Chapter 20
Blankenship’s Pain
So what do you think?” Blankenship asked Doctor Jonathan Christianson, who he regarded as one of the area’s best orthopedic surgeons, though maybe not quite as good as the experts in the more metropolitan cities like Dallas or Chicago. They were looking at Robert’s X-rays and periodically glancing at the CT images, all of which were clipped to florescent-lighted panels hanging on the wall of the otherwise vacant examination room.
“The bone damage itself is bad enough, but it looks like the cartilage and tendons are pretty bad, too.” He shook his head. “I’ve seen worse cases turn out pretty good, but we need more data. Let’s get that MRI and see what it shows us.”
“What should I tell him?” Blankenship asked.
Brown pulled the film off the panel and slipped them back into Robert’s file, then looked up at Blankenship. “Nothing.” The last thing that boy needs is your bedside manner, he thought, barely able to hide his disdain for Blankenship’s legendary callousness. “I’ll talk to them. Leave orthopedics to me.”
“Very well,” Blankenship replied as they walked out the room, with Dr. Christianson the last to leave, flipping off the light switch as they exited.
Walking down the hallway, Blankenship said, “You want me to go with you to tell them?”
“No. I got it covered.”
At the nursing station, Blankenship snatched a file off the counter and turned to the right, walking in front of the station, and made his way to the next bank of rooms, while Christianson continued walking forward toward Robert’s room. Blankenship had to attend to an older patient who had broken his hip and had buzzed the nurse for pain killers, ones he wasn’t prepared to authorize—the chart revealed to him a propensity to addiction. He turned his words of rejection over in his mind, trying to put them together in such a way as to give the patient some comfort, or at least prevent him from cussing out the good doctor. Regrettably, although Blankenship never intended to hurt his patients with his words, face-to-face contact just wasn’t his forte, he knew, especially after his wife died. But this patient was somehow different.
Reviewing the man’s chart, he knew that the more potent, narcotic-based painkillers would definitely be a problem, but he also wanted to give the man something that might help a little. He had met the gentleman a year-or-so before, when the man and his wife were in a car wreck. The wife died, and the man was hospitalized for three months as he struggled to recover from his injuries and the loss of his wife. Sadly, he was one patient Blankenship could relate to, and when he talked with this man Blankenship revealed a side of him few of his associates knew he had.
Holding the chart in one hand, Blankenship pushed open the door to the old man’s room with the other. Smiling, he said, “Bernie, it’s good to see you.”
Bernie Steinberg was in his late seventies, totally bald, and short, only 5 feet 2 inches tall, and he seemed even shorter because he had a mild case of scoliosis. He was also extremely wrinkled, with his eyes barely visible through the folds of the skin of his droopy eyelids, probably the result, Blankenship speculated, of years of worry and wear. He replied in a raspy, old voice marked by his native Brooklyn, New York, accent: “What’s so good about it?”
Blankenship couldn’t help laughing. He knew the sarcasm well. He and Bernie had developed quite a rapport in his one of his many repeat visits months before, jabbing each other with what those not knowing about their unique relationship would swear to be insults. “If it was anyone else in that bed, I’d think the pain was talking, but my dear friend Bernie hasn’t changed a bit,” he added, as he offered his free right hand to Bernie for a handshake. Bernie grabbed it, smiled, and winced again.
“How long does a guy have to suffer here in pain before someone listens?”
“Now, Bernie,” Blankenship replied. “You know the rules. If you’ve waited for any less than a day, it’s not long enough.”
“I believe that, I tell ya that much. I’d get better service at the County Health Clinic, for cripes’ sake.”
Blankenship shook his head back and forth, still smiling as a nurse walked in from behind. “You had to make it personal.” He turned back to the nurse, Bettie Jacobs, and said, “Please give my friend Bernie two ibuprofens every four hours. That should do the trick.”
“What?” Bernie said with a raised voice. “Why don’t you just give me sugar pills?”
His tone turning more serious, Blankenship replied, “We’ll start with the ibuprofen and see where that takes us, okay?”
“It won’t help,” Bernie winced. “I hurt, Doc. I hurt bad.”
“I know, but we must start small and go from there.”
“Fine. I coulda got that advice from the clerk at Kroger’s.”
Ignoring the last jab, Blankenship asked, “Have you been doing okay since I saw you last?”
Bernie shrugged his shoulders. He was tempted to say, “No, Doc, my wife of fifty-two years was killed in a car crash that I caused, and I’ve been a total mess ever since,” but he didn’t. Instead, Blankenship noticed a tear slide down Bernie’s cheek as he replied, “I’ve been worse.”
“Buzz the nursing station if you need anything else,” Blankenship said as he and Bettie left the room.
As he left the room, Blankenship felt overcome with emotions so he walked around the corner and into the residents’ break room. After entering, he made sure no one else was there, sat on a bench seat, buried his head in his hands and cried. He knew exactly what Bernie meant. He’d been worse, too, but not by much.
Upon further reflection he considered another possibility. Maybe it would get worse. He certainly didn’t feel much better right now than the night he received the news of his wife’s death. He felt helpless then and he felt helpless now. Suddenly and without warning he felt compelled to do something he had never done before. “God, if you’re there, please help me to get over the pain. Give me something to help me to feel real hope. Something to make the pain go away.”