Valdez

chapter six | x-rays

MAE HUNT

I'm currently sitting in a wheelchair and the nurse is wheeling me to the x-ray room.

We get there and she wheels me right next to the table. "Do you need help getting up on the table or can you do it by yourself?" The nurse asks me.

"Yeah. I got it." I say and stand up on my left foot. I hobble over to the table and sit down on it. I sit up and slide my right ankle over the red x mark.

"That's good. I'm guessing that you have gotten hurt before?" The nurse asks me and I nod.

"Okay. I know that it hurts, even more, to have your ankle in this position but please try to keep it still. I want to take the pictures and I will be right back in." The nurse tells me and I nod.

"Okay." I simply say. Because of the way they need the picture my ankle is on its side and it's more painful than it has been at all today.

I can feel the tears in my eyes from the level of pain my ankle is in right now.

"Okay. You can put your foot so that it doesn't hurt anymore." The nurse says and I immediately put it so that it is straight again.

"I know that for a little bit now it is going to hurt more. Do you what help getting into your wheelchair?" She asks me and I shake my head.

"No thanks, I'll be good," I tell her and she just nods at my statement.

I stand on my left foot again and sit down in the wheelchair. "Good job. Are you ready to go back to your room?" The nurse asks me and I just nod my head.

I didn't realize how tired I was right now. She pushed me back to my room. "In a few minutes, your doctor will be in here with the results." The nurse said and walked out.

I know that it's broken, there's no way that it isn't broken.

I take out my phone and snap a few people back. I only had to wait about twenty minutes for the doctor to come in. He was holding my x-ray pictures.

"You have a bad fracture. It doesn't go through the whole bone, it is one of the worse breaks that I have seen but it should heal well in about 4 weeks." The doctors tell me and I slowly nod.

"We are going to splint it. Mom, you need to make an appointment with an orthopedic technician so they can take a look at it.

Because of how bad this fracture is she is not going to be able to walk in a boot yet. She is going to need a hard cast." The doctor warns me. I've broken my other ankle once and I tore my Achilles' tendon before.

For the torn tendon I needed a boot and for the broken ankle, I needed a cast. The boot is preferred.

"Yeah, I know. We have one that she's always gone to." My mom tells the doctor. The doctor just gives my mom an odd look and continues taking a few things out of drawers in the room.

"I'll be back in a few minutes with a nurse so she can do the splint. There isn't much more to it. Once you are splinted up you'll get crutches and be able to be signed out." The nurse tells me and I nod.

She walks out of the room and true to her word about five minutes after she left a nurse came into the room with her.

"Oka,y I'm just going to put this against your ankle and wrap this around it." The nurse says and holds up two things.

There was thing flat thing and something that looked like a more advanced Ace wrap. I could be a doctor with my medical knowledge.

She presses the flat thing against my ankle, pressing into it causing me to let out a grunt.