Hey look at me, actually updating at a decent hour for a change!
So who else celebrated CK's birthday (Hence the new story cover)'cause I know I'm not the only one, I had his music going until long after people started threatening bodily harm (to their defense they put up with it until mid afternoon on day three) which gave me some major ideas for this of course- bet you find a good many of his lyrics scattered about... but yeah back to the point I've yet to start.
The next couple of chapters pretty much revolve around the world of medicine which I know absolutely squat about so sorry in advance but I'm sure there will be errors. I believe I've researched enough to make it probable if not believable but that's as far as I'm going, this is solely for fun (if not for my unhealthy obsession) and I'm hoping you keep it that way by suspending your disbelief and remembering it's simply my humble piece of fiction.
Chapter Forty-Nine
"I want a double shower."
"What?" Nate barely spoke as he put down the magazine he had been looking through.
"A double shower. When we get our place I want a double shower." The home and garden book
Nate had been looking through put the idea in Eliot's head as they waited to be called back.
"What for?" It only took a second for Nate to catch up with Eliot's line of thought.
"Because you always end up in mine." He made sure his voice was low enough so only Nate could hear.
"You never complained before." Nate whispered back.
"A double is built specifically for two Nate."
He should probably be ashamed of how long it took him to get Eliot's meaning but finally he did with an, "Oh!"
"That and I might actually get to shower." He could honestly say he now
understood what a woman meant when she said she just wanted to wash her hair.
"What else do you want?" Talking about their place would be better time spent than the stale golf magazine sitting there.
"Nothing really, what else is there?"
"A team free zone." It seemed like they gravitated around him.
"Good luck with that." Those three respecting boundaries and privacy was an absolute laugh.
"Well are we going to look at flats, or condos, or…?"
He could hear what Nate was hinting at but didn't quite say. "You'd have to settle if we got a house."
"And who says I can't?" Eliot's point was valid.
Houses didn't make easy burn places and they had needed that quick get-away a few different times already.
"I'm sure you can but I won't." He saw the clear why on Nate's face so he answered it.
"I'm not ready for all of that; right now I'm itching to go not to stop."
"And I'm not asking you to but there's a difference between settling and stopping."
"Start every day like it's your last and end it like it's your first. You follow them two rules and you might break your back but no one will ever be able to break your spirit." Hopefully Nate understood that because he didn't know how else to explain it.
"But in a few years?"
With a knowing nod Eliot added, "When we're all old and useless."
Nate cracked a smile at how much meaning those words had picked up in such a short while.
They were now their own personal joke. "You don't have any places that would work for us right now though so we don't have to go looking immediately?" How many meanings Eliot's words had he wasn't sure but he took the most literal, they'd take it day by day.
Even so they still needed a place to stay.
"Not up east." The only place he could be linked to anywhere even remotely close to Boston was the apartment he kept.
"Who says it has to be up east?"
"Oh n-"
"Spencer Elliott!"
His 'name' being called had him stopping with the thought and offering, "That's something to talk about later, A LOT later."
"Not really." Nate denied as he and Eliot stood.
The only reason any of that group was in Massachusetts was because of
him and he was sure that if he chose to switch states the flock would surely follow.
"Spencer Elliott!"
"Impatient much" Nate huffed and Eliot hummed his agreement as they moved toward the door.
"Ma'am"
"Have a seat in room four and someone will be with you shortly."
She barely pointed to the room she was referring before quickly disappearing.
"Southern hospitality at its best." Nate snarked as they moved to room four.
"Don't blame the south for her not bein' able to do her job." He had dealt with plenty of
cranks and crabs over the last few months but never had he been simply abandoned in a hallway.
"Alright" Nate stood by the wall as Eliot took the seat in the corner,
rarely if ever would he sit on the exam table, and asked, "Than who do I blame?"
"And how should I know?" There were a million and one reasons
why a person could be or act the way they did at any time in a given day.
"I don't know, I thought maybe it might be distinctive." Nate joked as he tried to keep the conversation light.
That way if later on that night Eliot forgot about any of these words being spoken,
which was highly likely as of lately, the disappointment wouldn't be so great.
"Shut up" Eliot deflected the teasing jab.
"Now that is distinctive" He could read that tone like a book.
