Page 329 of The Doctors Will See You Now

“Hmm…a head injury? That feels oddly familiar…” he teased, and I nudged him with my elbow.

“Shut up,” I muttered, and he chuckled as we headed toward Josie in Bay Six.

Scott winked as he pulled the curtain back to reveal an adorable little girl with a big white bandage taped across her entire forehead. She sat on the exam table with her legs swinging back and forth while her mother stood beside her.

“Hi, Josie,” Scott greeted. “I’m Dr. Shepard, and this is Ms. Paige. It looks like someone took a little fall today, huh?

“Yep.” She nodded, and her blond curls bounced with the motion. “Out of a tree in my backyard.”

“It’s a big tree, but she didn’t get very high,” her mother chimed in. “One I told her not to climb, by the way,” she added with a disappointed glance in her daughter’s direction.

Josie frowned. “But Joey did it first!”

Her mother sighed. “Yes, but you’re five and he’s ten. That’s a big difference, sweetheart. You’re too little to climb that tree.”

“Ugh,” she muttered and looked at me. “My brother always gets to do everything. It stinks.”

I grinned. “Yeah, but one day you’ll be ten too. And then your mom might let you climb trees like your brother.”

Josie’s blue eyes brightened. “And then maybe I won’t get a cut on my head, huh?”

“Exactly,” Scott said as he slipped on exam gloves. “Okay, Josie, I need to make sure you didn’t injure anything else besides your head, okay?”

She nodded. “Okay.”

While he did a quick assessment of the patient, I donned a pair of gloves and got the supplies ready to clean the wound. I was surprised and a bit relieved how quickly everything I’d learned in college was coming back to me. It was like it was yesterday that I was taking pre-med classes and doing short internships at various hospitals in the city.

“Can I remove the bandage so Ms. Paige and I can see the cut, Josie?” Scott asked once he had finished his assessment.

She nodded slowly, but I didn’t miss the hesitancy in her response. I couldn’t blame her. Head injuries weren’t any fun at twenty-nine; I couldn’t imagine how scary they were at five. Fucking Barron the Bore and the Case of the Glass Headboard taught me that.

“You know,” I mused as Scott winked at me and slowly, carefully, removed the bandage. “I once got a cut on my forehead.”

Josie’s curious eyes met mine. “You did?”

“Yep.” I nodded. “Dr. Shepard had to give me stitches.”

“Did it hurt?”

“Nope,” I answered honestly. “Thanks to the numbing medicine he’d applied, I didn’t feel anything at all. Cool, huh?”

Once the bandage was off, both of us took a good look at the gash on her forehead. It was small and, thankfully, most of the bleeding had already stopped.

Scott turned to me. “What do you think, Ms. Paige?”

“I don’t think Josie is going to need stitches.”

“Me either,” he agreed with a smile.

“I’m not?” the little patient questioned excitedly. “I’m not going to need stitches?”

“Nope,” Scott said and tugged gently on one of her ringlets. “Looks like you lucked out, little lady. We just need to clean up the cut really, really good so it doesn’t get an infection and put a new bandage on it to protect it.”

“Oh, thank God,” her mother said on a relieved sigh. “I wasn’t sure, and I know I probably could have just taken her to her pediatrician, but I panicked when I saw all the blood.”

Scott nodded his understanding. “We’re glad you brought her in today,” he reassured. “Head injuries tend to bleed more than most, and since she’s so young, it’s always better to err on the side of caution.”

“Thank you,” she responded and looked at both of us. “You made this trip to the ER a lot easier than I thought it would be. You’re both fantastic.”