Page 52 of Slew Foot (Scoring Chances #3)

The following day, Dr. Pope gestured for him to step into his office. “Mickey, I’d like you to meet my colleague. Dr. Gus Browning. He’s a pediatric ear, nose, and throat doctor.”

Mickey frowned, but he reached out and shook his hand anyway.

“You’re probably confused why he’s here,” Dr. Pope said.

“Uhh, yes,” Mickey admitted. “I mean, pediatrics is for kids, right?”

“It is,” Dr. Browning said with a laugh.

“Gus and I were college roommates,” Dr. Pope said with a smile. “He was visiting Boston for a conference this week and we met up for dinner last night. We were talking about frustrating cases—obliquely, of course, with no identifying details—and yours came up, Mickey.”

“Okay,” he said slowly.

Dr. Pope had texted him this morning asking if he had permission to share his details with a colleague who might be able to help, and Mickey had been happy to let him. The ear, nose, and throat specialist part made sense, but he still couldn’t figure out what a pediatrician had to do with anything.

“I’ve been puzzling this over for weeks. Something about your concussion hasn’t been sitting right with me. It can be a very tricky injury. The symptoms vary and it isn’t always easily diagnosable with imaging. But my gut was telling me maybe there was another underlying cause of your symptoms.”

“Sure,” Mickey said because what else was he supposed to say? He kinda wished Dr. Pope would get to the fucking point but, well, he couldn’t exactly say that aloud without being rude.

Maybe Dr. Pope could tell he was short on patience though because he said, “The reason I brought Gus by is because he was talking about an unusual virus he dealt with in Connecticut this winter. It had a striking similarity to the one that went through the team around the same time. And, unlike most viruses, this one hit older teens and young adults hardest rather than the very young and very old in the population, which is more typical.”

Mickey frowned again.

“And, most importantly, it left a handful of his patients with labyrinthitis, an infection in the part of the inner ear that controls hearing and balance, which leads to vertigo and tinnitus .”

Blinking, Mickey suddenly felt dizzy for entirely different reasons. “Wait,” he said, wanting to be sure he understood before he got his hopes up. “Does that mean …”

“Yes,” Dr. Pope said when he didn’t finish. “It means there’s a possibility you aren’t dealing with a concussion.”

“So that means there’s a chance to treat it, right?” he asked, suddenly hopeful.

“Yes, exactly.”

Mickey frowned. “Why wasn’t it caught on all of the tests I had?”

“Well,” Dr. Browning said. “That’s one of the reasons I’m here. With your permission, I’d like to review your scans.”

“Yeah, of course.” At this point, Mickey would happily show the whole damn world his scans if it meant there was a chance they could fix this.

Dr. Pope lifted a large tablet on his desk, typed in something, then handed it over.

Dr. Browning put on a pair of glasses, then examined the screen. He was silent for so long Mickey felt like he would jump out of his skin waiting.

“Well,” he said when he finally spoke. “I’m afraid these are inconclusive.”

Mickey’s mood plummeted. He was convinced that was the worst word in the English language. And that was saying something.

“But,” he continued. “I do see a faint indication of some inflammation along the inner ear.”

“What does that mean?” Mickey asked, tamping down on the hope trying to rise in him again. He’d give himself whiplash at this rate.

“It means we need to do more testing,” Dr. Browning answered.

“I won’t be able to tell without a different view of your skull.

Unless I see inflammation around the vestibular duct and vestibulocochlear nerve, I can’t officially diagnose you with labyrinthitis but I’m not able to get a good enough view of the area from the scans that were done.

But what I do see is an encouraging sign we’re on the right track. ”

“So how did this happen, exactly?” Mickey asked, still a little confused. “I’m not sure I understand.”

“The virus you had probably traveled through your sinuses and ended up in your inner ear. Your body was able to fight off most of the infection, but it’s lingering in the labyrinth area there.”

“But why me ?” Mickey asked. “I mean, Rafe was so much sicker than I was. He had a terrible fever.”

“Well, the fever probably helped clear the remnants of the virus out more thoroughly. That is, unfortunately one of the quirks of the human body,” Dr. Browning said, taking his glasses off, his eyes twinkling.

“They all react differently and some people—even otherwise very healthy ones—aren’t able to fight certain germs off as effectively, while others are very efficient at it. ”

“Like Tanner,” Mickey said with a roll of his eyes. “He barely got sick at all.”

