When I woke up again, Doc had gotten up. Jessie was on the bed. Had I imagined him lying behind me with his arm around me? It seemed so real.

I got up and went downstairs. The pain was down, thanks to those anti inflammatories Doc gave me. I found him in the kitchen, cooking something. He liked to cook on Sundays and leave me a big pot of whatever it was he had made, so that I’d have leftovers for a day or two. Sometimes, he’d even make and freeze enough meals for me to have all week so all I had to do was thaw them and heat them up. I am perfectly capable of cooking but he’s so much better at it than me.

I don’t know what made me do it, but I walked up behind him, wrapped my arms around him and snuggled my face in his back, breathing in his scent. He took my left hand in his while stirring the pot with his right hand.

“What are you making?”

“Sauce for lasagna.”

“Ooooh, my favourite!”

“I know.” He squeezed my hand.

That night, I was watching Fear the Walking Dead, the prequel to The Walking Dead, when Doc came into the living room and sat down on the sofa beside me. He usually retreated to the library for that hour, as zombie shows are not his thing. “Need something?” I asked, thinking maybe he wanted something that he wasn’t comfortable looking through my house for, though it seemed he was feeling at home here more and more.

“Just you”, he replied and pulled me backwards into his chest. I lay with my back against him and his arms around me until the show was over.

Afterwards, while still in his arms, I said “It’s not like you to watch this show.”

“I just wanted to be with you, hon. Tomorrow morning, I go back to the city and won’t see you again until Friday.”

“This is so comfortable, Doc.”

On Wednesday, I decided to go for a ride on a fairly new horse. Pete was a bit underweight when I got him, but had filled out and I had been evaluating him under saddle to see if he was ready to be put on the “available for adoption list”. He had done well in the round pen and on my property, now it was time to take him on a trail.

I was feeling much better after the cyst flare up and the pain I had had from dancing so much at the barn dance. Doc had given me another dose of anti inflammatories Sunday night and on Monday morning before he left. So I felt fine to ride. I made sure to put my helmet on, that was one thing I never failed to do, to Doc’s delight. I also always took my phone with me. Whatever did we do before the advent of mobile phones?

I was enjoying the late August day, it was warm but not stifling hot. I had to go on the road for a half mile or so to get to the trail. We turned onto it and sauntered along. I decided to get Pete to canter a bit to see how he did. He was doing really well and I was thinking he was going to make someone a great riding horse when a couple dogs came from nowhere, running and barking. They looked to be mixed breed, but I didn’t get a good look at them. Dogs love a good chase so I tried to slow Pete to a walk, hoping it would settle them down. He would have nothing of it. The dogs were behind us and I think one of them nipped at his heels because next thing I knew, I was flying over his head. Damn, I need some wings, I thought as I sailed through the air.

I landed hard on my right side and my head hit the ground. Fortunately, I did not lose consciousness, thanks to the helmet. My first thought was to make sure my horse was okay but he was nowhere in sight. My second thought was I can’t tell Doc about this, he’ll freak out and try to make me give up riding. Key word there being ‘try’. Then the pain hit. All down my lower right leg and my right hand/arm. I tried to move my knee and could do it, but with great pain. I reached around to my back left pocket with my left hand, which was uninjured, and took my phone out. No cracks, good. I rolled onto my back and sat up, with difficulty. I had a few scrapes and I was sure I would be black and blue come morning. There was blood coming from my knee and arm.

I couldn’t do anything with my right hand, so I had to set the phone on the ground and bring Karen’s number up. I put it on speakerphone so I wouldn’t have to pick the phone up. I told her what had happened and where I was. She insisted on calling an ambulance and would not take no for an answer. “I’ll be right there, Mer.” Mer is her pet name for me.

“Please just go look for Pete, Karen. I’m worried about him.”

“Pete can take care of himself. Once you are in the ambulance, I’ll look for him.” She found me a few minutes later. “Damn, I wish I had something to put on those cuts.”

“I have a tank top on underneath my tshirt. Take it and rip it up to use as bandages.” Karen helped me get the garments off and bandaged my knee and arm the best she could. “Thanks, now please help me get my tshirt back on before EMS gets here.”

“Mer, you don’t have anything they haven’t seen.”

“They haven’t seen MINE, though.”

“BTW, I called Doc.”

“You what??”

“I called Doc.” I groaned. “He was going to find out! What, were you planning on not letting him come out for the next how many weeks until you’re recovered?” I knew she was right and I knew it was only right to let him know. We had gotten so close and it wouldn’t be fair to try to hide something this big from him.

“What did he say?”

“I didn’t talk to him. Ms Jamieson said he was with a patient and offered to go get him when I told her what happened. I said you wouldn’t want him to interrupt an appointment and just get him to call me when he can.” Just then her phone rang. She looked at the screen. “It’s him.”

