Chapter Three
And So it Begins
“Why didn’t you use the shoes I brought you?” Judy asked a bit too harshly as I walked back into the dining room after getting dressed and placing my dishes in the dishwasher.
“I’m sorry ma’am, but they didn’t fit ” I stated while cowering a bit.
“No, I’m sorry. I should have realized that was the case when you didn’t have them on. If I could make a suggestion though, you might want to un-tuck your shirt unless you want people to see what you have on under your shorts.” Looking down, I saw what meant as I saw the shorts I had on had a very distinct diaper outline in them. Turning a bit red, I quickly undid the shirt getting a nod of approval from my grandmother.
“Much better.” I was told as she guided me towards the front room.
I was a bit surprised seeing my aunt carrying one of my cousin’s backpacks.
“I doubt you’d want to carry your extra diapers and such out in the open do you?” I was asked rhetorically when my aunt saw my confused look. On hearing her comment, I realized that this was going to be my new diaper bag. I turned a deep red at this and saw my aunt smile.
“C’mon kiddo. You have some doctor appointments this morning and we’re running a bit late as it is.” I was told has we headed out the front door and towards a waiting car.
I was shocked at the size of the car as we got closer to it.
“It’s a Hummer.” my aunt told me as she opened the door for me. I was even more shocked to see two car seats in the middle seat.
“Yes, you’ll be using one of the car seats.” I was told firmly as I felt myself being lifted off the ground and into the nearest seat.
“But..” I started before getting cut-off.
“Ian, due to your size the normal seatbelts wouldn’t fit you correctly so this will be safer. Once you grow some and no longer need it then we’ll take it out, but until that time young man it will be used every time you get into this car.” I was told firmly. Seeing the look on my aunt’s face I knew it would be useless to argue so I didn’t even try. Though, I will admit at the time, I felt like an overgrown toddler given the fact that I was wearing a diaper at the time this took place.
It took us about Twenty minutes to get to the doctor’s office we were going through I sat calmly while my aunt filled out all the paperwork needed to get me started with their pediatrician.
“There’s no reason to be nervous Ian. We’ve been using Dr. Moran since Brad was born.” I relaxed a bit at this thinking that things couldn’t be as bad as having Dr. Wu for a doctor. I jumped a bit when my name was finally called.
“Just relax. I’ll be in there the entire time.” I was told while being given a slight neck rub as we were led into an exam room.
“The doctor will be in in just a few minutes. If you could have your son get undressed and put this on.,” the nurse told us while handing my aunt a gown.
“You heard the nurse we need to have you put this on.” I was told with a slight smile. I groaned a bit since I knew what these were like. I had just finished getting into the gown and was almost completely relaxed when the door opened and Dr. Moran walked into the room. On seeing the strikingly good looking oriental doctor, all the memories of what I had been through at Dr. Wu’s hands resurfaced and I promptly flooded my diaper in fear.
“Breathe Ian, Breathe.” I heard a voice saying gently while rubbing my chest lightly. As things started coming back into focus I saw Dr. Moran standing over my prone body holding something to my forehead. On looking around, I saw that several nurses and my uncle were also in the room now.
“Don’t try to sit up to quickly.” I was told as I started to sit up.
“You passed out for a second and fell off the table.” Dr. Moran told me gently while shining a bright light in my eyes.
“Everything will be OK.” My uncle said while gently rubbing my leg.
“OK, everyone, back to work.” My uncle announced once he saw that I was coming around OK.
“Feeling better now?” I was asked.
“Yeah, sorry about that.”
“It’s all right. Do you feel like you can go on with the exam?” Dr. Moran asked both my aunt and me.
“I guess so.” I mumbled as I saw my aunt nod her head after catching my eye.
“All Right. First off let’s get this gown off you . And get a pad spread out on the table here while I have your aunt take that wet diaper off you.” I turned a beet red on hearing that I had soaked my diaper.
“It’s fine. You aren’t the first older kid I’ve had come through here in a diaper.” I was told with smile. That smile vanished like smoke in a strong wind once the gown came off and she saw what was underneath I could have sworn that I saw clear recognition as Dr. Moran lightly brushed her hand over a chain tattoo with some Chinese writing under it on my right bicep.
