The receptionist’s note about my next patient read, Rear-ended 2 months ago--whiplash. Headaches, irritable, not herself. Referred by boss.
Terrific, I thought. A straightforward whiplash injury, not another university medical center second-opinion case with a four-inch stack of records. The impact of the collision had probably stretched and twisted the woman’s neck muscles as well as ligaments and joints along the spine. Proper physical therapy mixed, if needed, with a bit of medication would melt away the tender and sprained areas and the headache pain they transmit. Then I made out the less legible words that followed: No mental agility. Maybe I had jumped the gun.
Nancy turned her head and shoulders at the same time, like a statue rotating on a lazy Susan, as she explained what had happened. She had pulled onto the freeway at rush hour and stayed in the outside lane, where a heavy line of traffic was moving at about 30 miles an hour. A few minutes later, the car in front of her braked to a stop. As Nancy slowed to a halt, she glanced in her rearview mirror and saw a pickup truck bearing down on her. She clutched the steering wheel and the truck slammed into her, throwing her body forward and back. She remembered crying out Oh, no as she careered into the car ahead. After that jolt, she was hit again from behind and again lurched forward against her seat belt and back.
Moments later someone knocked on her windshield and asked if she was okay. Nancy looked into her rearview mirror, which now tilted toward her awkwardly. The nose and mouth it reflected seemed unfamiliar. Her foot brushed against a coffee mug holder with a sandbag bottom. It must have fallen off the console, she thought. She gradually connected the holder with the collision, then heard someone ask again, Are you okay?