"So are you" Eliot remarked as he stared nearly into Nate. "You're hiding something."
"No I'm not." Nate assured as he tried to figure out if Eliot seemed more intrigued or suspicious.
"No… there's something there." Of that he was positive.
"Really there isn't, unless you're counting me having no back bone when it comes to your sister."
He didn't believe it but Eliot decided to move on to the newly revealed. "Why is that?"
"She asked us to church tomorrow and I told her no but she's a persuasive little…" a growl filled in that thought. "Anyway long story short we're to be there by 8:15 unless you know how to talk her out of it."
That was a laugh.
"I could tell her I was dying and she'd simply say 'There's no better place to go'."
His sister was just that side of it. "Like it or not Nate you're stuck."
"That's what I thought." Aaron was definitely the calm and collected
one of these three which, judging by what Eliot had told him, wasn't saying all too much.
"Mr. Elliott" Came a knock on the door, soon followed by a tall red head's entrance. "I'm Dr. Granacher."
"Pleasure to meet you ma'am." She seemed a bit off centered by his greeting
but he couldn't help it, the manners were burned into him about as deep as the brand on cattle.
"Seeing as you just dropped off your medical records today I don't exactly have a working chart for you
so why don't you tell me a bit about how you got here." From her coat she pulled a pad and pen that was soon at the ready.
"I was diagnosed with Lyme." Eliot summed figuring she should know that since it was where her specialties lie.
"That I've gathered, but a little something to know about me is I won't start any kind of treatment course until I've come to that conclusion myself. As I'm sure you know Lyme is easily mistaken for plenty of things but in the same sense plenty of things can be easily mistaken for Lyme, so let's get back to the beginning."
"Well than we're going back to April." Eliot spoke; not too happy with having to revisit the last four months.
"And how are you sure that it started in April?" She asked absently as she marked down his words.
"Because on Easter night I was hit by a car." He hated telling people that.
It was completely humiliating and a rip off of some bad movies' story line.
"And before that you weren't experiencing any bad feelings or ill effects?"
It was the first time he had been asked that question and he took his time in thinking about it. "No… no I felt fine."
"Alrighty than, back to the car." The way she was questioning Eliot reminded Nate of an eager journalist.
"I hit my head on the way down and I believe they told me I was out for twenty some hours." He didn't remember much of that night at all and barely nothing after he got down from the truck.
"He nearly fell into a coma." Nate threw in for good measure.
"I'm going to need a list of those injuries." She informed for she didn't know if they had submitted one.
"Give me the time and I'll tell you." Nate spoke as he looked to Eliot.
He'd be like a chart because he still saw those injuries when the guilt got to be too much.
"It's yours." She really wasn't all that surprised with him claiming to know all
of this information since nearly all of her patients were dedicated to their medical histories.
"On his right hand he broke the middle, ring, and index fingers and dislocated his thumb. He dislocated his right shoulder and suffered from a deeply bruised collar bone. His rib cage was bruised and he did crack a rib though I wouldn't be able to tell you exactly which one at the moment. The left wrist was sprained and took enough damage to need seven stitches. He also broke his foot which received a minor surgery to repair a torn ligament and has lost variations of feeling in three of his toes." Nate stopped not because he was anywhere close to finished but because he wanted to make sure she had caught everything so far.
"Have you done any physical therapy for that?"
Everything except for maybe the toes sounded pure cause to effect and that's why she made a side note about them.
"I got my boot removed in June and started my first session a few days
later but it was the only one I went to." That night his knee had nearly doubled its size.
"And why is that?" She hoped the reason was valid because skipping out on his PT had only hurt him in the long run.
He knew Eliot wouldn't say it, not with his pride, but he would.
"He couldn't get out of bed… and the last two months have pretty much been variations of that same story."
"Tell me about that. What isn't directly related to your accident? Did you start feeling better
before you got worse or did all of these symptoms show immediately?" If you asked her time lines were the best course to treatment.
"No, it was a build." Eliot answered; somehow feeling like the question was different than the other times he'd been asked it.
"Nothing seemed out of the ordinary to me other than my knee."
"What happened to your knee?" She was looking between the joints but of course saw nothing past the jeans he wore.
"I was hit on my right side where a piece of metal from the car was left embedded in my thigh.