“Mary would you excuse me for a minute. I forgot something in my office. I won’t be but a minute.”
“Take what time you need. It’ll take me a while to clean Ian up here.” My aunt answered as she had me lay back down and started to un-tape my soaked diaper.
“Ian, due to the obvious abuse you’ve been through I’m going to need to take some pictures to document this.”
“Please don’t. I don’t want to get into any trouble.” I sobbed while trying to get the gown back from my aunt.
“It’s going to be OK Ian. You’re not going to be in any trouble”
“I’m not worried about myself. I don’t want to get my masters in any trouble.” I announced without thinking.
“Don’t worry about that Ian. They’re dead they won’t harm you any more. My aunt told me firmly while picking me up in a tender embrace. I just cried on my aunt’s shoulder for the next several minutes. What I didn’t know was while this was going on, Dr. Moran was taking the photos she needed.
“It’s OK Ian, we won’t take the pictures at this time.” Dr. Moran told me as I finally started to calm down. I nodded at this. I was surprised at how thorough the exam was, but even more so by how gentle Dr. Moran was with me during it.
“I’d like you to go with the nurse here, and have one last set of tests run. Don’t worry these won’t hurt at all. It’s just going to be a series of X-rays.” Dr. Moran told me while my aunt got me back into a diaper and the gown I had been wearing earlier. After getting a nod and smile from my aunt, left with the nurse.
I was back in my exam room with my aunt and doctor inside of thirty minutes.
“You can go ahead and get dressed . That was the last of the tests.” Dr. Moran told me as my aunt handed me my clothes.
“Mary, it’ll be a couple of hours while we get the results back from the tests. If you could be back here about Three this afternoon, I should have all the lab work back and had time to go over the X-rays and such with Brian. Besides, I’d say this little guy looks like he’s getting hungry.” Dr. Moran chuckled as she tried to mess up my hair.
“That’s fine. Ian still has an Eye and Hearing exam to go through this morning”
I was surprised to learn that the Eye Doctor was in the same building and just a few floors up from where I was at now. Never having had an eye test before I didn’t know what to expect. Like before, We had to wait a bit while my aunt filled out some paperwork. Once this was done I was soon led into a small room with a strange looking chair that had things hanging off the top of it.
“There’s nothing to be worried about Ian. I’ll be in here the entire time.” My aunt told me while helping me into the chair. A short time later an older man walked into the room.
“And how are we doing this morning?” I was asked as the doctor held his hand out to me. I just looked at it for a few moment before taking in cautiously
“Fine, sir.” I mumbled.
“Ah, a polite young man. There’s something I don’t see much of anymore.” The doctor told me and my aunt with a smile.
“Well, how about we see about these peepers of yours.” I was told as the doctor said cheerfully as he pulled a wheeled stool over and sat down next to me
“Now when was your last eye exam?” I was asked.
“I’ve never had one before. My parents felt that it was a waste of time and money for me to have one.” I told him.
“I see. Well, how about we just correct that oversight.” I was told as the doctor dimmed the lights in the room even more and had me read a lit chart on the far wall. After doing this for a few minutes, he pulled a funny looking mask down and placed it over my eyes and started asking me if things looked clearer, or fuzzier as he flipped things in front of my eyes.
“Well, every thing looks good so far. You just relax while I take a look at your eyes for a moment.” I was told as the doctor pulled a small thing from the wall and pointed it at my eye and then turned a light on.
“AHHHH!” I yelled in pain bolting upright in the chair.
“What is it Ian?” My aunt asked in concern.
“The light hurt my eye.” I sobbed while trying to rub the pain out of it
“How long has light been hurting your eyes?” The doctor asked in concern as he had me lay back down in the chair and turned the light in his hand to a lower setting.
“For as long as I can remember.” I sobbed still in some pain.
“Did you tell your mom and dad this?”
“Uh huh.” I said as the pain finally sub-sided.
“I’m sorry about causing you pain a minute ago. Do you think you’re up to one more test? It won’t hurt a bit. I promise.” the doctor told me as I looked at him skeptically.
