Coach C had called Andi’s mother to tell her what had happened, and by the time Andi had showered and changed, she found her mom standing outside the locker room with him.
“Is it okay to hug you?” her mom asked.
“Of course, Mom,” Andi said, embracing her mother. For some reason, she noticed while they were hugging that she was a little taller than her mom. She hadn’t noticed that in the past.
“I just gave your mom a list of symptoms to look out for tonight—just in case,” her coach said. “The doctor doesn’t think there’s much chance any of them will occur, but better to be prepared.”
“Like what?” Andi asked.
“Nausea, dizziness, feeling drowsier than normal, lack of appetite. That sort of thing.”
“Well,” Andi said, “you don’t have to worry about lack of appetite. I’m starving.”
The two adults laughed.
“Good sign,” Coach C said.
Andi’s mom held up a card. “Dr. Hastings also gave us a number, to call a doctor at Penn who specializes in head injuries to athletes,” she said. “She’s already checked and Dr.”—she paused to look at the card—“Hall can see you first thing in the morning.”
Andi groaned. “In the morning? It’s Saturday, I want to sleep in.”
“You can sleep in on Sunday,” her mother said. “No negotiating on this one.”
Andi understood. She was enough of a sports fan to know how seriously people took head injuries nowadays. She really did feel fine but knew her parents would want to be certain she was okay.
Her mom thanked Coach C.
“You sure you’re okay?” she asked as they walked to the car.
“I’m fine—really. Can we stop at McDonald’s on the way home?”
Her mom grinned. “Sure. Let me call your dad and see if he can meet us there.”
That sounded like fun.
Dr. Hall was very friendly and outgoing when he greeted Andi and her dad—who insisted on taking her downtown to Dr. Hall’s office—the next morning.
But he was all business while running her through all sorts of tests and asking questions—both to her and her father.
Finally, after flashing various lights in her eyes, he said he had one more test he wanted to run.
“You pass this and I won’t insist on an MRI,” he said. “You flunk, we do an MRI.”
Andi knew enough about an MRI—where people get shoved into a tube in order to take pictures of some part of their bodies, in Andi’s case the brain—to know she didn’t want one.
“What’s the test?” she asked.
“This is phase two of what is now the concussion protocol given to football players,” he said. “I’m going to tell you a few things. Then you’re going to sit in here alone for ten minutes. Then I’m going to come back and ask you what you can remember about what I told you.”
He looked at Andi and her dad. “You guys okay with that?”
“Why does she have to be alone?” her dad asked.
“Because I don’t want you in here reminding her what we talked about,” the doctor said. “It’s not that I don’t trust you but…”
“You don’t trust me.”
“Sort of,” the doctor said. “If it were my daughter I wouldn’t want her to need an MRI either … Ready?”
Andi nodded.
“Okay, here goes.”
He began slowly telling her things, most of them simple: The Phillies were in second place and would be playing the Giants that night. Pause. The Eagles were 4–2 and playing the Packers the next day. In Green Bay.
“Now for some things you may not already know,” the doctor said. “I graduated from West Point in 1981. I got my medical degree from Duke. My wife’s name is Anne.”
He paused again. “Last group,” he said. “The high temperature today is supposed to be sixty. My favorite sport is hockey. The first thing I noticed about you when you walked in were your blue eyes.”
He stopped. “Okay, we’ll be back in ten minutes. You can lie down here and close your eyes or sit in a chair and read one of our year-old magazines.”
He left along with Andi’s dad. She opted to lie down and close her eyes. She ran through what the doctor had said in her mind. She was about to start a second run-through when the door opened. The ten minutes had gone fast.
She sat up. “Okay,” the doctor said. “What can you tell me?”
She ran through what he’d said—keeping them in order because it was easier that way. “Why?” she asked finally, “is your favorite sport hockey?”
He laughed. “Because I played it in college,” he said.
He turned to her dad. “I think she’s absolutely fine, but, obviously, keep an eye on her for any symptoms the next few days. And no soccer until Wednesday. If she’s got no symptoms between now and then, let her go.”
“But we have practice on Tuesday,” Andi objected. The team had Monday off, since there was no game Tuesday.
“You can miss one practice, Andi,” her dad said.
“And be glad that’s all it is,” Dr. Hall said. “It looks like you got lucky.”
Andi sighed. She knew arguing was pointless. And the doctor was right—she’d gotten lucky.
Jeff was relieved to hear that the doctor thought Andi was all right when she called him on Saturday afternoon.
“Missing one practice is no big deal,” he said. “It’s not like we don’t all know our roles at this point.”
“I’m just glad we don’t have a game Tuesday,” she said. “That would have been a big deal.”
They talked for a while about Friday’s win. “It’s too bad your dad wasn’t out there with a crew,” Andi said. “He could have done another story just on that game.”
No response.
“Jeff, you there?” she asked.
“Yeah, sorry,” he said. “Just thinking it’s a good thing we’ll have you back when we play Blue Bell.”
“Yeah,” she said. “They must be pretty good. Their only losses are to King of Prussia–North and Cynwyd.”
“At least we’re playing them at home.”
“Yeah, helps not to have to ride the bus, doesn’t it?”
They talked for another fifteen minutes, and Jeff was still smiling when he hung up the phone.