Aftermath

I've been fortunate that my new place of employment lets me work from home when I need to. I took most of last week off to take care of Scott. The first couple of days he couldn't move around much and he was bleeding through his bandages every couple of hours. This product is really good at getting blood and ooze out of blankets, sheets, and couch covers. Good news is that he didn't lose his appetite like he did last time, so the roles have been switched and I've been cooking for him. However, my role of cooking has been heating up a can of tomato soup and grabbing the crackers out of the cupboard.

We went to the impound lot to visit his bike. Neither of us could agree what it looked like from the accident. He asked me in the hospital and I told him the mirrors and the handle bars had broken off. He looked away, assuming I was exaggerating.

"No, I remember looking over at it when I was strapped to the gurney. It didn't look that bad," he argued.

"Babe, you were unconscious for over 10 minutes. You are deluded if you think it's fine. It's totaled."

I told him that again when he got a $105 of his money to get the bike out of impound. He dismissed me again.

The bike was actually worse than I thought. Not only were the handle bars and mirrors broken off, but so were the tail lights, the wind screen, and the instrument panel. The front is a heap of broken plastic knotted by exposed wires. Instinct told me to grab my camera from my purse and take pictures of the bike. Maybe I'll upload them later. While I was zooming and focusing, Scott took the bike off the kick stand and found the start button dangling to the right side. He inserted his key and tried to start it. After a few tries, the damn thing started. It was all he needed to think that he can haul the bike home and fix it.

"Yeah, you'll just need a whole new front end," I said wryly.

As we waited an hour for his step-father to drive into the city with his pickup truck to load Scott's bike, we ran to a nearby fast-food joint to get lunch.

"I really thought I could just drive it home," Scott admitted.

"Deluded," I repeated, mouth full of burrito. "I told you there were no handle bars on it."

"I thought you were just being a woman."

I raised an eyebrow.

"You know," he explained, "Making things sound worse than they really are."

"Well it was really missing its handle bars."

***

On Thursday, I called in a favor with my family friend who's a doctor and made an appointment for Scott. My mother goes to him and says he's a good doctor, but I just don't get that same feeling. After seeing a specialist for my thyroid tumor, the specialist was shocked that he put me on steroids for it. I did some research on it as well and I told my parents and Scott that I wasn't comfortable with his treatment. Not really having an alternative, and partly not wanting to hurt his feelings with my doubt, I took the steroids. Which, according to the specialist I'm currently seeing, was a huge mistake. (By the way, I'm having another cancer biopsy next week, so awesome that all of this is going on at the same time.)

In the cramped room we waited for the doctor. I took out my camera again and took pictures of Scott's injuries (too gross to upload). The doctor came in and took one look at Scott's knees and pulled out his prescription pad. Scott started on the story with the accident, what hurt, and he started to unwrap his hand to show the doctor his injuries. The doctor cut him off. Scott looked at me helplessly.

"We want to tell you what happened," I tried.

"No, I don't need to know and I don't need to see it. I can tell from his legs that he has an infection. He needs antibiotics."

"I asked for some at the hospital and they wouldn't give me any," said Scott.

The doctor shook his head, presumably about the quality of the hospital, and continued writing on his pad.

"But won't you look at his hand? It looks bad," I said.

"No, I don't need to see his hand," he said visibly irritated.

"Well, he has a hole in his arm and he's complaining about painful breathing."

"Look!" the doctor whirled around. "We can either sit here and talk about what needs to be done, or we can do it! Which do you want?"

Scott and I both looked to the ground like scolded school children. I don't know if he's that good of a doctor and just doesn't need to see Scott, but I know I want the peace of mind of telling the doctor what happened and showing him the injuries just in case there is something going on that he doesn't see from a skinned knee.

He's been on the antibiotics for five days now and there is no improvement. If anything, Scott's hand continues to swell. Fortunately, the painful breathing has stopped. I called my mom and told her about the doctor's visit. Concerned, she said he messed up once with my thyroid tumor treatment and now this. She said he's going through a messy divorce and his kids no longer visit him because their mother now has all the money. She thinks that this is affecting his work.

Screwed over by a hospital and now a loose-cannon doctor, we continue to seek medical treatment for Scott.