“I guess so.”
“OK. You go with Janet here, and she’ll get you set up with the last test while I have a chat with your aunt.” Getting a reassuring nod from my aunt, I followed Janet out of the room and in to a smaller room where she said they were going to test my field of vision.
“What’s that?”
“That means how well you can see out the sides of your eyes and such.”
“Oh, OK.” I told her as I took the offered chair.
“What I want you to do is look straight at that little red dot and press this button anytime you see a small light come on where you can see it. Just remember not to move your eyes or blink any, or we’ll have to start over. Ok?” Janet asked me while getting the chair and chinrest adjusted.
“Ok.” I told her as I took the offered button.
“So how my nephew’s eyesight?” My aunt asked once I had left the room.
“I’ll know more once the results come back from his field of vision test, but except for how sensitive he is to bright lights , his vision is normal. The only thing I’m concerned with is how his Optic nerves looked like. They seemed a bit distorted. We’ll want to keep a close look on them but for now I don’t see any reason to be overly concerned. I am going to write him a prescription of some sunglasses. He’ll need to wear these like he would normal glasses. If possible you’ll probably want to try and dim the lights around your house a bit so he’s not having to wear them all the time. I’ll write out an order for when he goes back to school so they don’t have any problem with him wearing them indoors.” My aunt was informed. Over the next twenty minutes they talked about other things the doctor had noticed and set up appointments for my cousins as well.
“Well, young man if you’d like to go next door with your aunt and pick out some new glasses for yourself that will give me a little time to go over the results from this.” My doctor told me as he took the strips of paper from his assistant. I froze a bit on hearing that I would be needing glasses.
“Relax Ian. The doctor just wants you to start wearing sunglasses because of how sensitive your eyes are to light.”
“You mean that if I wear these my eyes won’t hurt as much when I’m awake?” I asked.
“Exactly.” my aunt replied.
“I would suggest you get a pair that wraps all the way around his eyes.” The doctor added as he handed my aunt a slip of paper. With a nod of her head, my aunt accepted the sheet of paper and after taking my hand she led me next door
“I’d like you to pick out two pairs of frames for your glasses.” I was told as my aunt and I entered the store.
“Ok.” I told her softly still not liking the idea of needing glasses. I was more than a little shocked at some of the prices that I was looking at. After a few minutes of looking, I found the discount frames and picked out two of the least dorky looking pairs of frames I could find.
“Here you go ma’am.” I told my aunt as I handed her the frames I found. I knew I was in trouble when I saw the frown on my aunt’s face when she looked the frames over.
“These won’t work at all. Let’s put these back and take another look around. OK.” I was told as my aunt led me back towards where I had gotten the frames from.
“Now let’s go over here and look at some better looking frames.” I was told as I was led back over to the area I had first looked at.
“But, these are too expensive. I can’t have these.” I stammered as I took a closer look at the prices.
“Sure you can. And when it comes to your health, nothing is too expensive.” I was told.
“Now let’s get you some better looking frames than what you were looking at.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I said a bit glumly. Still thinking that the glasses were costing to much.
Twenty minutes later, my aunt was handing over a couple of pairs of regular frames, and a pair of sports frames to the person running the counter, along with the slip of paper I saw the doctor hand her.
“These will take about two hours to get ready if you’d like to come back about One o’clock they should be ready.” we were told.
“That’ll be fine.” My aunt said as we walked back over to the doctor’s office to get the results from my last eye test.
“His F.O.V. test was highly unusual. Normally a person has only about 50 to 60 degrees of sight out of the corner of their eyes. For one reason or another, Ian has almost 110 degrees worth of sight. This might explain why his Optic nerves seemed distorted when I looked at them earlier. I’ll still want to keep a close watch on them so we’ll definitely want to have him come back in for his annual check up. If you happen to see anything that bothers you bring him back in and we’ll have another look. If you have the time today, I’d also like to dilate his eyes. He’ll have to keep away from bright lights for the rest of the day.” the doctor told us.
“That would be fine. They said it would take a couple of hours to get his glasses ready so if you wanted to do it then it wouldn’t be a problem.”
