The woman woke up in the hospital, her body in traction, not remembering how she got there. The room was sterile, except for the dog laying on the floor, its leg bandaged. She wondered if the dog was hers. As if a sensor told them she was awake, the room was suddenly bustling with a pair of nurses taking vitals and asking questions. When she didn't have answers a doctor was called with a frown on one of the nurse's face. They moved like the dog wasn't laying in the way, checking buckles and straps while they waited for the doctor.
"Mrs Barnes, I am Doctor Jeff Pendleton, you can call me Jeff," the doctor came into the room, "My nurse says you don't know where you are or remember much about how you got here." One of the nurses left the room.
"Is Mrs Barnes my name?" she asked, "Does that mean I'm married? Where's my husband if I am?"
"Slow down, Mrs Barnes," the Dr Jeff noticed spikes in her blood pressure. "Your ID says your name is Maisey Barnes, we tried to find next of kin but the court orders say you are divorced and your ex- husband is in jail for many things: spousal abuse is on that list so we didn't notify him or anyone in his family. We couldn't find anyone else to contact and your phone was destroyed in the accident, so we couldn't find any contact there, but this beauty of a dog is registered to you as a service animal by the name of Henry: he won't leave your room." The Doctor smiled, "There's no one else listed on his file."
The dog woofed quietly, his eyes alert, watching his mistress as if he could understand their discussion. Maisey smiled, "Did the registration say what kind of support dog?"
"Anxiety and emotional."
Maisey wasn't sure what to think of that, "so was it my ex- husband who put me in here?"
The doctor frowned and put a pen light in her face, giving directions. He ordered some tests and shook his head, "You were in an accident: a drunk driver lost control and drove over you and three other people--you were there worst."
"When was that?"
"Three months ago," he watched her carefully, "The other folks were released within a week but you were in a coma. Your medical records indicate that this wasn't your first coma or black out so we're worried about permanent damage." She didn't react to his words, "Is it okay if I arrange for Doctor Andrew Tucker to come in to check on you now that you're awake? He was one of your more recent attending doctors and he's only 2 hours away."
She shrugged, "I don't recognize his name but if he'd treated me before then it's probably a good idea." The doctor nodded, "is there someone who can help me with errands or things? Its not like I can walk my dog."
The doctor smiled, "There's a young man who volunteers here, Kyle, he's 19 and his dad is in the cancer centre, he's been walking Henry and feeding him, I'm sure he'd be happy to continue and you can see if he'd be up for helping you with some of the other errands you're thinking of. I'll get the nurse to introduce him. Today's Wednesday so he'd likely around getting the games set up: he and his dad and a few of his dad's friends play games together every week."
"Is he terminal?" she asked. The doctor nodded, "so this young man comes and spends add much time with his dad as he can before he dies, playing games and just being nearby? That's a devoted son." She yawned, "I think I'll take a nap now while we wait for Doctor Tucker unless there's something more you want to ask?"
Henry put his head down when he knew his mistress wasn't getting up. "Sounds good, we'll come see you when he's here."
The nurse handed him a phone at the nurses station, "Hello Dr Tucker, thanks for taking my call. We've got patient you've seen recently here in the hospital, she's got no next of kin and showing signs of amnesia, I'm wondering if you could come up to Calgary and see her." He listened, "Mrs Maisey Barnes... anything you can tell us that's not in her charts? Oh dear, hmm.. alright we'll see you when you get here."
Andy dropped the phone onto the receiver and stared out the window. He called out to the receptionist to call in the nurse practitioner or cancel his appointments if the the nurse practitioner couldn't be reached. He grabbed his coat and jumped into his sister's jeep. Andy was grateful that it went straight to voicemail, he didn't think he could handle getting peppered by Anna's questions right then, he was already having an internal debate over doctor-patient confidentiality and knowing his best friend would probably want to know the love of his life was laying in a hospital bed. It was possible Maisey would never remember him or Brett or Anna or her time at the Bogs, and yet it was possible that walking in the room could trigger a flood of emotional trauma.
Foothills hospital was just about as far from Blindloss as he could get--he was glad he was coming through in the middle of the day and not during rush hour. He parked in staff parking, flipping his card onto the dash along side a note that he kept handy for anytime he visited another hospital so that security knew he was a doctor and wouldn't tow him, he grabbed his hospital bag from the backseat and threw his name tag on as he walked into the hospital entrance. The staff at the welcome desk directed him to where he could find Dr Jeff.
The two doctors shook hands and Andy followed Jeff into a small office. "Thank you for coming so quickly," Jeff crossed his ankles as he leaned against a desk, "Mrs Barnes..."
