I DO NOT OWN ANYONE OR ANYTHING IN THIS STORY BESIDES THE OC'S.
Julie's Point of View-
We finished dinner taking the dishes to the sink before I gathered all the paperwork and cards I needed for Joseph's appointment tonight before I led them back out to my car buckling Joseph into his booster seat to make sure he was safe before I walked over to the driver's side climbing in getting ready for the short drive to the hospital.
"This is a nice hospital." John said as I parked my car as close as I could.
"It does its job as an Army hospital." I answered turning the car off.
"I got Joseph." John said volunteering.
"He just needs the door open." I said as John pulled the back door open holding Joseph's hand as he jumped out of the back seat and I'm trying to let him learn how to do that himself with little or no help, I mainly helped him into his seat. I met the two guys at the front of the car holding onto the other small hand of my son as he held onto John's hand as well. I led them to the little desk checking into the appointment finding a seat watching my son as he went and found toys to play with as John and I sat down waiting until Joseph's name was to be called.
"How late do they do appointments?" John asked.
"Usually until 9 PM for those that work days or those that go in for nights and need their appointments beforehand." I said truthfully.
"That's not bad, never heard of doctors doing that."
"Well this is only for Army personnel so it's not a public hospital." I said.
"What else is for Army personnel?"
"Everything on base pretty much."
"And for me? I mean for the time being."
"Only if you're with me." I said smiling.
"Only for time being, what if you are to get married?"
"What about that?"
"Who will get the privilege?" John asked.
"Oh, my mom got privileges due to my dad and she has a Civilian ID to access everything due to working with a company on base. As for marriage, only my husband and the kids we have or if I will to adopt the kids my husband may have they would get an ID and privileges depending on the age." I explained as he nodded.
"Ms. Phillips, we are ready." The familiar voice of the nurse said as I looked over my shoulder at her.
"That us?" John asked.
"Yep."I said as I stood up, "Joseph." I called as Joseph nodded and got up heading with me to the door the nurse was holding open.
"Are you with them?" Nurse Ginger said.
"Yeah, he's with us." I said looking back at John who smiled and nodded as we followed Ginger to the oh so familiar room that we get every time.
"Dr. Lawrence will be in soon." Ginger said as I nodded as I looked over seeing John pick Joseph up onto the patient bed seeing just one chair that is always in there.
"You want to sit?" John asked.
"You can go ahead." I said as I stood aside setting my purse onto the bed behind my son.
"Why don't you sit on my lap?" John suggested
"Excuse me?" I asked.
"Yeah mom, sit on his lap, I sit on his lap all the time." Joseph said as John sat down patting at his lap.
"I'm not sitting on your lap." I said avidly.
"Come on…I'm quite comfy." John said as I rolled my eyes as I shifted my weight to lean against the bed, a knock came to the door, it echoed through the room.
"Come in." I said loud enough seeing Dr. Lawrence push the door open and shut it behind him.
"Ms. Phillips, nice seeing you again, hi I'm doctor Lawrence." He said shaking my hand before extending his hand to John's.
"John." John said as they both nodded.
"How are you today, Joseph?" Dr. Lawrence said as he grabbed the designated chair rolling it over towards the end of the bed.
"I'm good." Joseph said.
"I want to measure your height along with the degree of how your knees and elbows bend then x-rays." Dr. Lawrence said as I nodded he went to the sink washing his hands before he helped Joseph off the bed and onto the scale machine getting his height as 42 inches, which meant he grew 2 inches since last time. "You grew two inches, that's great." Dr. Lawrence said as he helped him back to the bed rolling Joseph's pant legs to see his knees watching as Dr. Lawrence measured and made notes of said measurements. "X-Ray's will need to be done." Dr. Lawrence said, we helped my son off the bed walking with them down to the x-ray room.
"Joseph, John and I will be out here." I said as Joseph nodded as Dr. Lawrence led him into the room feeling John's arm snake around my waist.
"Are the measurements good?" John asked.
"I didn't look." I said glancing over to John feeling him pull me closer to him, I knew that whatever the measurements were and what the x-rays show will be equally important on if my son would need the surgery.
"Come on, let's go sit down." John said as he tugged me towards the small row of seats, I sat down beside him putting my face in my hands running them along my face. "He'll be fine…if he needs another surgery, he'll get it."
"I…it's just, how many more surgeries? How many more doctor visits? How many more times does he have to do physical therapy?" I said, for once I had broke down and he wasn't even in surgery.
"It's hard…I know it breaks your heart, but you are a strong woman and you will keep fighting with him." John said as he squeezed my shoulder in a comforting manner, he pulled me to lean into his embrace and he ran a hand through my hair waiting the duration until Joseph walked out holding Dr. Lawrence's hand.