“That’s fine. I’ll see you then.” The doctor told us as he turned to his receptionist and made the notation.
“So are you already for some lunch?” I was asked as we walked out of my final doctor’s appointment for the day.
“Yes, please.” I replied.
“You might be a pretty good influence on your cousins.” My aunt joked as we headed out to the car. I guess my lost expression caught her attention.
“Well with how polite you are, maybe some of that will rub off on your cousins.” I was told with a chuckle while getting a small tickle in my ribs. I flinched a bit at this but still giggled.
“How’s your diaper doing?” I was asked as I was helped into my car seat.
“OK, I guess.”
“Let’s take a quick look.” my aunt told me as she pulled down the front of my shorts to get a better look at my diaper. I was more than a bit surprised when she announced that it was completely soaked. I hadn’t even realized that I had wet it any since I had been changed before leaving Dr. Moran’s office.
Before I knew what was happening, my aunt pulled me out of my car seat and led me around to the back of the car.
“Stand here for a moment.” I was told as my aunt opened the back door and pulled a mat out of the backpack and spread it out.
“Up you go.” I was told with a smile as I was lifted into the back area of the Hummer and laid out on the mat. It didn’t really sink in on what was happening till I felt my shorts being pulled down.
“Aunt Mary, do I really have to have this done here?” I asked nervously as she started untaping my diaper.
“Of course. You don’t think I’m going to let you sit around in a wet diaper and take the chance of you getting a rash do you?” I was told Seeing the look on my aunt’s face told me it was useless to try and argue with her on this. I just accepted what was going to happen and relaxed as much as I could. I was surprised when my aunt lifted me back to the ground after taping my diaper closed and pushed me towards to side of the car without giving me my shorts back. Before I could say a single thing I was placed in my car seat, strapped in and had the door locked and closed. Once my aunt climbed into the car I was about to ask about my shorts when her cell phone started ringing.
“Hello?” My aunt said after pulling her phone from her purse.
“Mary, it’s Brian.”
“Hi honey. I was just about to call and see if you wanted to join me and Ian for lunch.”
“I’d like to, but we have a bigger problem. We just got the X-rays and test results back and I need you to get Ian to the med center as quickly as you can. Dr. Moran and I will meet you at the e/r entrance in about twenty minutes. I’ll explain everything when you get there.” Mary was told as her husband closed the connection before she had the chance to ask any questions.
I didn’t really know what was going on, but I didn’t care to much for the look on my aunt’s face when she hung the phone up.
“What’s going on?” I asked nervously when I noticed we had pulled up in front of the hospital.
“Your uncle asked me to bring you in for further testing. Aside from that I don’t really know what’s going on.” I was told as we came to a stop in front of the E/R entrance. My aunt could tell that this was wrong thing to tell me since I started to get extremely agitated. Before she could say anything to calm me down, my door was opened and I saw my uncle standing there. This brought back more memories than I cared to remember and I started to do the best I could to fight him off, but seeing how I was still strapped into my car seat this wasn’t very effective. Without hearing what was being said to me I clamped my teeth down on my uncle’s forearm as hard as I could. I vaguely remember him yelling before things went black on me.
“Jesus, Brian. I’m shocked that you would act that way after what we’ve found out about what he’s been put through.” My aunt yelled as she followed my uncle and me into the hospital.
“I’m sorry, but we needed to get him into surgery as quickly as we could And he was being less than cooperative. I’ll explain everything to you while I get my arm looked at.” Brian said with a small laugh at seeing the shocked look on his wife’s face as she saw his bleeding arm for the first time.
“OK. Give me a few minutes to go park the car and cool down a bit.”
“I’ll be waiting.” Mary was told as her husband was escorted into an exam room.
“So what’s going on?!” Brian was asked a short time later.
“As you know we gave Ian a full body series of X-rays, and a CT Scan during his exam earlier.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“What you didn’t know was some of the thing the films turned up. Let me finish before you say anything OK?” Getting a soft nod as a response, my uncle explained what was going on.