"Maisey," Andy corrected, "Her married name comes with a load of baggage that if she doesn't remember she's better off."
Jeff nodded, he'd seen enough trauma victims to know the truth of what Andy said, "Maisey has been in a coma for 3 months, 7 days and 14ish hours," Jeff told him. "We did all the usual searches and all we could find was information about her ex-husband and I didn't think it prudent to reach out that avenue given the file I found on that, but it was pretty tough to find anything on her. The dog was wearing a service vest so he was brought along and a vet came in to assess him: he had a broken leg but is almost healed up now. We've got a volunteer who's been helping look after him but the beast won't even let us take her for an x-ray without coming along."
"That's Henry," Andy nodded, "So what put Maisey in a coma, do we know?" He was quickly doing the math in his head and realized it was about the same time Brett had been in town for the cattleman's association meetings.
"Drunk driver lost control, she and three others were injured, she had a head injury and multiple broken bones--frankly she's lucky to be alive. Now that she's awake we'll start her on some physio but I wanted to have someone familiar examine her tests to see what is new damage and what is old."
"How much of her story have you pieced together?" Andy asked, hesitant but certain Dr Jeff needed to know his involvement.
"Not much," Jeff admitted, "There is a lot more trauma than can be accounted for in her medical records."
"There certainly is," Andy sighed.
It took the better part of an hour to fill Jeff in on the basics of what Maisey had lived through. The other doctor shook his head sadly, "I almost wish we hadn't been able to save her," he admitted, "save her the sorrow of reliving those memories when everything comes back to her." Andy silently agreed.
Jeff showed him the tests so far and Andy was relieved to see nothing new in the bloodwork or scans. The next step was to go talk to her and to decide what he should share with her and what he shouldn't. "Hello Maisey," Dr Jeff called out as the two doctors entered the room. A young man sat near her bed petting Henry and showing her pictures of something on her phone, "I see you've met Kyle."
"Yes," she smiled, "He took Henry out for a walk for me while the nurses gave me a sponge bath. They've promised me a real shower just as soon as I can get out of bed." She laughed and said goodbye to Kyle as he slipped from the room.
"Maisey, do you remember I mentioned bringing Doctor Tucker in to see you?" she nodded, "This is Doctor Tucker."
"Hello Maisey," Andy moved toward her bed, "Do you remember me? You called me Andy, not Doctor Tucker." She shook her head, "that's okay, that's what amnesia does--it takes away our memories." He patted her hand, "I'm going to redo some of the tests that Dr Jeff did earlier today when you woke up."
"Did you treat me after my husband beat me up?" she asked.
"Sometime later," he told her, "but your injuries then were no less traumatic." Maisey frowned at that response, but followed his directions as he asked her to follow his finger and many other tests to squeeze his hand, follow the light, turn her head. He hesitated, "Maisey I'm going to say some names to you, I want you to try to think if you know any of them."
"Anna." he paused until she shook her head, "Ned....the Bogs...Tony the Tiger...Bandit...Terri-Lee...Luke." He waited for the fear he used to see but there was nothing, "Jesse...Donovan...Brett." He finished and was met with a headshake to each one.
"I am sorry," she frowned, "were those people my family? My friends?"
"A little of everything," Andy deflected the question, "Tell me what you remember at all."
"Nothing before waking up here," She admitted, "I don't really like that I don't know anything, but if I was in a bad accident and before that abused maybe it's a blessing?" she asked hopefully.
"Thank you." Andy said, "We'll let you get some rest."
Back in the office Jeff chastised Andy for not warning him about the names and then asked who they were. "Luke, Jesse and Donovan were some of the men who assaulted her: Luke is her ex-husband. The others were the people who took her in and helped her heal, we became her family. Around the time of the accident she had decided it was time to see if she could be her own person and moved here. The day before the accident she and Brett had reconciled but then they had a big fight and she didn't turn up where she was supposed to be the next day. Terri-Lee is her lawyer and friend: Maisey is an author and Terri-Lee was a big part of her life in Calgary. I would start by contacting her and do your best to keep everything else out of it, some memories are best lost."
"Agreed," Jeff said, "Could you call this Terri-Lee? We'll start working out a recovery plan."
Andy hesitated and took out his cell phone. "Terri-Lee," he said when the lawyer picked up.
"Andy?" Terri-Lee was surprised that Blindloss' doctor had called her, "Is there a malpractice suit you need a lawyer for?"
Andy chuckled, "No, but I have some news and you need to sit down."