“Mama,” Mitch breathed.
“Mitchell!” She yelled in his ear, loud enough that he had to pull the phone away for a moment. “Oh my gosh, I’ve been so worried about you. What’s going on? What happened? That hit was horrible. The refs immediately kicked that little shit off the ice. Gabe looked ready to take his head off. I hope he gets suspended for a good long while.”
Mitch smiled, instantly relaxing. While their move from Georgia to Ann Arbor when Mitch was fifteen hadn’t allowed his own accent to root too deeply in his speech—he still had a slight twang and was partial to the word y’all—his mother was all Georgia peach, her twang even more evident when she was upset.
No joke, his grandparents had literally named her Georgia.
“I’m okay, Mama,” he said when she finished prattling on about player safety.
“What’s the prognosis?” She asked.
“I’m not sure yet…” he trailed off, unsure of whether or not he should tell her just how bad he suspected his injury was.
He should’ve known she’d hear something wrong in his voice because she said, “Mitchell Devan Frambough, you tell me what’s going on right this instant.”
“Before they brought me to the hospital, they ran a few field tests on me,” he said. “I…I can’t feel anything below my waist.”
“Paralyzed?” She wailed. “Oh my lord, my baby is paralyzed. Keith, c’mere. It’s Mitch on the phone and he says he’s paralyzed!”
Mitch could hear his stepfather’s soothing murmurs in the background, talking his mother off the ledge from which she was about to throw herself.
“Mama!” Mitch said loudly, attempting to be heard over her frantic prayers.
“Yes?” She said quietly. The silence on the other end of the line following that word was near deafening after the chaos of the first few minutes of this phone call.
“I’m okay,” he said. “I’m alive. I will walk again. Try not to worry too much.”
“Boy,” she said, exasperated. “Telling a mother not to worry is like telling a pig not to enjoy rolling around in shit.”
Mitch boomed out a laugh, his spirits lifting.
“I love you, Mama,” he said.
“I love you, too, baby,” she replied.
A sharp knock came at the door to his room, and he said, “Sorry, I think the doctor is here. I’ll call you later, once I have my own phone back, and let you know what he says.”
He ended the call with his mother just as the doctor strolled in.
He was a younger guy, probably not much older than Mitch, with wavy brown hair starting to go grey at the temples. “Mitch,” he said, stepping forward and extending his hand. “James Rogers.”
Mitch shook his hand, impressed by the strong grip. Then again, if this man was a surgeon, maybe it shouldn’t be all that surprising.
“So I’m just going to cut to the chase here, Mitch,” Dr. Rogers said. “There’s some good news and some potentially bad news.”
“Start with the bad news,” Mitch said.
“Bad news is you suffered a vertebral fracture in your L2, which in turn put pressure on your spinal cord, explaining the loss of feeling in your lower extremities.”
Mitch nodded, having already figured this was the case. “So what’s the good news then?”
Dr. Rogers walked over to a screen and computer setup along the far wall and tapped the keyboard a few times. A moment later, several images popped up, showing Mitch’s spine exactly as it was at the moment.
He had to admit, that break looked nasty.
“The good news is that the area is currently suffering from a lot of swelling. Think of it as your body’s way of protecting your vertebrae and spinal cord. I can’t give you a definite prognosis at the moment, but based on the clean break of your L2 and the fact that you’re in peak physical shape, I would say your chances of regaining feeling in your legs are very high once the swelling goes down.”
“And skating? Will I be able to do that again?”