Karen put her phone on speaker so I could talk to him. “Hon, I will be at the hospital as soon as I can. I only have one patient left before lunch, I’ll get Ms Jamieson to reschedule my afternoon ones, if there’s nobody that is urgent. Eric is here if there are any emergencies.” He had kept Eric on when he went back to work after my pneumonia.

“Doc, don’t do that on my account, it‘s not necessary.”

“It is and I will. You do not get a say in it.”

He was already at the hospital when the ambulance got there. I later found out he had been driving the ER staff nuts with wanting constant updates on how soon until it was to arrive.

“Hey, Doc”, I said when he ran up to the stretcher as they were taking me to a room.

“How are you doing, hon?”

“I’ll be okay.”

He insisted on staying in the room while the ER doctor did the evaluation. They asked me if I was okay with that and I said yes. Someone gave me a shot for pain and things after that are a bit of a blur. I do remember Doc giving someone hell because something was taking too long for his tastes.

Next thing I knew, I was being wheeled out of the ER and to surgery. My leg was broken as was my wrist and they were going to put pins in both limbs. Doc went with us to the holding area, that was as far as they’d let him go and he didn’t argue. He knew he couldn’t go into the OR as he wasn’t sterile, much as he may have wanted to.

When I came to, I was in Recovery and Doc was beside me. “I didn’t think you’d be able to come in here”, I said to him.

“They tried to stop me.”

“Doc, you are as stubborn as I am.”

“I am when it comes to you, hon.”

“When can I get outta here?”

“Not today.”

“Oh, come on. I can go home.”

“No, they are keeping you for the night.”

“Like hell they are.”

Just then, my surgeon, Dr Adam Beckett, came into the bay. “Dr Beckett, please tell this mother hen I can go home today”, I asked of him.

“Sorry, Meredith. We aren’t releasing you today”. Doc gave me an “I told you so” look. Your sats are only 82, they need to be above 93 without oxygen before we can let you go.”

“Why are they so low?”

“Anesthesia can do that. It’s hard on your cardiovascular system to begin with and I understand you had a pretty bad case of pneumonia not that long ago. That doesn’t help.”

“You absolutely won’t release me tonight?”

“No.”

I groaned. “She does that a lot when she doesn’t get her way”, Doc piped up.

I glared at him and mouthed “I will get you for that.”

Dr Beckett said “I’m sure you know that you *can* sign out AMA but I would advise against it. Here, you have oxygen, which you need. You don’t have that at home.”

“Don’t give her ideas, Adam. She’ll sign out in an instant if she takes it in her head to do so.”

He turned toward me. “I hope you don’t do that. I know it’s not fun being in here, but we don’t have set visiting hours, so Julian can stay with you all night if he wants to.”

“I’m not going anywhere tonight, Adam.”

“You have coverage for a private room, right, Meredith?” I nodded. “I’ll see if we can get a cot brought in for Julian to sleep on.”

“He doesn’t need to stay with me.”

“I have a feeling you will be more likely to stay if he’s here.”

“Don’t be so sure of that, Adam”, Doc said. “Last time she tried to pull the vent tube out on her own. I do have a couple techniques for keeping her in line, though.” He winked at me.

“I’ll stop by to see you before I go home. Someone will take you to your room soon.”

“When can I shake this catheter?” I could feel that there was one in, and I was not happy about that.

“Not tonight as you won’t be in any shape to get up to go on your own. Maybe tomorrow, if we let you go home then. Are you in pain from it?” I shook my head.

“No, but I can feel it.”

“That’s normal. Relax and enjoy not having to deal with going to the bathroom with a cast on your leg and having to use your left hand with an IV in it to wipe yourself.”

“I’m left handed.”

“Oh. Well that is good, one less thing you have to worry about when you go home.”

Once they got me settled in my room, I was so tired I needed to sleep. Doc said he needed to go get something to eat as he’d not had lunch and had me promise to still be there when he returned. He made me give him my word. I asked him to call Karen and find out if she’d found Pete. When he got back, he told me Pete had gone home on his own and was fine. The dogs nipping at his heels had not broken the skin. I was so relieved and it made me feel better about not being able to get home that night.

True to his word, Doc stayed the night but I don’t think he slept on the cot they brought him. Whenever I woke up, he was in the chair beside the bed.

The next morning, I was feeling a bit better, though still tired because of the anesthetic. My sats were up to 89 but they said I still couldn’t go home. Tempted as I was to sign out, I knew that would worry Doc too much, so I stayed. He never left my side except to get his meals and to go to the bathroom. Most of my pain was under control with medication, but I still hurt. Apparently, besides the broken leg and wrist and numerous scratches and scrapes, I had a bruised knee and a couple big cuts on my knee and my arm that had to be stitched up. They had me on oral antibiotics to prevent infection as they had dirt in them when they were cleaned out.