I had surgery to remove that and the closest I've come to figure is a nerve got messed up or something along the way."
"Is it still bothering you?" Eliot nodded and she continued, "and nothing's been done for it?"
"I've tried ice and heat, I've kept it propped, and I've had it wrapped but with all my tests coming back clear I've been told nothing really can be done for it."
"They think it's in his head." Nate supplied.
Despite the swelling that was always there to some extent and the bruising that was appearing anew they said he was fine.
"Lyme patients get used to being told that early on." Catharine nodded in understanding.
Many of her patients had been told the same, if not it had been they were simply depressed.
"That's nice to know." Eliot sighed out in frustration.
"So tell me about when you started to figure out that this was more than just the after effects of being hit by a car."
"In May I ended up back in the hospital with a kidney infection and that's when everyone kind of had it figured."
Nate nodded at that. "It was memory loss and headaches, vomiting and back aches that all led up to a seizure last month.
That's when I got my diagnosis and my PICC line."
"Why was the PICC line inserted?" She asked as she leaned back on the counter.
"Because I can't take antibiotics orally, I can't take anything really." It was pretty pathetic but currently that was him.
"Why?"
"He's always vomiting. Most days he barely keeps water down." Nate explained.
Eliot's throat had been taking so much punishment that his voice and tone had gone down deeper, even picking up a bit of gravel.
"Have you had any kind of tests done on your digestive system?" Now that was suspicious to her.
Medication irritated the stomach sure but he was speaking of something that was obviously more.
"No" It hadn't even occurred to him that he probably should have.
"Well we're going to change that." Catharine near promised as she opened the door, "Follow me."
Eliot looked to the door she had just walked out of than to Nate, who apparently
decided he wasn't moving, before he stood and did what he was told. "Step on the scale please."
"You want me to take the boots off?" Some places didn't care but others were absolute sticklers.
"You can leave them." With that he stepped on the scale, watching patiently as she fiddled with the weight. "Alright… you can go back to the room." She stopped at a supplies closet while he went straight back.
"That Hardison?" Eliot questioned as he sat back in his chair.
"David's on the move." Nate offered as he slipped his phone back in his pocket.
"So what are you going to do about it?"
"We're following for now."
"He would have gone down yesterday if you had a hitter." His team had no back up, no cavalry to call, and he felt like a loser for it.
"And he'll fall just as hard tomorrow so don't worry about it."
He understood Eliot was feeling useless and he was doing his best to sympathize.
"Mr. Elliott if I told you you weighed 132 pounds what would you tell me?" Catharine asked as she walked through the opened doorway.
"Maybe back in seventh grade." A little inaccurate but it got his point across.
"And if I asked you how much weight you've dropped according to that number?"
His frame was larger so she could tell his normal weight would be on the higher end of the scale.
"Probably about fifty pounds, maybe a little more." It was the first time he was
stopping and actually thinking about this weight loss with more than an 'I dropped a few pounds' attitude.
"Is that how much he weighs?" Just by looking at him you could tell
he was too skinny but Nate wanted to know what was up with her, 'What Ifs?'.
"That's with his boots on which are probably three or four pounds themselves."
She wanted them to understand the gravity of the situation. She had a teenage girl at home that weighed more than him. "A number like that isn't acceptable to me so I'm going to order an ultra sound of your stomach and see if we can't find out what's going on."
"Are you saying it isn't Lyme related?"
The look in his eye was set, it was firm, but behind that she'd swear there was the tiniest plea. "Lyme hides Mr. Elliott.
It mimics, copies, and outright lies to the body. That's where I come in. If you truly have Lyme I've got to figure out what damage it's done and if there are any partners in crime. If you don't I'm still right here and we'll still get to the bottom of this."
"So what are we doing?" Nate asked Eliot but listened none the less when Dr. Granacher answered.
"We'll draw some blood, get a urine analysis, and get that ultra sound done first. Than depending on the results we'll go from there."
"You didn't really answer my question though." Eliot spoke in a seriously somber tone.
"It really isn't one I can answer just yet.
Each case of Lyme is different and I can't just rule you out because one thing seems off.
In the same sense I wouldn't rule you in because of only one thing that fit perfectly." She didn't believe in giving false hope.
She'd stick with honesty because it brought two sure fire things with it; respect and results.