“Well, that’s the interesting part of this.

It’s quite possible—quite likely, even—that this particular virus strain has been around before now,” Dr. Browning said.

“There’s some history showing similar symptoms in the north-east region of the United States about ten or fifteen years ago.

I won’t bore you with epidemiological data on it, but it’s quite fascinating. ”

Mickey didn’t have a clue what that even was, but he nodded.

“What it means is that people who grew up in this area have a small amount of natural immunity built up from their previous exposure,” Dr. Pope said. “Which could be why the local guys had very mild symptoms, whereas you and several of the other European players had more serious cases.”

“And Rafe is from Canada,” Mickey said slowly.

“Yes. It’s possible he didn’t get exposed to this exact strain of the virus then either, if it mutated before it reached the area where he lived at the time.”

“Essentially, you got unlucky , Mickey,” Dr. Pope said. “And I do want to apologize for not catching this sooner.”

Mickey shrugged. Honestly, it seemed like it must be pretty hard to diagnose if it took an ear nose and throat doctor to do it and he couldn’t even manage that from the images they already had.

“I am not sure if you’re familiar with it, but there’s a medical saying that goes, when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.”

“I don’t know it but I think it makes sense,” Mickey said slowly. “It means you go for the obvious answer, not the rare one, right?”

“Exactly. You were involved in an on-ice collision which led to you hitting your head against the boards. The obvious answer was …”

“Concussion,” Mickey said. “Not the inner ear thing.”

“Yes. In 99% of cases, the answer is head trauma, not a lingering ear infection. The worsening of symptoms on the plane kept sticking with me though. And when I went through your chart yesterday, I saw you had mentioned a headache and some discomfort on the flight to Minneapolis, before the hit from Logan Walker ever happened. I met with Gus here last night and the pieces finally came together. I am sorry it was missed initially though.”

Mickey appreciated that, but he wasn’t going to dwell on what had been missed in the past. All he cared about was what was happening now. What the future might look like.

“So what’s the plan?” he asked.

“Well,” Dr. Pope said, straightening. “I think I can get you in for testing tomorrow. After we’ve confirmed the results, we’ll get you started on a round of steroids and antihistamines, which should help reduce the inflammation.”

“No antibiotics?” Mickey asked.

“No, those aren’t useful against viruses,” Dr. Browning said. “And there are no anti-virals appropriate for this, not at this late stage, anyway. If we’d caught this early on in the infection, that would have been a different story.”

“How long before I’m on the ice?” Mickey asked.

“I told you that would be one of the first questions he asked, Gus,” Dr. Pope said, glancing at his colleague with a smile.

He looked back at Mickey. “Truthfully, we don’t know.

The hope is, you’ll start feeling some relief in a few days.

It could take a week or two to clear up completely, and you know the drill when it comes to your fitness.

You’ll probably go down to Concord on a conditioning stint, to get you back in playing shape, but Gavin will go through everything with you. ”

Mickey opened his mouth to say how relieved he was, that this was good news, but Dr. Pope held up a hand. His voice was very gentle when he spoke. “There is a chance, however, that this damage to your inner ear could be permanent. We’ll have to wait and see.”

And Mickey’s heart, which had felt so light seconds before, plummeted to the ground.

“You’re looking great, guys!” Thad said, giving Rafe and the others a thumbs-up from behind his camera. “One more change of wardrobe and we’ll be done.”

Rafe grinned. He was having so much fun modeling the team gear.

He kept getting praised for his ability to follow direction and stay still.

Jesse was having a great time with it and Tanner kept getting yelled at for being too fidgety and cracking nonstop jokes, but he let the criticism flow right off him and seemed to be having a blast anyway.

It was painfully obvious Graham was not enjoying any of it. He’d been quiet all afternoon and although he did everything they were told to do, Thad kept having to remind him to smile.

“Look, Graham, you’ve got the bitchy, pouty model look down pat and if that’s what we were going for, you’d have nailed it,” Thad had called out. “But you’re supposed to either look tough or happy. Remember, this isn’t a high fashion shoot. It’s a marketing campaign for hockey merch.”

Graham had flashed him a tight, fake-looking smile that had made Thad sigh and roll his eyes. During the last wardrobe change, Rafe had sidled over to Graham to ask if he was doing okay but he’d blown him off.

Which wasn’t like Graham at all .