"I got a lollipop." Joseph said proudly and happily.
"Awesome." I said standing to my feet giving my son a high five knowing he must have done a good job if he got a lollipop. We walked back to the room designated as ours. I sat on the bed pulling my son onto my lap as John stood beside us with his hand resting firmly on my back rubbing it soothingly as Joseph was playing with the wrapper of his lollipop. We sat there patiently as the doctor typed at his computer.
"So doc?" John asked breaking the ice.
"Joseph is going to get another order to physical therapy and the surgery is a go. I just put the order for physical therapy in, I'll have a nurse call you with the information for the surgery."
"How many do you think the boy will need after this?" John asked.
"I don't know...if I were to give an educated guess, I'll say one every two years until he is about 16 years old."
"What are these physical therapies for?" John asked, I was thankful John was here for asking all these questions mainly.
"It'll help us understand fully how much we'll have to manipulate his limbs and how much of range of motion and strength he has." Dr. Lawrence explained.
"Will it get worse after the surgery?" I asked thinking of that off the top of my head.
"If it does, it won't be by a drastic amount, I'll go over that in his pre-op appointment and the most important will be post-op and the physical therapy." The doctor explained as I nodded.
"How often is his physical therapy until surgery?" John asked.
"It'll be twice a week two hours for each session so it will really wear him out so it'll be schedule at night." Dr. Lawrence as it went quiet over the room, "Do you have any more questions?"
"Not right now." John said as I nodded in agreement as Dr. Lawrence printed out all the proper paperwork and scheduled Joseph's pre-op appointment to be June 15th, which was a month and a half after John left. I was handed paperwork for his physical therapy and his appointment sheet to remind me, I set Joseph on the ground before I stood up grabbing his hand as we headed out of the room following the long halls out to the lobby.
"Thanks for in there." I said trying to be strong right now, I felt like breaking down oddly for no apparent reason.
"It's fine, you seemed and still seem kind of emotional and out of it." John said as I nodded as I led them to the physical therapy room, John had his hand rest on the arch of my back and he would randomly rub it trying to comfort me. Joseph pulled the door open for us seeing Doctor Burke working with another patient as I signed us in and dropped the paperwork into the bin. We found ourselves a few seats as Joseph stood in front me.
"May I play with the balls? Joseph asked pointing to the bin of exercise weight balls.
"Not yet, you have to wait and ask Doctor Burke." I said fixing some of his hair.
"I got a game for you." John said.
"You do?" Joseph said.
"Yes, come here." John said as Joseph stepped in front of John, I watched as John put his hands out with the palms up, "Put your hands on top of mine face down." John explained as Joseph obliged.
"Now, what do we do?" Joseph asked.
"Now, I have to pull my hands out from under yours and smack yours before you move them out of the way." John explained more, Joseph nodded as he giggled as he kept flinching his hands as John would make very subtle obvious moves to make it easy for Joseph to win.
"I thought I recognized that giggle…are you ready Joseph?" Doctor Burke asked getting my son's attention.
"Yes! May we play with the balls?" Joseph asked.
"We'll get to those, first we got to do a few stretches and strength tests." Doctor Burke said as she led my son toward a table leaving John and I sitting in the two chairs we had claimed.
"How long do these appointments usually last?" John asked as he crossed his arms over his chest leaning his head back against the wall behind us.
"Hour to two hours…depending on how tired Joseph gets…" I said honestly.
"He seems to like it…" John said.
"He loves it because they play games and he loves playing…it works all of his energy off…" I said honestly.
"I bet…you want to go for a walk? I think I saw some vending machines out there, my treat." John said as I looked from him to my son then back to him. "Don't you dare say you can't, Joseph is fine right now, and he is distracted with Doctor Burke…" John said as he stood up reaching out for my hand as I gave one last look to my son before I stood up without using John's hands following him back out of the room and to where the vending machines were.
"So, you have to pay for another surgery?" John asked.
"Some of a surgery, whatever the insurance doesn't cover…"
"How much does it usually rack up to be? It can't be cheap."
"Well over a thousand dollars, at least that was the last one…it was closer to 25 hundred." I said honestly as John dropped coins into the machine.
"Phew, that is a lot."
"Yeah, imagine…" I said as I ran a hand through my hair as I watched as he dropped another coin into the machine.
"What do you want sweetie?" John asked.
"Um….I'm fine…" I said as I overlooked the contents in the machine before I looked to John who gave me this look that is indescribable. "I'll have the snickers bar." I said giving in as he smiled as he pushed the digits into the machine watching as it dropped. "You know there is a trick to get free candy from these types of machines?"
"Let me guess, you know this trick don't you?"
"I learned it during my high school days and that is all I ate for lunch." I said smirking.
