Cashing In

Chapter 5

5

John had been working hard as a cardiologist. While he loved living in Miami, he sometimes wished he had more time to enjoy the city. John did not have much time for a social life, but he made sure that he stayed healthy. He enjoyed exercising to relieve stress and worked out every day. On the weekends John would exercise on Key Biscayne and take a dip in the water after his long run.

After being on call one Saturday, John decided to grab a drink with a few former residents.

“John, are we still on for 9 at Mary Brickell Village?” asked Brian, one of his colleagues.

“Sounds great to me. Is Blake going to be able to make it?”

“He’ll be there.”

“I’m looking forward to it. Only one drink though, as I’ve got to get to bed early. I’m on call on Sunday.”

After meeting his former colleagues for a drink, John walked home to his apartment, which was only ten minutes from the bar.

He began to cross the street. The driver was texting. The car struck John in the back.

“My back!” screamed John as he fell to the ground.

The driver got out of the car. “Are you okay? I’m so sorry.”

John winced. “Did you see me walking? I had the right of way. Don’t text and drive and roll through stop signs.”

“I’m so sorry. I was looking at my phone.”

“Was your text message that important? Let this be a lesson,” screamed John.

A police officer pulled up to help and called an ambulance. The officer wrote a ticket for reckless driving and gave the driver a stern warning.

“Sir, are you okay?” asked one paramedic.

“I think I’m okay, but my back is killing me.”

“We’re going to take you to the hospital.”

“I’m actually a physician there. My name is Dr. John Brown.”

The ambulance approached the emergency room at Jackson Memorial Hospital.

The paramedics rolled John to the third floor.

The on-call emergency room doctor came in.

“The patient has been hit by a car and is complaining of back pain,” responded the paramedic.

“John. Are you okay? What happened?” said the ER doctor.

Even though Jackson Memorial was a large hospital, John knew Dr. Tom Boyd as they had shared many patients. While they were not close friends, they had a good professional relationship.

“Doc, how are you? I’m in a lot of pain. I was hit by a car walking home,” said John.

“We’re going to check your vitals and take an X-ray of your back. We also want to do an MRI.”

Two hours later John learned that he did not have any broken bones, but he had a herniated disk.

“John, you should make a full recovery. On a scale of one to ten, how much pain are you in?”

“An eight.”

“I’m going to give you three Percocet pills for the pain. You should follow up with a pain management doctor.”

Little did John know this would be the start of his decline.