Sticks & Spirals

I spent two weeks in a Moscow hospital, in and out of consciousness. The pain in my right leg was so overwhelming that drugs didn’t help, and the pain would just knock me out again.
There was no way to get me home in the first two weeks, because my bloop pressure kept dropping. According to Andrew, it was as if my body understood the severity of the injury I sustained, and didn’t know what to do because the pain was so immense.
By the time that we were finally allowed to fly home to Chicago, none of us knew what was wrong with my leg, except for the obvious patella dislocation and tib/fib fracture that separated from the femur. The doctors in Russia weren’t allowed to operate either... because none of us spoke Russian and none of them spoke English.
I had to be knocked out via drugs for the flight. The length would kill me otherwise.
Brent, Kris, Adam, Rhyne, Traci, and obviously my family stayed with me the whole time. The two weeks I was stuck in Moscow and the flight home, they never left my side. However, I can’t exactly confirm that, since I was not in the conscious world most of the time.
Once we were off the private jet that got us back to Chicago as fast as possible, an ambulance awaited for us on the runway to escort me to the hospital. But there was a conflict of who will travel with me, since only one of the nine people could come with in the ambulance.
“You go, Brent,” I was told my mother said.
And he did, not that I remember or anything.
After many tests, x-rays, MRI’s, and the such, most of which I, again, don’t remember ever having done, the prognosis was given when I was finally, mostly, coherent, and under so many pain medications that I couldn’t focus properly. But I could hear.
“You already knew about the tib/fib fracture and the patella dislocation, correct?” The doctor, who I later learned was named Dr. Karst.
“Yes,” my mother said as she squeezed my hand. I tried to will myself to squeeze back, but I was just so blah that I couldn’t.
“Alright, then I shall continue with the rest of the damage done.”
“How much damage, first of all?” I heard Brent say from somewhere in the hospital room.
The doctor hesitated. “She won’t be able to skate again.”
There was a dead silence in the room, and I forced my eyes to focus on the doctor. “Never?” I croaked out.
He looked at me. “Besides just a light skating, where your skates stay on the ice and not too fast, I’m sorry, Miss. Ladd, but you will have trouble walking, let alone competing. I’m so sorry.”
Tears swelled up in my eyes as I looked to the ceiling.
I’ll never skate again... never. Everything I’ve worked so hard for, everything that my life has been about since I was 5 years old, is gone. My dreams, crushed. The Olympics are not in my future.
“Anna, baby, I’m so sorry,” my mother whispered, stroking my hand with her thumb. “I’m so sorry honey.”
Andrew was suddenly on my other side, my hand in his. “What about the rest of the damage in her knee?” my cousin asked, his voice strained.
Dr. Karst looked between all of us. “All four ligaments are completely torn, as well as the meniscus. She will require extensive surgery to repair the ligaments, and the healing time will be months, where she will need an immense amount of physical therapy after to be able to walk again.”
“I can’t believe this,” Brent swore, charging out of the room and slamming the door behind him.
Everyone looked his way. “He’s just frustrated,” my cousin said to me. “He knows how much skating means to you, and how hard you’ve work to be able to make it to Worlds. He’s upset for you.”
Brent’s feelings brought tears to my eyes, but I forced them back.
“When is the surgery?” my mother asked.
“I can book it for within the hour.”
She nodded and looked at my aunt and uncle. “Alright. Let’s do it. Sooner the better, right?”
Dr. Karst nodded solemnly. “I’ll be honest when I say that I’ve never seen so much damage to one knee. There is so much damage that we could wait and it won’t really have much of an effect. It’s so bad, that even if we were able to repair everything right after the initial injury, the outcome would be the same.”
I swallowed hard. “That bad, eh?” I let out a dry laugh, gaining concerned looks from everyone in the room.
“She’s delusional,” Adam said.”
“Shh! She is not,” Rhyne murmured under her breath. “You don’t realize how many pain killers are in her system right now.”
“But~” Adam then grunted, and I saw out of the corner of my eye that Kris elbowed him in the ribs.
Dr. Karst smiled slightly. “I’ll have the nurse come in to put you under,” he said, looking directly at me.
I nodded. “Thanks,” I mumbled, my tongue feeling so thick.
Andrew got up and shooed my three friends out. “I’m going to go find Seabs and make sure he isn’t murdering some food,” I heard him mutter to my uncle. He was at my side again. “You’ll be ok, V. Brent will be ok too, I promise. I won’t let him be an idiot.” I cracked a painful smile. “He’s just worried about you.”
“I know,” I tried to say, but it came out sounding foreign. Somehow, my cousin understood.
“Just go get fixed up, ok?” He kissed my forehead. “I love you, V.”
I nodded, unable to reply as the nurse begins to put me under.
I last remember seeing my family exit the room, all eyes still on me.

After hours of surgery repair all the damage done to my knee, and another week in the hospital, I was finally home in my bed in the apartment that Andrew and I share. My mom, aunt and uncle had to go home, but most of the Blackhawks were back in Chicago for training camp, that I was never alone since I was consistently being visited.
I had a cast and a sophisticated brace from my ankle up until my hip in order to keep everything in place so they heal properly- or as properly as they can. There is permanent damage and that won’t go away.
“Need anything, mini Ladd?” Steeger’s said as he poked in his blond head.
I shook my head. “No.”
He stared at me with those bright blue eyes. “He’ll be by soon. He got caught up at a meeting.”
I looked away from him and out the window and stared at the Chicago skyline. “He’s nervous around me.”
Kris walked in my room and sat at the foot of my bed, careful not to go near my leg. “He’s afraid to upset you. He doesn’t want to say anything that will hurt you.”
“Like talking about skating?” I looked at Verbeauty.
“Precisely,” he smiled softly.
“Can you talk some sense into him?” I asked. “I don’t care what he talks about. I’ve come to terms with the situation. I’ll never skate again. Yeah, it sucks like shit, but I’m dealing with it. I can’t change things, so why let myself get all depressed about it?”
Steeger smiled more, and I stared him right in the eye. “I just want him to be near me,” I whispered. “I just want to hear his voice.”
“You really care about him, don’t you?”
I looked away as a flush crept up my cheeks. “Yeah.” I gulped and spoke out loud the realization that came to me during all the time I just sit here in my bed, thinking. “Skating is done. That has been my life for so long that I don’t know what to do with my life now.” I licked my lips and forced myself to look back at Kris and spoke slowly as this is the first time I’ve said this out loud. “But... I feel like that if he’s by my side... I will get through it.”
“You’re in love with him.”
I grew hot. “I do not!”
Kris chuckled. “You do. That’s why you feel like this. That you can get through this pain of being ripped from the world in which you’ve grown up in.” He gave me a look. “Don’t object, Vanna, because I know. Trust me... I know. Is he the only one that you feel like you can truly get through this with?” I nodded reluctantly, not very willing to let Steeger into the depths of my thoughts and soul. “Then you love him. You have the love and support of all of us, and yet, you want him here with you as you recover, you feel like he is the one that will get you through this. You love him.”
“Go away,” I muttered, throwing one of my many pillows at him.
“Yes, princess,” he chuckled, getting up. “And I’ll talk to him for you.”
I crossed my arms across my chest and stared back out my window from my bed as Kris left.
Damn it. I hate it when he’s right.