“Yes, sir,” he rasps. “But I have to get back out there?—”
“No. What you have to do is take care of yourself, or you won’t be able to play at all before long,” I tell him sternly. “Any numbness or tingling?”
“No, sir.”
“Can you look up at me?”
He reluctantly tilts his head back and cracks his eyes open, and I can see that one of his pupils is larger than the other. I ask him to follow my finger, and his eye movements are jerky and delayed. He also confirms he’s been experiencing tinnitus.
“To be honest, Doc, my ears have been ringing on and off since that last hit I took a few weeks ago,” he admits after a while. “And sometimes things get blurry out of nowhere, but they always clear up later.”
“I appreciate you telling me that, but I’m sorry, man. You probably know these are all symptoms of a serious concussion and that it’s not safe for you to play right now.”
“Yeah,” he says, his eyelids drooping. “I know.”
I sigh. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but I’d really like you to come with me to the hospital to get some more tests done. I think you need a scan of your brain to be sure there’s nothing too serious going on.”
He tries to shake his head but ends up holding it in his hands again. “I don’t want to go to the hospital.”
“Damien,” comes another voice from behind me. “You’re not doing yourself any favors by staying here. You know damned well I’m not letting you play again until you run every possible test and a doctor says it’s safe.”
I turn to glare at JD over my shoulder. “He probably shouldn’t have been playing in the first place.”
“You’re right,” he admits, crossing his arms over his chest. “I should have noticed his symptoms were getting worse. And I should have made sure he got that scan the first time.”
Damien cringes. “That ain’t your fault, Coach. I told you I was better because I had to get back on the field. This is all I have.”
JD crouches down beside me and places a hand on Damien’s back. “Hey, it’s all right to be scared. I know how much you love this. And even though it feels like football is everything right now, it won’t always be that way. We have to put your health and safety first. Not to mention, your teammates are watching you. If it were any of them in the same position, you’d want them to take care of themselves, right?” Damien lets out a loud exhale but doesn’t answer him. “As hard as this is, I need you to be a leader right now.”
“Come on, Deculus,” Blake adds, reaching in and taking Damien’s helmet. “I’d tell you we don’t have to turn on the siren or the lights, but you’re probably into that sort of thing.”
Damien smirks. “Think the ER nurses will be hot?”
“You can always pretend it’s the concussion if you try to rizz them up and it doesn’t work,” JD offers, and Damien laughs softly and stands.
“All right. I’ll go. But only if Doc rides with me and tells them what kind of tests to run.”
I furrow my brow. “I can’t tell the ER doctor what to do, but I can give him my recommendations.”
Damien nods, and another kid helps him out of his pads. JD tells him they’ll call his grandma to meet us at the ER, and the rest of his teammates come up to pat him reassuringly on the shoulder as we walk toward the ambulance parked on the other end of the field.
“Hang on a second. I’ll be right back,” I say before I jog over to the bleachers. Daisy’s already descending the steps to meet me at the railing.
“Hey, sorry about this. It looks like I’m taking one of the kids to the ER, but I’ll be back later,” I tell her.
She smiles. “Damien Deculus?”
I nod. “Is he one of your students?”
Something brief flashes in her expression, but she covers it up quickly. “Yes. I hope he’s okay?”
“He just needs some tests for now. Will you be all right here?”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll hang out with Tenley and her mom or something until you get back.”
I hesitate for a second. “Sorry I?—”
“Landry, go,” she says, shaking her head. “I’ll be fine.”