Doc hovered over me like a mother hen. He couldn’t hold my hand because there was an IV in it and the other one was injured, so he sat beside the bed and rubbed my good leg. When meals came around, he cut things up for me, since I couldn’t do it myself. I’m surprised he didn’t offer to spoon feed me, the way he was hovering.

Later in the afternoon, when Dr Beckett came by, he said I should be able to go home the next day since my sats were coming up. He asked if I had help at home and Doc told him I would be going home with him - that was news to me.

When the doctor left, I said to Doc “I don’t expect you to babysit me again.”

“Maybe not, but I am going to be there for you. Besides, you can‘t get around without a wheelchair and my place is more open and better suited for that. ”

“There’s no use in me arguing, is there?”

“No.”

The next day, before they let me go, they took the plaster casts off my leg and wrist and put an air cast on my leg and wrapped my wrist. They gave me crutches, though I wasn’t sure how I was going to use them with a broken wrist.

Dr Beckett had given the order that my catheter could come out. Like the last time, Doc offered to take it out and it was okayed.

I wanted a shower really bad, so a PCA (Personal Care Attendant) wrapped my leg and hands so that they wouldn’t get wet. She offered to bathe me but Doc said he would do it. He wheeled me into the shower on their special shower seat on wheels and washed me so tenderly, as if he was afraid of breaking me.

Back at Doc’s place, he put me in his bed again. “Doc, I don’t want to put you out of your bed yet again”, I protested.

“You aren’t. I insist. You will be more comfortable in my bed. The bed in the guest room is not comfortable, as I have found out. I need to replace it.”

“So you will be sleeping on an uncomfortable bed. I’m not okay with that.”

“Hon, I’ll probably stay in here with you anyway. At least the first couple nights.”

I was too tired to argue any further. After a nap, Doc wheeled me out to the kitchen for lunch. He had rented a wheelchair for me. After lunch and coffee, I had another nap. When I woke up, Doc was in his chair by the bed, fast asleep. I watched him for a while, wishing I could get up and go give him a hug. In a bit, I fell asleep again.

After supper that night, we sat in the living room with our coffee. “Meredith”, he said, “I want you to give up riding.”

I was expecting this conversation, just not so soon. “No, Doc. I can’t and I won’t.”

“Hon, look what happened!”

“Could have been worse, Doc.”

“That’s not the point. It was bad enough. You are lucky you had that helmet on. It saved you from a head injury.”

“That’s why I wear it, Doc. See? It saved my head. My broken bones will heal. This isn’t the first time I’ve fallen from a horse, and it won’t be the last.”

“You didn’t fall, hon. You were thrown through the air.”

“Whatever.”

“Don’t ’whatever’ me.”

“Doc, I’ve been riding down that trail a gazillion times and have never seen dogs on it before. It was one of those one-off things that will probably never happen again.”

“I want to get a shotgun and go find those dogs.”

“No, you do not. Don’t blame them for humans letting them roam loose.”

“I want to blame someone for those dogs causing you to be hurt.”

“Yes, blame the owner. But not the dogs.”

He got out of his chair and sat beside me on the sofa. “Hon, I am going to worry about you every day from now on. Can you at least promise me one thing?”

“What’s that?”

“That you won’t go riding off your property during the week? Wait until the weekend when I’m there.”

“Why?”

“I just want to be there if anything happens. Maybe I should get you one of those alert buttons you wear on a chain around your neck, in case something happens and you can‘t make a call.”

“Doc, I have accidents. And I get sick a lot. This is the way my life is. Maybe we shouldn’t be such good friends if it upsets you so much.” It was killing me to say that, but I didn’t want to put him through more than he’d already been through with me.

I will never forget the look that came over his face. It was like the worst thing that could ever be said to him had just been said and his eyes got teary. I had never seen him come close to crying before. “Please don’t say that, Meredith”, he finally said in a very quiet voice.

“Doc, I don’t want to put you through more worry over me.”

“Let me decide that, hon. Please.”

“Are you sure, Doc?”

“Yes. Very sure. I’m here for you, through thick and thin, sweetie. Let’s always find a compromise instead of running away.”

“I’m not running, Doc.”

“In a sense, you are. You are deciding that you don’t want to see me go through worry over you, so you are trying to walk away instead of letting me decide if I want to stay or go.”

“I can’t walk anywhere, Doc.” I lifted up my leg with the air cast on it.

He laughed, then got serious again. “Meredith, please don’t do that to me again.”

“Get thrown from a horse?”

“You are incorrigible, you know?”

“That’s what you love about me, Doc.” A strange look came over his face. He reached out and pulled me to him. I leaned my head against his chest as he wrapped his arms around me.

“Yes, it is, sweetie. I’ll not bring up giving up riding again. Just please, only do it at home unless I’m there.”

“Ok, Doc. And I won’t suggest we end our friendship again.”

“Thank you, hon.”