I could not get this vision out of my head no matter how hard I tried to think of other things. As our aircraft slowed and began to descend into Sacramento we passed within sight of Reno. I could see it's lights shining up from the pre-dawn darkness and the vision became almost overwhelming. Tracy was down there somewhere. Was she still drawing breath? Not if fate had had it's way.
We touched down normally at ten minutes after four in the morning. The Sacramento airport was almost completely deserted, the few passengers from our plane it's only customers at the moment. Mom went to go secure a rental car while Dad and I headed directly for a bank of pay phones. He dialed a number that he had written on a slip of paper. The number for Washoe Medical Center in Reno, where Tracy was (if she wasn't in the morgue, a nasty part of my brain insisted upon reminding me).
Dad fought through at least five different people, said Tracy's name at least fifteen times, and was placed on hold at least ten. It was maddening watching this, waiting for someone to tell him something. Finally, after nearly fifteen minutes he managed to get hold of someone who knew something.
"She is?" he said softly.
She is what? I wondered, wanting to rip the phone out of his hand. She is dead? She is alive? What?
Dad, sensing what I was going through, held the phone away from his mouth for a brief moment and told me, "she's in surgery right now." He then spoke into the phone again. "What kind of surgery? Can you tell me how bad she is?"
He listened, his face souring. "What do you mean you don't know who I am?" he shouted into the phone. "I'm her father and I'm very worried about her. Please tell me what's going on!"
He listened some more, his expression darkening. "But I'm in Sacramento!" he yelled. "I'm more than two hours from there! Are you really going to let me go the next two hours wondering? Just tell me how bad she is! What kind of surgery she's having!"
He listened for another moment and then slammed the phone down angrily. "Fucking asshole!" he shouted at it loudly enough for his words to echo through the terminal. A few people glanced at him uneasily and then went about their business.
He turned to me, shaking his head. "They won't tell me anything about her condition." he told me, "because they can't verify who I am. Who the hell else would call up and say they were her father?"
I sighed. "You're dealing with bureaucracy at it's finest when you're dealing with a hospital," I told him. "And remember, the accident happened in California, law suit capital of the world. They probably have lawyers who call up and pretend to be family members in order to get information. It happens all the time, even in Spokane."
"That's disgusting," he proclaimed.
"That's lawyers," I said. "At least we know she's still alive."
"Yeah," he breathed. "Let's go find your Mom and get headed up there."
Mom had procured a Toyota Corolla for us. Dad updated her with what he knew as we walked to the rental car pick-up. Fifteen minutes later we were roaring away, Dad at the wheel, Mom in the passenger seat, me in the cramped back seat, reading the map we'd been given and navigating. There was little talk as I directed Dad down Interstate 5 to I-80 East. We passed through the darkened city of Sacramento and it's suburbs and were climbing into the Sierra Nevada Mountains when the sun made it's appearance in front of us.
It was shortly before eight in the morning when we entered the Reno city limits. I navigated Dad through the city, past the towering casinos, until we pulled into the parking lot of the hospital. We practically rushed inside and spent twenty more minutes finding someone who could tell us something. Was Tracy dead? Was she alive? Was she horribly crippled? Was she on a ventilator awaiting permission from the parents to pull the plug? The tension was so thick between the three of us that it was almost palpable in the air.
We were directed to a small waiting room on the third floor of the hospital.
It was empty when we arrived. This time my knowledge of the medical system was an asset. I smiled happily as I read the sign and saw what part of the building we were in. Hope showed itself for the first time.
"We're in orthopedics," I told Mom and Dad happily, my voice conveying the message that this was good news.
They looked at me cautiously, waiting for me to explain the ramifications of this.
"We're not in neurology, which would be bad," I told them. "That would mean she had some sort of neurological damage. You know, brain injury, spinal injury, paralysis, something like that. Orthopedics is bones. They put you here when you have broken bones, and only broken bones."
They became cautiously hopeful but I could tell they were awaiting a final word. It was understandable. I was too. About ten minutes after we arrived a young doctor came into the room. He was dressed in scrubs and I had an eerie flashback to waiting for the prognosis on Jack. He introduced himself and we all stared for a moment in disbelief as we heard him say his name.
"Did you say Dr. Quack?" Dad finally had to ask.
He smiled the smile of one who has explained this many times before. "It's spelled with a KW," he said, "but yes, you have the pronunciation right. But have no fear. My name does not reflect my skill, although I had to put up with quite a bit of teasing in med school and residency. Anyway, I'm an orthopedic surgeon and I'm in charge of Tracy's case."
"How is she?" I blurted before anyone else had a chance to.
"In considerable pain," he told us. "And she'll be in a wheelchair for a few months, but other than that, she's doing fine. I expect a complete recovery."
It took a few moments for that to sink in. I almost thought I hadn't heard him correctly. Doing fine? Complete recovery? Had fate been thwarted again? Beside me Mom and Dad breathed great sighs of relief. Dr. Kwack smiled at us for a moment and then explained her injuries.
"From what I hear," he said, "Tracy was seatbelted into the right rear of the taxi. The driver was making a left turn and was struck by a shuttle van right where your daughter was seated. The impact was considerable and the taxi was spun around to where it rolled off of an embankment into Lake Tahoe, landing upside down in the water. Fortunately Tracy was able to extricate herself from her seatbelt and get out of the car before she drowned. This is a remarkable feat I must add since her injuries were undoubtedly caused by the initial impact. It must have been horribly painful for her to drag herself out of the car but somehow she did it."
"And what are her injuries?" Mom asked.
"Her pelvis is broken in four places," Dr. Kwack explained. "Her right femur, that's the long bone in the leg, is broken in two places. She has two broken ribs on the right side and had a partially collapsed lung when she was brought in. A chest tube down in the ER took care of that. She also has a nasty cut on the right side of her head. That's been stitched up. I operated on her leg and her hip and put pins in to help set the bones back together. She's going to have to go through some physical therapy and she'll probably always walk with a little limp since her right leg is going to be about an inch shorter than her left. And she'll probably set off airport metal detectors for the rest of her life. But she's alive and doing well."
"When can we see her?" Dad asked, tears in his eyes as he heard the news. It was understandable. There were tears in mine too.
"She's just been moved to her room," he said. "And she's pretty doped up on pain medication, but you can go see her now if you wish. She may not be capable of talking to you, but you can see her."
We did. And Dr. Kwack was right. Tracy was flying high. She was lying in a hospital bed, her body covered by a gown. Her entire pelvis and right leg were encased in a fiberglass cast. Her ribs were taped on the right side and the plastic hose of a chest tube snaked out from beneath it. Her face was deeply bruised, the right cheek an ugly purple color, her right eye swollen shut. Some of her hair had been shaved away and a neat line of stitches was visible on her scalp. There was also the inevitable catheter hose protruding from beneath the sheets and ending at a plastic bag with urine in it. The other end of the hose would be threaded through her urethra and into her bladder. Remembering my own experience with such a thing I pitied her.