Page 111 of Look on the Bright Side

“I’m gonna shine this light in your eyes, so just look at my finger and follow it, okay?” Lark clicked on the light and had him track her finger. Pupils equal, round, reactive to light. “Can you tell me, where is the pain specifically?”

“My head,” he said, as if that cleared things up.

“Front, back, left side, right side…” she coaxed.

“Kind of right here,” he said, pointing to the top of his head, slightly to the left.

“Let’s have a look. Would you take off your cap, please?”

“Sure.” He did, and a huge flap of scalp flopped over from the top of his head almost to the tip of his ear.

“Yikes!” she yelped. “Okay! Wow! You have…a very large laceration there.” It was inches of scalp. Inches, just hanging there.

“Yeah. I hit myself with a crowbar. I figured the hat would help it heal.” He reached up to touch the wound.

“Don’t touch!” she commanded.

His hand went back to his side. “It didn’t work, huh?”

“No, it did not. You said this happened four days ago?”

“Yeah. Friday.”

“Did you lose consciousness?” she asked.

“Like, faint?”

“Black out, fall to the ground, see stars, anything like that.”

“No. But, man, that thing bled like a motherfucker.”

“I bet.” Dr.Unger would love this. “I’m just gonna have you lie back, okay, and get my supervisor in to take a look.” She adjusted his bed so he was more prone. “No, nope, don’t put that hat back on.” The inside of it was crusted with blood. Mr.Red Sox Nation was not the brightest star in the sky, was he? Then again, he might have suffered a brain injury.

She went into the hall. “Dr.Unger? I think you might want to see this.”

“Oh, goody. I’m tired of heatstroke and UTIs. What’ve you got?” said Howard.

“Patient presented with vague headache, left upper anterior.”

That was all she said, not wanting to ruin the surprise. She opened the door, and Howard said, “Hello, young man, I understand you have a—well, tie me down and spank me with a fish! That is a lot of scalp, sir! How did this happen?”

Red Sox Nation had been busting up some concrete, raised the crowbar a little high and dropped it.

“He thought the baseball cap would jump-start the healing,” Lark said.

Howard looked at her, his eyes dancing. These were the calls that made work fun. Cocktail party stories. Lark had started to dictate them into a phone (no names, of course).

“And what would you recommend, Dr.Smith?” he asked.

“Well, I’d get an x-ray to rule out a fracture. No LOC on the scene, the patient reports. If the x-ray is clear, I’d irrigate and suture it closed, since it’s fairly deep. Prophylactic antibiotics, since it’s been four days.”

“Sounds good to me,” Dr.Unger said. “Mr.Holmes. Mind if we bring in a couple other people for this exciting teachable moment?”

“Sure!” said the patient. “Can I see my cut?”

“You bet,” Howard said. “We’ll grab a mirror.”

Lark was the belle of the ER for the rest of the shift. “You’re buying beers tonight,” Luis said, because yes, they were all going out, once they finished documenting and updating the incoming shift.

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