"You should have told me before I inserted the cash." He said chuckling as he leant down pulling the snickers out and handed it to me.
"Well, you have to insert cash for it to work." I said as he nodded as he slid more cash into the machine when I squatted down holding the door open and up so that the door will catch it, "Now push the number of candy or food you want." I said as he did so and it fell out, "Now push the coin return…" I said as he did so and it refunded his money and let him insert the money again.
"What would Joseph like?" John asked.
"Um, get him the cheese crackers, he can eat half and the other half can be his snack tomorrow." I said as he entered those numbers and I dropped the door letting his and Joseph's food drop into the little drop box and I reached in grabbing both before I stood to my feet handing him his snack before we took a couple steps over to the soda one purchasing one each before we headed back to the room claiming our seats.
"What is your monthly income?" John asked.
"That is kind of personal…" I said as I was fighting with the packaging trying to get my snack open as I crossed my leg over my knee.
"I'm sorry…" John said.
"It's fine…the bills get paid, sometimes past due but it gets done…." I said as I finally got the snack open, I took a bite as my son was being hoisted up to try to hold his weight on the ring.
"You can only live within your physical means and even if that means things have to get done later than preferred…crap happens…" John said as I nodded as I pushed a strand of hair behind my ear.
"It does…" I said nodding as I looked over at him as he looked back ahead at my son who was giggling from hanging on the ring while the physical therapist was tickling him.
"He truly is an adorable kid…" John said.
"Yeah…he will be a heartbreaker, so I got to make sure he doesn't break any hearts actually…"
"I doubt he will, you will teach him too well not to do so." John said.
"I hope so…raising a kid can be hard and you sometimes lay at night questioning if your actions were the right ones…"
"I don't even have a kid and I do the same thing…he has came out fine for right now and he will continue to come out fine, he is in a house full of love and will continue to get love and support which is what any kid needs." John said as I smiled and felt tears at my eyes trying to hold them back. "Here, let me read this paperwork…I've read way too many of these damn reports in my life where I feel like I have my own degree in it." He said as I chuckled as I handed him the paperwork.
"What has been the worst injury you have sustained?" I asked.
"I would have to say when I had pinched nerves and damage to my spine in my neck, I was losing feeling in my hands and they were tingling. I had to get surgery, it wasn't painful per say compared to scary because not being able to feel your arms and hands is a more scary feeling and hard to describe how frightening it could be. I still have the scar from the surgery…" He said as he turned the best he could tugging at the collar of his shirt to see the faded and not so noticeable scar he had on his neck.
"That? You can barely notice that…"
"You can't notice it now but it was very severe." John said.
"I bet…it sounded scary…how often do those things occur?" I asked curiously.
"Less often than you would think…well the more serious ones like that one appear less often than not…" John said as he glanced over at me from looking at the paperwork.
"Do you actually understand what is stated in that paperwork?" I asked.
"Not really…well I understand some of it but a lot of this terminology is throwing me off…why can't they have real terms for these things to make it understandable for the common man?" John asked.
"That'll be too easy." I said chuckling as he handed me the paperwork back.
"True, they always know how to complicate things…" John said as he leant forward on his forearms on his upper thighs as I slowly took another bite of my snack watching my son as he was happily giggling and smiling as he played with Doctor Burke. Soon enough he came running up to us with one of the green weight balls in hand smiling wide showing all the baby teeth he had and he knew that soon he will start losing them.
"John, will you come play?" Joseph asked.
"If it's okay with Doctor Burke." He said as he looked up at the Doctor then to me.
"It's fine with me, if it gets him to do his exercises." Doctor Burke said as I nodded as John wrapped the open part of his wrapper around the contents he hadn't ate yet of his snack before he handed it to me.
"Will you hold these, please?" He asked as I nodded yes as he got up from the chair then grabbed my son at his armpits picking him up along with the green weight ball my son still held in his hands up over his head so my son could sit on his shoulders, I was kind of impressed but I was unsure how much one of those weight balls weighed but it had to weigh light enough if Joseph was able to carry it like it was nothing. I scooted back in my seat glancing over the paperwork that John was trying to read over and trying to understand it, I understood most of it since I have been through this a lot over the years and knew some of the terminology understanding what was to take place but there was some new words and procedures that was to happen that I was unclear of. I figured I would need to do what I usually do when something like this has came up, go through and highlight things I was unclear on to ask when they were to have the pre-op appointment or phone call. I watched as the two men and the lady played and did the exercises that I have seen Joseph do multiple times before, unsure if it truly helped before but I'm sure Doctor Burke is doing the best she could and doing what she knows to help my son, and how am I supposed to know? I never took a physical training medical type class in my life to know what to expect, ask or anything.