Page 145 of Slew Foot
“And, most importantly, it left a handful of his patients with labyrinthitis, an infection in the part of the inner ear that controls hearing and balance, which leads tovertigo and tinnitus.”
Blinking, Mickey suddenly felt dizzy for entirely different reasons. “Wait,” he said, wanting to be sure he understood before he got his hopes up. “Does that mean …”
“Yes,” Dr. Pope said when he didn’t finish. “It means there’s a possibility you aren’t dealing with a concussion.”
“So that means there’s a chance totreatit, right?” he asked, suddenly hopeful.
“Yes, exactly.”
Mickey frowned. “Why wasn’t it caught on all of the tests I had?”
“Well,” Dr. Browning said. “That’s one of the reasons I’m here. With your permission, I’d like to review your scans.”
“Yeah, of course.” At this point, Mickey would happily show the whole damn world his scans if it meant there was a chance they could fix this.
Dr. Pope lifted a large tablet on his desk, typed in something, then handed it over.
Dr. Browning put on a pair of glasses, then examined the screen. He was silent for so long Mickey felt like he would jump out of his skin waiting.
“Well,” he said when he finally spoke. “I’m afraid these are inconclusive.”
Mickey’s mood plummeted. He was convinced that was the worst word in the English language. And that was saying something.
“But,” he continued. “I do see a faint indication of some inflammation along the inner ear.”
“What does that mean?” Mickey asked, tamping down on the hope trying to rise in him again. He’d give himself whiplash at this rate.
“It means we need to do more testing,” Dr. Browning answered. “I won’t be able to tell without a different view of your skull. Unless I see inflammation around the vestibular ductand vestibulocochlear nerve, I can’t officially diagnose you with labyrinthitis but I’m not able to get a good enough view of the area from the scans that were done. But what I do see is an encouraging sign we’re on the right track.”
“So how did this happen, exactly?” Mickey asked, still a little confused. “I’m not sure I understand.”
“The virus you had probably traveled through your sinuses and ended up in your inner ear. Your body was able to fight off most of the infection, but it’s lingering in the labyrinth area there.”
“But whyme?” Mickey asked. “I mean, Rafe was so much sicker than I was. He had a terrible fever.”
“Well, the fever probably helped clear the remnants of the virus out more thoroughly. That is, unfortunately one of the quirks of the human body,” Dr. Browning said, taking his glasses off, his eyes twinkling. “They all react differently and some people—even otherwise very healthy ones—aren’t able to fight certain germs off as effectively, while others are very efficient at it.”
“Like Tanner,” Mickey said with a roll of his eyes. “He barely got sick at all.”
“Well, that’s the interesting part of this. It’s quite possible—quite likely, even—that this particular virus strain has been around before now,” Dr. Browning said. “There’s some history showing similar symptoms in the north-east region of the United States about ten or fifteen years ago. I won’t bore you with epidemiological data on it, but it’s quite fascinating.”
Mickey didn’t have a clue what that even was, but he nodded.
“What it means is that people who grew up in this area have a small amount of natural immunity built up from their previousexposure,” Dr. Pope said. “Which could be why the local guys had very mild symptoms, whereas you and several of the other European players had more serious cases.”
“And Rafe is from Canada,” Mickey said slowly.
“Yes. It’s possible he didn’t get exposed to this exact strain of the virus then either, if it mutated before it reached the area where he lived at the time.”
“Essentially, you gotunlucky, Mickey,” Dr. Pope said. “And I do want to apologize for not catching this sooner.”
Mickey shrugged. Honestly, it seemed like it must be pretty hard to diagnose if it took an ear nose and throat doctor to do it and he couldn’t even manage that from the images they already had.
“I am not sure if you’re familiar with it, but there’s a medical saying that goes, when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.”
“I don’t know it but I think it makes sense,” Mickey said slowly. “It means you go for the obvious answer, not the rare one, right?”
“Exactly. You were involved in an on-ice collision which led to you hitting your head against the boards. The obvious answer was …”
