Final stamp of approval

As the nurse began to put a Velcro band around Steve's arm to take his blood pressure, he smiled a bit apologetically in Laila and Maria's direction, which they both quickly dismissed by shaking their heads and mouthing the words, "It's fine". Afterall, they had never agreed on a time and it is not like Steve knew when the nurse would be getting here to check up on him. If she hadn't come, they would have probably left anyways as they weren't planning on waking him. Now she had done the work for them and they only had to wait for her to finish her checks, which couldn't possibly take long considering how many patients a nurse has to tend for.

Cindy began her measure of his blood pressure by pumping air into the band around Steve's arm. She continued to do this until it began to hurt Steve's arm a little, which they could tell by the micro expressions on his face. Then she slowly let the air out as she watched the little circular dial, which was attached to the pump, to give her the numbers she needed. Cindy nodded in approval and jotted the numbers down as she moved onto the next thing, which was examining his wounds and asking a few other general questions. "Do you feel any pain on your stomach area?" Steve replied by saying "No". He did the same with the questions, "Is it sore when I touch the wounds like this?" and "Do you feel any dizziness or light-headedness?".

He was about to reply "No" again when she asked "Do you feel any pressure or pain anywhere near your head?" but stopped himself as soon as he had the "Nn-" out of his mouth and swallowed the '-O'. The reason he had to take back his last answer was because although he didn't feel much when he was just sitting in the bed like this, when he moved his hand to the back of his head and touched where he had landed on the concrete, he could feel it sting a bit. So he said, "Well, perhaps the back of my head hurts a little when I touch it."

Cindy smiled and said, "That is fine. It is perfectly normal to experience some pain when you apply pressure after the smack you have had. Especially since there was a wound there that we had to close up, which will be sore to the touch for a few days to come. As long as there is no pain when you are just sitting or if you look down, up or away, it is fine. During the next couple of days, and if you are unlucky the next couple of weeks, you might experience some headache if you focus too much. So, you should take it slow and not read too much or have too much screen time. Just build it up slowly and take plenty of breaks. In the beginning just 20 minutes at a time might be your limit." Steve asked, "What is considered 'too much'? How will I know what my limit is?"

Cindy smiled again and said, "Good question. It seems that the smack didn't cause you to become less sharp." Everyone chuckled at this comment before they returned their focus to Cindy as she would answer Steve's questions. "To be honest, there isn't really an exact number I can give you. Usually your body will let you know what the limit is. As soon as you experience a light head ache, stop and give yourself some rest, preferably about 15 minutes or more, and push your limit a bit further each time. Depending on the severity of a concussion, the symptoms might be stronger and last longer. Usually we advice to start with 20 minutes of screen time and see how that goes. Any other questions on what I have told so far?"

Steve shook his head. Cindy smiled again and said, "Great. Well if any questions do pop-up during the rest of the day, don't hesitate to press the bell or you can ask them when you see the doctor later today. As far as I am concerned, everything looks fine. You seem to be healing nicely. But you need that final stamp of approval from one of the doctors. So, I will let the surgeons know and one of them will come and look at you as well."

Steve nodded with a smile and thanked Cindy. After that conversation Cindy got ready to leave the room and head over to the next patient but before she did, she gave him another piece of good news. She told him that now that he had passed the 24 hour concussion test and everything else seemed normal, he was likely to be discharged later today or early tomorrow. Of course this was under a few conditions, which included the surgeon coming to see his wounds and agreeing with her observations, that the results of his bloodwork had come in and were looking good as well, AND that the surgeon saw no fault with the rest of the information on his chart about his blood pressure, temperature and what not. Despite these big ifs and buts, the three of them seemed very pleased with this news.