Dyslexic Heart

Chapter One

I walked into work flustered. I slept through my alarm and woke up 15 minutes before I had to be at the clinic for my mandatory hours. I walked into my office, practically throwing my things on the desk, grabbed my lab coat and bolted toward the clinic. Once I stepped foot in the door my head jolted towards the clock. 10:32. Damn it, so close.

I walked up to the nurse and asked for my first patient. She handed me a chart and I opened it, examining the details behind Mr. Troy's runny nose and soar throat, I let out a sigh as I turned around and said, "Mr. Troy? Exam Room 1."

I walked to the exam room as a large man followed me. I told him to sit down and tell me what was bothering him, he said he had a runny nose and soar throat and couldn't shake it, even with drugs. I examined his throat and ears and found them to be fairly normal, he just had a cold. I pretended to look interested and prescribed him some cough medicine and told him to rest.

If this was what my day was going to be like then I shouldn't have come in at all...

As soon as Mr. Troy walked out I was greeted by a friendly face, Dr. Wilson.
"Dr. King." He said with a smile.
"Dr. Wilson." I said back.

Wilson was my boss, he was the head of the oncology department and I was also an oncologist. We had worked together for about 6 months before we actually started hanging out, and honestly, I had developed a little bit of a crush on him.

"Hey, I need you for a consult, patient wants a second opinion, you got a spare minute?" Wilson asked, giving a little puppy dog look, God I loved his eyes.

"Sure!" I responded, "anything to get me out of this place!" He laughed and gestured for me to follow him.

"Were you late this morning?" He asked. How did he know that?

"Yeah? How did you know?" He smiled.

"That blouse, you wore it two days ago." I looked down and saw the purple blouse I grabbed off the floor of my room while I was rushing out the door.

I blushed and looked back up at him. "Oh. Well I wasn't really paying attention when I grabbed it this morning."

"It's ok," he said, "that color looks good on you." I looked up at him to see him look away and smile. I blushed and continued walking to the elevator with him.

Once we were in the elevator we both got quiet. He pressed the button for the fourth floor and straightened back up. I shuffled a little closer to him so that our hands "accidentally" brushed against each other. I played it off like it was nothing, but out of the corner of my eye I was sure I saw him smiling.

"So, what have we got?"
"35 year-old woman presented with pain in her left thigh. Clinic doctor prescribed pain meds and the patient came back a week later still complaining of leg pain. The clinic doctor gave her an MRI and they found a stage IIA tumor on her femur. Surgery could remove the tumor and chemo would take care of everything else."

The elevator doors opened and we started to walk towards the patient's room.

"Sounds like a pretty straight forward diagnosis, why the second opinion?" I asked, taking the chart to examine it.

"She doesn't want the surgery. There's a chance that the muscle around the tumor could be compromised. She's a runner, she doesn't want to risk losing her leg function."

I took out the MRI scans from the envelope and looked at them. Clean margins on the tumor showed it could be a clean removal, but there is always a risk.

"So you basically want me to tell her the same thing you told her." I smirked at him.

He smiled, "I just want to know your opinion." I looked at the chart one more time and confirmed both mine and Wilson's diagnosis.

"I'll go tell her." I said, this was the part I hated.

"I'll come with you." Wilson said, I turned and headed towards the patient's room with Wilson following.