“To start of with it seems that along with three, almost healed, busted ribs, a busted left forearm, a very serious bladder infection, and the metal plates and rings in his back, my loving brother, also implanted a bomb in Ian’s back”
“When you say a bomb you mean a ..”
“Bomb. From what we could tell from the X-rays, Ian has about a pound and a half of explosives planted in several places throughout his chest cavity and along his spine. I guess he placed them as a kind of fail safe in case Ian decided to talk about how he was treated one day. Luckily one of the Residents we have on staff was in the military before Med school.
“What good is that going to do though?” Mary asked her husband in barely contained panic.
“Because aside from being a corpsman he was also trained in bomb disposal.”
“Do the kids know yet?”
“I have your mom watching them. All I’m having her tell them that something came up and that Ian was needing surgery as soon as possible.”
“God Brian. I can’t think of the thought of losing that little boy. I know he’s only been with us a few days, but I can’t think of what life would be without him.” Mary sobbed into her husband’s shoulder as the doctor attending to her husband’s arm finished putting the dressing on it.
“That should take care of everything Brian. Any deeper and we would have needed to put in some actual stitches in. As things look though, the skin glue should be enough to keep the wound closed. Just make sure you keep the dressing clean and come back in if you have any problems.”
“Yea, I know the routine. Thanks Shannon.” Brian said while flexing his hand a bit. After a few more minutes of filling out some paperwork, Brian and Mary went up to the Surgical floor to wait for news on their son.
“Damn, I’d love to get my hands on the asshole that did this.” Dr. Lavin mumbled as he gently pulled back the skin from the incision he had just made and got the first look of what he was really dealing with.
“Easy there doctor. Remember we aren’t supposed to take things personally” The senior doctor on hand said.
“Right.” Dr. Lavin scoffed to himself as he started to work.
“Vitals?” Dr. Rosen asked five hours later.
“A little low, but stable.” The Anesthesiologist replied
“How much longer doctor?” Dr. Lavin was asked.
“I don’t know. It all depends on how many more of these damned anti-tamper switches I run across. God, whoever did this was one fucking sick, and paranoid, bastard.” Dr. Lavin answered without looking up from his work.
“You guys better hurry, Vitals are starting to fall.” The surgeons were told an hour later.
“OK. I’m almost there. Is the bomb chamber ready next door?” the head nurse was asked.
“Yes, doctor.”
“OK, Get a path cleared, and make sure the room is empty. I want all non-essential people out of the room now.” With this command, the room cleared quickly and soon only the head nurse, Dr. Rosen, the anesthesiologist, and Dr. Lavin remained
“Alright people, I’m about to remove the detonator and main charge let’s get that tray over here.” In seconds a tray was placed by nearby. With a quick movement of his hands the detonator and final portion of explosive was placed in the tray and Dr. Lavin started to quickly move out of the room he barely got three feet from the table before hearing a loud click.
“OH Shit! MAKE A HOLE!!!” He Yelled before running from the room.
Less than five seconds were later he dumped the tray into the waiting bomb chamber and slammed the lid down.
“FIRE IN THE HOLE!!! He yelled as he dove back through the door covering his head as he did. Less than a second later a muffled blast was heard and felt all over the floor.
“Would you mind closing up doctor?” Dr. Lavin asked as he pulled himself off the floor.
“Already started. I’ll let you tell the family the good news.” Dr. Rosen just got a nod in response as Dr. Lavin left the room pulling his gloves off. After taking a moment to remove the stained smock he had on, Dr. Lavin walked into the waiting room and quickly let the Millers know that everything was OK and Ian looked to make a full recovery.
“Were you able to remove the rings, and plates in his back?” Mary asked after getting herself back under control.
“Not yet. Things were getting a bit shaky towards the end so we decided that it would be best to wait for him to recover from this first before we try to remove the rings. I am sorry to say that from the looks of things we won’t be able to remove the plates. From what I saw, it looked like the plates had been in for so long that the bone had fused with it. We could try to remove it if you insist, but I would strongly recommend against it.
“Thanks Mike. If you don’t mind we have some calls to make.” Brian announced cutting his wife off. After shaking hands the three parted ways.