his shin had pained him before the bathtub accident.
“How long have you been experiencing this pain?”
“Uh... well, I know I had it off and on while I was touring... and that was like three weeks ago... so I guess I’ve had it for about a month, maybe.”
“Okay.” Dr. Kingsbury’s pen flew across her clipboard as she scribbled something else. “And have you had any other symptoms? Pain anywhere else, fatigue, anything?”
“No pain anywhere else, no,” Nick said quickly. “As far as fatigue, yeah, I’ve been tired lately, but I also was on the road for a month, so that’s why.”
Dr. Kingsbury nodded, still writing. “Anything else? Weakness, numbness, weight loss?”
Nick frowned. “Weight loss, yeah. But not the other things. And I’ve been working out and eating better, trying to lose weight, you know, so I don’t think that has anything to do with anything.”
Another nod was the doctor’s only response as she continued to take notes.
“Um... excuse me, but are you asking these questions for some particular reason? Like, is there some specific problem you think I might have?” he asked hesitantly.
Dr. Kingsbury stopped writing and looked up at him. “This is just standard procedure,” she replied. “I don’t want to leave out any possibilities.”
What possibilities? Nick wondered, but he didn’t ask. Somehow, he had the feeling he wouldn’t want to hear the answer.
***
Later that morning, after Dr. Kingsbury had left, a young nurse came into Nick’s room to take blood. This he dreaded even more than the promised CT scan, for he hated needles with a passion. He recalled having to be held down for shots as a child, and though he no longer kicked and screamed, he was still wary of them.
However, this nurse made for a nice distraction. She was young, hardly older than him, and quite attractive.
“Good morning,” she greeted him with a cheerful smile, pushing a small cart into the room with her. “I’m Megan, and I’m just here to draw some blood.”
“I’m Nick,” Nick said, offering her a flirty half-smile. She blushed and quickly turned around to her cart, which apparently contained medical supplies. Nick could see a small rack of glass vials on top, some of them containing small amounts of reddish liquid. He squirmed in his bed.
“Hold out your arm, please,” Megan said, turning back to face him. Nick obeyed, reluctantly turning his arm palm up and holding it out to her. She wrapped a thick strip of rubber around his upper arm and then rubbed the inside of his elbow with a cotton ball wet with antiseptic. Nick winced as the cold liquid touched the sensitive skin.
Megan smiled. “Sorry,” she apologized. She turned back to her cart, and Nick knew she was preparing the syringe. His hands grew clammy, and he tried to keep his mind off of blood and needles by gazing at Megan’s rear end, which looked quite nice in her pink scrub pants. Quickly averting his eyes as she turned back around, he gritted his teeth and prepared for pain, trying his best to keep a brave face.
“This will only hurt a second,” Megan said dutifully, holding up the syringe. Nick looked away as she slid it into the crook of his arm; he had been told before that it would hurt less if he wasn’t watching it. This obviously wasn’t true, for he definitely felt the sharp point of the needle as it punctured his skin. He grimaced and tried not to flinch.
“There, all done,” Megan said soothingly, a moment later, pressing a cotton ball to the needle wound and securing it with a band-aid. Removing the rubber band from his arm, she said, “You did great, Nick.”
“Uh... so did you. I didn’t feel a thing,” Nick lied, putting on his macho act.
Megan smiled. “Really? Good. I’m a little new at this, so that’s good to hear,” she admitted.
Nick laughed, just relieved that it was over.
***
The CT scan later that day turned out to be much less painful than the blood test. In fact, it wasn’t painful at all, except for the small injection Nick was given before the test. “It’s just some fluid to make your bones show up better on the scan,” the technician told him before giving him the shot.
After that, Nick was forced to sit and wait awhile while the fluid absorbed into his bones; then he was taken to a small room with a large, tubular contraption in the center.
“Oh no,” Nick groaned under his breath, realizing he was going to be put in that tube; he had seen this done on TV, and it did not look exactly pleasant.
“You’re not claustrophobic, are you?” the tech asked, helping Nick onto a table positioned in front of the tube.
“No,” Nick replied, thinking that if he wasn’t before, he surely would be after this test.
“Good. Then just lie back and try to remain as still as possible while you’re inside the machine. It gets pretty noisy in there, so keep these headphones on.” He handed Nick a big pair of headphones, which Nick warily slipped over his ears. What was he getting himself into?
He lay flat on his back on the table, and the technician left the room, saying, “I’ll be in another room adjacent to this one, running the machine. There’s a speaker that connects the two rooms, so if you need anything or start to feel claustrophobic, just say the word.”
“Okay,” Nick said nervously and watched as the man disappeared. A moment later, the large machine behind him began to hum loudly and move towards the table on which he lay, slowly encasing him within its tunnel. He squeezed his eyes shut and pictured the ocean, the vast, open expanse of water he loved so dearly. It helped to relax him, and he was able to almost block out the whirring of the machine as he imagined the sound of the waves washing up onto the beach.
The scan took a long time, almost half an hour, but as it went on, Nick realized it wasn’t really so bad and just lay there, trying to be as relaxed as possible. When the scan ended, the tube moved back, leaving Nick out in the openness of the room again. He let out a sigh of relief and removed his headphones just as the technician emerged.
“You did great,” he said, helping Nick off of the table and back into his wheelchair. “The results should be in by tomorrow, and your doctor will discuss you with them then.”
An orderly was waiting in the hall to take Nick back to his room. He pushed Nick in his wheelchair down to an elevator bank at the end of the hallway. When the doors to one of the elevators slid open, Nick was relieved to see that the elevator was virtually empty; the only occupant was a young woman dressed in a light yellow robe and leopard-print slippers. She had an IV pole standing beside her and a hot pink scarf wrapped around her head, contrasting sharply with her pale skin. Nick knew automatically what was wrong with her.
She had cancer.
Nick had visited sick children in hospitals many times with the Backstreet Boys and alone (it had been part of his community service following his arrest the year before), and he was well aware of how to recognize a cancer patient. And though he had met many of them, the sight of those ghostly, gaunt faces and bald heads still made him uncomfortable. He loved meeting such people and making them happy; he hated the disease they had. It scared him, to be honest.
He gave the woman a slight smile, which she returned unselfconsciously. He realized then that he probably didn’t look much better off than she did, dressed in his hospital gown and sitting in a wheelchair. It was almost as if he were one of her... one of them...
Well, sorry, but that ain’t true, Nick thought dismissively. I’m gonna be out of here in another day or two, and everything’s gonna be just fine.
At some point in their lives, most people have that same “It can’t happen to me” attitude.
But the truth is... it can.
***
