It all started a year ago. The school holidays had just ended and I’d just got back from a Griswald-esque trip to Europe with my family; all eight of us. It was my first day back at work: my first day in private practice and I had a full surgical list. The only difference was that this time I’d be patching up victims of car crashes and busted up footy players instead of amputating limbs from wounded soldiers and civilians caught in the crossfire.
After twenty years of surgery in conflict zones I was finally back home and settling into a peaceful suburban life. My first patient was a former Bronco with a thrice-repaired ACL, coming in for a final fix. We talked about the Bronco’s prospects for that season as we prepped him for surgery. Thommo was pretty relaxed about the whole affair and enjoying not having to front up for pre-season training. He was a true legend and gentleman of the game, having only once been photographed in a compromising photo with an animal and almost never defecating himself. He’d played for the Kangaroos and the Wallabies, the Reds and the Maroons before retiring from representative rugby at the age of 35. He’d come out of retirement two years later to fill a hole at the Broncos and played his last game at the age of 42.
My day was uneventful with three ACLs, a smashed up 18yo motorcyclist, a couple of shoulder repairs and a ball room-dancer with a frozen hip. By six o’clock I’d finished my last post-op check-up and was ready to go home for a drink with my husband Dave to celebrate moving into the first house we’d ever actually owned. He’d been flat-out getting the six kids settled into their new schools and getting on with settling into the new house.
As I was leaving I ran into Kevin McMaster, an old med-school friend from over twenty years ago. He was now the head of the hospital’s emergency department and had admitted the young bloke who’d been injured in the motorbike accident. The biker was in pretty bad shape and it was probably that he had sustained permanent spinal injuries, although it was still too early to tell. My old “friend” was eager to find out what the prognosis was. Kevin and I had dated for some time way back when and only broke up after I went overseas for my first conflict zone posting. We had tried the long-distance thing but it hadn’t worked out. Kevin had never married and had dedicated his life to emergency medicine. I was straight up about his young patient’s prospects and told him that the ED doctors had done everything right, but that the motorbike rider had suffered a serious amount of trauma at the scene and that his prospects were grim. Although this was nothing that Kevin hadn’t heard before he was obviously upset. I offered to take him for a drink to talk about it further and catch up on old times. I knew Dave would be upset that I wasn’t home to celebrate moving into your new home but this was more important. Wasn’t it?
Comments