Alternate Purpose

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

The first thing Devin was aware of was feeling cold, and the next was the bright lights. Slowly the teen regained consciousness. His mouth felt dry and he was disoriented. He saw his mother standing at the side of his bed and Sawyer sitting in a chair, both with concerned expressions.

He closed his eyes, trying to remember what happened, and it all came back to him in an instant. Not only that, but his senses and alertness snapped back to normal.

“Hey, mom.” He tried to sit up in bed.

“Lay back. You were hit by a car and you’re in a hospital,” his mother explained.

“I know, I remember it. But I feel fine.”

“Dev, you can’t be fine,” Sawyer said. “Your head bounced off the pavement. There was blood everywhere. And your leg broke. I saw it. The EMS crew put that splint in your leg while he was still lying in the road.” He got up and moved closer to his friend.

“I know. I thought so, too, but my leg feels OK.” He looked down at the leg. “Mom, did you call Dad? I don’t want him to have to come home early because of this.”

“Not yet. He’s supposed to fly home from the conference, tomorrow. When we get the report from the doctor, I’ll let him know.”

Devin’s father worked as a chemical engineer and was attending a conference in Vancouver, Canada. He had left for the event a week before. He was speaking to attendees about industrial solvents, which is something he was frequently asked to do since he was well-respected in his field. This made Devin very proud of his dad.

The ER physician and a nurse walked into the room and slid the privacy curtain out of the way.

“Devin, I’m Doctor Katman. I am glad to see you’re awake. I must say, I didn’t expect to see you conscious so soon.”

The doctor was a middle-aged, medium-height woman with long hair pulled back in a ponytail. She was wearing blue scrubs and a long white lab coat with her name embroidered on the front. She appeared friendly but wore a concerned expression.

“Where are you hurting the worst right now?”

“I don’t hurt anywhere. But I remember feeling my left leg break when the car hit me.”

“Well, now that you are awake, I’m going to examine you again to find what all is injured.”

Once the doctor began examining Devin for the second time, the nurse said, “All his vital signs are still normal.”

Nodding, the doctor took hold of his leg and carefully removed the splint. She then pushed and twisted the leg, gently at first, then gradually increased the force.

“None of that hurts?”

“No.”

“It certainly doesn’t appear to be broken.”

Sawyer stepped closer. “I saw the crash and the leg. It broke. I told that to the paramedics.”

“The EMS crew mentioned that,” said Dr. Katman, “but they didn’t find anything either.”

“There’s no way a leg bends at an angle like it was, and isn’t broken.”

The doctor looked at him skeptically, then continued her examination. The only reaction she got from Devin was a slight facial change when she pressed on the teen’s abdomen.

“Did that hurt?”

“No, not pain. It just feels kinda full. Like pressure.”

“Deb, let’s get a portable ultrasound in here. I want to get a quick look at his belly.”

The nurse turned and left the room to get the equipment.

Speaking to Devin and his mother, the physician said, “So far, everything else looks OK. We’re going to get a CT of his head, since he was knocked out. There are a few mysteries here. While you were unconscious, I examined your head. Your shirt is covered in blood and there’s matted blood in your hair, but we can’t see where it’s coming from. Neither of us can find a wound, and there’s nothing actively bleeding now. I’d say you and your friend were mistaken about the leg, but I’ll get an X-ray just to make sure.”

As she was speaking, the nurse pushed the ultrasound machine into the room. She raised Devin’s gown and applied green gel to his abdomen before pressing the probe to his skin. After about ten seconds of moving the probe around, she stopped.

Doctor Katman was also watching the screen as she worked.

When the probe stopped moving, the doctor spoke. “There,” said Dr. Katman. “Okay, there’s quite a bit of blood in your abdomen. I’m surprised it isn’t more painful and that your vitals are so good. We’re going to get you in for a CAT scan of your head and abdomen and an X-ray of your right leg. While that’s going on, I’ll page the trauma surgeon so he can come and review your situation.”

As the doctor left the room, Lucy stepped closer and took hold of her son’s hand. “Are you sure you aren’t in any pain?”

“No, mom. Really, I feel fine. What happened to the girl that hit me? Is she OK?”

“Last I saw she was talking to the cops,” Sawyer said. “She was kinda hysterical.”

“I remember hearing her screaming before I passed out. If the police return during my CAT scan, please have them let her know that I’m fine.”

A young woman in maroon scrubs entered the room and got Devin ready to head for the tests. The paramedics had started an IV on the way to the hospital. She now moved the IV bag from the ceiling-mounted hook to a collapsible pole built into the bed, and unhooked the blood pressure cuff and cardiac monitor. She unlocked the wheels and pushed the bed from the room. The medical assistant rolled Devin to an elevator, where they descended one level. From there, it was a brief trip down a bright hall to the imaging area and through a heavy door that read CT 2. The CT or computed tomography is a series of x-rays from multiple angles that allows the inside of the body to be viewed. They brought the surface of the CT table level with the hospital bed and asked him if he could move over on his own. When they were ready, he purposefully used his left leg and pushed to lift his weight and slide over to the hard surface. As expected, he felt no pain from the leg he knew had fractured.

Everyone cleared out of the room so the test could begin. Devin was alone and closed his eyes, thinking about something that had occupied much of his thought over the last month. He remembered back about four weeks ago. He had been at home and needed to slice a lime for a meal he was helping his mother prepare. He cut it in half and then went to cut it a second time, but wasn’t paying attention. The blade cut through the lime and right into his palm. He yelped, and dropped the knife, feeling the citrus burn his wound. He hurried to the sink and turned on the cold water and stuck his hand under the stream. To this day, he wasn’t sure, but it seemed like the pain stopped just before his palm went into the water.

After a couple seconds, he pulled his hand out to see how bad the wound was, but couldn’t find anything wrong. No trace of the injury. But looking back at the counter, he could see the spilled blood. Devin quickly cleaned up the mess. He wasn’t sure why, but he didn’t want to tell anyone, not even his mother.

His attention returned to the present as they assisted him back to the bed and took him to get an X-ray of his leg. He was confused about what had happened, but there were a couple things he knew for sure—the leg had broken but was now fine. And whatever had bled into his belly was now healed.