Midsummer Dream House

Medical Miracle

Sitting on the exam table, I swing my feet. I’m fully dressed and only here to have my six-month checkup. Ever since the accident my doctor has been extra attentive. She’s a little over careful, and I don’t think she treats all her patients this way. The cynical part of me thinks that she’s padding her income. For two years and six months my health has been perfect.

After a brief knock on the examining room door Doctor Patel steps inside. She’s a small woman with black glossy hair and doe eyes, always looking vaguely worried. We exchange the usual pleasantries, and she asks the usual questions. Taking her stethoscope from her pocket, she begins to listen to my heart and asks, “You still don’t have any memories of the accident? I know you were hoping that the memories surrounding the event would return in time. Breathe in.”

Dutifully I breathe in. “If I tell you that it’s all still a blank, are you going to send me for another MRI?”

She laughs. “No one loves an MRI, but we want to make sure there’s no aftereffects. Not everybody gets T-boned by a huge laboratory truck and lives to talk about it. Lie back please.”

I scooch back on the paper covered bed. “Well, I can hardly talk about it if I don’t remember it, can I?” I hope I sound whiney enough. The doc takes two fingers and mashes my stomach. “I wish the company would leave me alone. They were good about the insurance payout, but they’re trying to get me to sign more papers. I just don’t feel right signing off on something I can’t remember. Right now, all I want is to be left alone. I’m going to have to get my lawyers involved if they don’t lighten up. I don’t want their money, or a job, or any of the other things they’ve offered. For Pete’s sake! I’m retired. I just want to work my farm in peace and maybe travel once or twice a year.” Many years ago, I inherited the family farm, and I started living there when I retired. The insurance money from the accident is allowing me to improve the farm in ways I had never dreamed of. Ironically, since the farm is a historic site, I’m even making a little money from visiting tourists who want to see what a completely organic lifestyle is like.

The doc gives her professional sounding “Hmph,” and then helps me to sit up. She moves around in front of me with that little hammer thingy and starts tapping my knees. “So how is that coming along?”

“We made enough from tourist donations last year to bring in a pair of heritage White Park Cattle.” She mashes my fingernails and feels the joints in my hand. “You said ‘we’. Have you taken on a partner?” Why doesn’t she want to know about my White Park Cattle?

“No, my extended family have gotten involved and the community. It’s more about neighbors helping neighbors.” All of this was true, but there was so much more going on at the farm. I am excited about the venture, but I don’t want to share too many details with someone who’s never been on the farm. She senses my reticence.

“Are you sure this isn’t too much for you? You’re nearly seventy and most people your age are slowing down, not taking on something that’s so physically demanding.”

“Aw, you’ve taken such good care of me since the accident – I feel better than I’ve felt in ages.” I can’t tell her about the aftereffects of the accident. She’s already suspicious about my continuous good health. “I did want to ask though, maybe we could cut the visits back to one a year? All my tests have been good for the last eighteen months.”

She seems to consider this and finally nods. “If all your blood work today is good, then we’ll see.”

If I let her have her way in six months, I’ll be right back on the examining table. She has no reason to take blood today. I’m elated and a little scared, but I try to appear crestfallen. “Uh-oh,” I try to look hangdog. “I ate breakfast this morning. I didn’t expect to have to give blood since I did that on the last visit. If you’ll give me the lab orders, I’ll come back before the end of the week.” She purses her lips, then shrugs. “OK, but we need that work up as soon as possible.”

I start to ask, “Who is ‘we’?” Instead, I slip on my shoes and head for the door, picking up my paperwork at the front desk. She doesn’t know it, but I won’t be back. There will be no more testing, no more blood drawn. I think back to the night of the accident, of lying bleeding in a world of pain, covered in whatever that stuff was that cascaded over me from the laboratory truck and darn near ended my life. My own research leads me to believe that the “stuff” was experimental, something unnamed with long strings of numbered code attached to it. I sigh. I hate to lie to the doc, and I try to assume she’s a nice lady. I don’t know if she’s using me, or being used to get to me, so she’s best kept in the dark. Because I was very aware of everything that had happened on that night and in all the weeks that followed. I was very aware that people from that laboratory stood right next to my gurney in the ER, debating if I should die and when. The only blank spot in my memory was when they anesthetized me for surgery immediately after the accident. I’m old, retired, and one of the invisible generation, but I’m not foolish. And I certainly have enough sense to know when to keep my mouth shut.

Fiction by K.L. Johnston

Author, poet and photographer K.L. Johnston received her degree in English and Communications from the University of South Carolina. She is best known for works centered in spiritual experience, nature, and trauma survival and has appeared in numerous anthologies, literary and travel magazines. While wrangling seven children to adulthood she stumbled into a career as a dealer in art and antiques from which she is now gleefully retired. She uses her unstructured time to indulge her curiosity about places and people. You can follow her on Facebook at “A Written World”.