chapter 2
fiction
H
HUFFINGTON
09.23.12
E RULED OUT with the 4 a.m. blood draw
the next morning, which I announced on
rounds a few hours later with less pleasure than I would have ordinarily. I knew
what was coming.
“So now what?” the attending asked.
“I guess I call ortho.”
Everybody — from attending to fellow to the other resident on the team and the intern, even the two medical students — started to smile.
“Well, I can call them, can’t I?”
“Go ahead,” the attending said.
I made the call, and after three or four hours the ortho
resident returned the page. I knew by that time that I was
already defeated, but I went ahead and asked the obligatory
question, and received the inevitable answer (the ortho
resident having anticipated as well) that the ortho attending did not feel comfortable taking the case, “. . . and besides, it’s not that bad a break. We’ll follow.”
“How long?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“How long does he need to be in the hospital?”
Puzzled.
“When will you be done with him?”
“We’ve been done since eight this morning.”
“You mean you’d send him home?”
“Except for the neck thing, yeah.”
“Oh.” This he hadn’t anticipated.
“So what does he need from you?”
“He needs a halo.”
A halo is one of those excruciating-looking devices you
may have seen somebody wearing: a ring of shiny metal
that encircles the head (hence the name), supported by a
cage that rests on a harness braced on the shoulders. Four