"How many times have you seen this?" Still Eliot pushed for answers.
"How many of your Lyme patients have these kind of stomach troubles?"
He wanted to hear that he wasn't alone but she wasn't saying it.
"How many of them sit in front of food and feel like they're being teased?
Have their stomachs begging them to eat while their brain taunts that they'd be better off drinking bathroom cleaner? How many?"
"Those aren't the typical types of symptoms reported back to me."
His frustration was completely understandable but as of the moment there was nothing she could do with it.
"Thank you for your time." And before Nate knew it Eliot was off the chair and out the door.
"I'm…" He didn't even know what to say for how stunned he was at Eliot's actions.
Four months of doctors and hospitals and Eliot had never just gotten up and walked out.
"That's alright, I'll get you those scripts just in case he changes his mind."
"Thanks"
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"Eliot" Nate let his presence be known as he walked up to where Eliot was propped on the side of the car. "What's up?"
There was no answer just the deep breaths of a clearly angered man. "Talk to me."
"Rrrgh" Eliot's answer was to kick the tire in front of him with something close to rage.
"Hey now!" Nate warned as he grabbed Eliot's arm and pulled him over by a tree.
The last thing they needed was him damaging newly heeled bones. "Are you going to tell me what's wrong?"
"What's wrong?" Eliot huffed a laugh as he leaned against the tree. "Nothing Nate, everything's just… perfect!"
"Flattery will get you nowhere." Nate threw in some sarcasm of his own.
"Listen," he doubted Eliot would but still he'd try. "I know this is hard but-"
"No you don't!" He didn't want the sympathy. "You don't know!"
"Alright, than you tell me… tell me what I don't know."
He wouldn't let Eliot feel sorry for himself because they honestly didn't have time for it.
"I'm sick and tired and I'm tired of waking up sick and tired! These damn doctors are making so many circles that I don't even know what to believe anymore! You heard her Nate! Just as well as I did, she all but said it wasn't Lyme and she specializes in the shit! So does that make Torlyn a flake?" Take it as it came was a good motto but he hadn't exactly planned for the day that he could no longer take it. "Do I drop him and go by her word? Do I trust that she knows any more than he does?"
"You're right, I don't know…" Nate actually found himself agreeing.
Eliot had kept the 'I'm doing it because it's what I gotta do' attitude since this whole thing began and it was about time he let out those emotions that had to be eating him. "but I do know you and I know we'll get through this."
"What if it really isn't Lyme?" He could feel the pressure building in his leg
so he decided to drop down before it could go out on him. "I don't want to go back to the beginning."
Nate sunk down next to him as he tried to find the right words.
He didn't know how you comforted someone that had become their own worst enemy.
Eliot was right that he didn't know what it felt like to be betrayed by your own body, no one could know how
that felt unless they were going through it themselves. "You just remember that for every beginning there is an end."
"Well I'm at that end now 'cause this ain't no way to live."
Call him a quitter if you'd like but he was smart enough to know when to admit defeat.
"Eliot don't you start talking like that on me.
So what if it took a few tries, we're finally getting somewhere!
I promise we're going to figure this out, just don't give up on me."
"I'm done. I'm getting this damn line removed and that's it, I'm not going back."
He stood with an expected dizziness, finding himself some leverage on the tree to wait it out.
"I can't believe you!" Nate was up and pacing with frustration of his own. "I've been fighting my ass off
for you but obviously you're not the man I thought you were because he'd be willing to fight for that too!"
"Don't you dare use her words on me!" He didn't care if Nate knew what he meant or not.
The last thing he needed was memories of that night floating through his head. "I'm done. I'd rather starve
to death than continue being slowly killed by a bunch of quacks that can't seem to find their way out of a paper sack."
"So we'll find new ones! I don't care if I have to buy an entire damn medical staff; you're not giving up on me!
I'll hold your head up for you if I have to! I did it on a dirty street when it was covered in blood, I did it when you nearly drowned in your own vomit, I did it during a damn seizure, and if I have to I can sure as hell do it now! Even if I have to drag your ass there you're going!" Let Eliot be pissed if he wanted, he'd prefer an angry Eliot over a dead one any day.
Nate's eyes were daring but honestly he couldn't care. "Take me home."