Page 28 of Tacos & Toboggans
“For sure. That’s going to need surgery. I’ll see her. Thanks, Loretta.”
“No, thank you, Major. Call me if you need assistance. She’s had some pain medication, but not so much that she can’t make decisions for herself.”
With a nod, I pulled the curtain back far enough to speak through the hole. “Dr. Warren of orthopedics. Can I come in?”
“Yes,” a voice said. A voice that I most definitely recognized.
Once in the curtained space, I offered my friend a smile. “Hi, Jaelyn. I heard you had a bit of a snafu.”
“You could say that,” she agreed, pointing at her arm in a splint with a bag of ice on top. “It’s feeling better, though. I can probably go home if you give me a brace for it.”
After setting the tablet on the table, I moved a chair aside to examine the arm. “Thanks for your medical opinion, but if you don’t mind, I’ll give it a looksie myself.”
“Because I’m just a waitress and don’t know anything, right?”
Her sarcastic delivery had me glancing up instantly. “I didn’t say that, Jaelyn, nor would I ever think it. You’re probably scared and nervous, but it’s important that we take care of this arm properly, or you could end up with nerve damage from this break. I just saw the X-rays, and while you’re beautiful, they aren’t pretty.”
“Wait, it’s broken?” she asked, as though this was new information and my comment about her being beautiful hadn’t landed. Probably okay since it wasn’t exactly professional.
“They didn’t tell you that?” I asked, lifting the tablet to show her the X-ray and explain the break.
“Dang it,” she sighed. “I thought it was just sprained. When they didn’t come back in to tell me anything, I figured all was well.”
“Unfortunately, that’s not the case,” I said, unwrapping the bandage from the splint so I could look at the position of the bones. “Loretta was just hunting me down. I was upstairs seeing patients.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said with a grimace. “I don’t want to keep you. I can wait.”
“No need. I was finished for the day, but when she told me you were here, I insisted on taking your case. To be honest, I planned to stop into the diner for dinner, hoping to see you. You saved me a trip,” I said, patting her shoulder.
“You are definitely our number one customer now.” That got a lip tilt from her, even if she stared at the wall as I checked the wrist. I didn’t remove the entire splint because if the fracture was unstable, I didn’t want to make it worse.
“Well, that shall continue because I haven’t learned how to cook in the last day,” I joked as I rewrapped the splint and lowered the ice back to the arm. Thankfully, the early intervention helped keep the swelling down, making a fixation procedure possible today. Rather than hover over her and make her more nervous, I sat beside the bed in the empty chair. “How did the injury happen?”
I noticed her eyes rolled before she answered, and I could tell it was aimed at herself. “I went tobogganing.”
“Did it snow since I last looked out a window? It was like fifty degrees.”
Her snort was short before she answered. “We were grass tobogganing.”
“That’s a thing?”
“Apparently,” she said, motioning at her arm. “It was new to me, too. I never should have let them convince me to do it. Now I won’t be able to work.”
“Ivy Lund may have a few choice words for you,” I agreed with a chuckle.
She turned her head and finally made eye contact with me. “Ivy Lund was driving the toboggan, Major. I mean, Doctor Warren.”
I waved that away. “We don’t need to rest on formalities here. Call me Major.”
“Okay, well, Ivy was piloting the sled when we hit a hole in the ground, and I went flying.”
“Is she okay?”
“Yep, but I was in the back and got flipped off. Thankfully, we were close to the bottom of the hill.”
“She’ll probably understand the situation then,” I said, trying to bite back a grin at the image of Ivy Lund flying down a grassy hill on a snow sled. It was nearly impossible not to laugh.
“She left to check on her kids, but I’m sure she’ll be back any minute. She’s been hovering.”
