Page 10 of My (Not So) Perfect Plan

After a moment to make sure I’m not going to lose it, she leaves the room while the nurse continues to check me.

“How’s your pain on a level one to five, five being the worst pain you’ve ever had?” she asks.

“One.”

“Good. Means that pain killer is working,” she says indicating the drip next to my bed.

“Did the doctor tell my mom yet?” I ask her.

“Tell her what?”

“That my leg is shot?”

“I wouldn’t know. But I can’t imagine them discussing your future without you being awake for it.”

She bustles around a few more minutes doing stuff that I’m too tired and sore to care about before she leaves the room.

After a few minutes the door opens again and my mom comes back in followed by the doctor. He’s tall with salt and pepper hair and a serious demeanor.

“Hello, Evan, I’m Dr. Rodriguez, the surgeon on call. We took a look at your Xrays and the MRI. You have a stage 3 tear of your ACL, PCL, and MCL. Overall, that’s pretty severe. The important thing is to get your mobility back and get you walking again, but it will take time. So we have a couple of options. We can leave it and hope it heals on its own, in which case, youmight recover full use of your leg, but there’s no guarantees. Or we can do reconstruction surgery now and you can get use of your leg within six months with physical therapy.”

I can hardly believe it.

“You mean I could be back to playing football in time for college?” I ask, relief swamping me.

A pained look crosses the doctor’s face as he exchanges glances with my mother. “Well, no. I’m afraid it’s unlikely you are going to be able to recover the mobility you had in your leg before. You’ll eventually be able to run and everything, but it won’t be the same. You’ll have some loss of speed.”

I close my eyes, holding the curses in only because my mother was there. My hands fist in the sheets. Everything gone up in smoke. Why did I decide to run the darn ball?!

“If you opt for the surgery, we can schedule it for the day after tomorrow. That should be enough time for the swelling and inflammation to calm down.”

“And if not? If we opt to wait it out?” my mother asked. I opened my eyes again.

“There’s no real advantage. Recovery will take significantly longer, and he may or may not recover full mobility of his leg.”

“So if he gets reconstruction surgery now, he’ll get full mobility? Like he’ll be able to do everything he could before?”

“It’s possible. Not likely, but possible. Look, with the surgery, his chances are much higher that he’ll be able to get to functioning normal, that is, being able to jog and walk without a limp, within six months. If he doesn’t do the surgery, functioning normal might take significantly longer, if it ever happens at all.”

I swallow down the burn of tears. I’ll be darned if I’m going to cry in front of them.

“Can you give us a few minutes to talk about it, doctor?” mom asks.

“Sure. Physical therapy will be stopping by and then once he’s outfitted with a wheel chair, he’ll be discharged. My contact information is on the discharge paperwork so you can contact the outpatient clinic and set up the follow ups and then surgery if you want to.”

My mother shook his hand and then the doctor left. I threw an arm over my eyes, not wanting my mom to see my weakness.

“Well, hon. What do you think?”

“I think my football career is shot.” I hate the way my voice catches on the last word.

“Maybe,” she says, like it’s a matter of something not that important, like the car getting a flat, or breaking a finger. My mother’s voice doesn’t sound the way I would expect it to. Where is her crippling disappointment in me? I take my arm off my head and look at her. She’s taken a seat on the end of the bed near my good leg. The other leg is propped up with pillows beneath my knee and calf.

“Football isn’t everything, Evan,” she continues. “I know you wanted to play in the NFL, but sometimes plans change.”

I can’t believe she’s tellingmethis.

“What?” she asks me, catching my mouth agape.

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