The Doctor’s shoes clicked down the low-lit hallway of Radiology. She smiled at the receptionist and went into the office.
At the desk sat Cal Hower, the new ultrasound technician. He swiveled.
“Hi, I’m Doctor Montgomery,” she said. “I’ve got–” He nodded, already swiveling back to his computer.
“The enlarged prostate,” he finished, pulling up the file. “Suleman, right?”
“That’s right, J. Suleman.” She leaned in and examined the dark, grainy image.
“That’s anterior,” said Cal Hower. He clicked, rotated. “Lateral.”
She squinted. “Looks like shit,” she said.
“I know, his prostate, it’s super messed up,” said Cal gravely, zooming in.
“No,” said Dr. Montgomery. “The images, you took these? They look like shit.”
“What?” gasped Cal. “I mean, the noise is a little high over this area, but come on…”
“No, really,” said Dr. Montgomery. “This, this.” she pointed to the image. “This is all bowel. I don’t see prostate. These are ultrasounds of shit.”
“Oh,” said Cal. He cocked his head to the side. “Oh, damn. That is bowel. Ah, crap. Sorry.”
“Yes,” said Dr. Montgomery. Her phone beeped and she checked it. “Call the patient. You need to get good images.”
“Of course,” said Cal, but the Doctor was already out the door. He swore he heard her mutter, ‘idiot,’ in the hallway.
Cal Hower scowled at the screen. Ultrasound Technician. The world of “Sorry, a bit of cold jelly here,” and prodding at lumpy people. Not the world he imagined in third grade, when he pasted pictures of Meredith Gray, Steve Irwin, Jaques Cousteau, and Dr. House on a poster board and talked about how his two career paths were Oncologist and cure cancer, or Marine Biologist and ‘become a world renowned person to work with dolphins’.
His third grade dreams still held a spark when his Dad, Cal Sr. won forty three thousand dollars in the state lottery when Cal turned seventeen. Suddenly, the world opened up to Cal Hower. He worked hard, got into Florida State, and studied marine biology. But after a four year degree and a co-op on a fishing trawler identifying clumps of slimy gore as various beloved sea creatures to help safeguard (bypass and avoid) wildlife protection sanctions, he decided to take a break. After a few months off, he decided that despite the wasted time (and family lotto winnings), he may as well pursue side A of his third grade career dream poster board, and go into medicine.
Medical school was too expensive, lengthy, and probably too difficult for Cal, even after the Biology transfer credits. Radiology Tech was a good fit and only a one-year program.
Today, as he sat behind the desk at Fort Ray General Hospital, six years older than the other imaging tech rookies, he thought about how marine biology had turned out to be chum identification and medicine had turned out to be gut probing. Today, everyone talked about social media as if TV hadn’t been doing the same lying, faking things for decades.
Cal zoomed in on the murky bowel. What he needed was a little glory. In community college, one of his professors was Dr. Jundie. Yeah, that Dr. Jundie, of Jundie Jelly, the ultrasound gel that doesn’t feel so cold.
He sighed and phoned the patient. Mr. Suleman was irritated (and not just in his urinary tract), but agreed to come in on Tuesday morning.
When he did, Cal was ready for him, priming the machine and pulling up Suleman’s chart to ensure he didn’t have to wait any longer than necessary. It was 6:03 AM, the first appointment of the day. Suleman looked stupefied, clutching his swollen ass with both hands.
“How are you today, Mr. Suleman?” asked Cal brightly. Bedside manner was important, especially with cranky patients.
“Eh?” said Suleman, groaning. “They tell me I got a prostate the size of a grapefruit, and I rode the bus here at five am. I feel like shit.” He crawled onto the bed.
“Yeah, I’m sorry to hear that,” said Cal. “The doctor just wanted us to take a few more images to ensure we’re getting the clearest picture of your case.”
“Might as well shove it right up there,” said Suleman, “For all they care about my case.”
Cal chuckled warmly. “No, no, Mr. Suleman,” he said. “There won’t be any shoving. Just some light pressure on your lower abdomen.”
Suleman grumbled and lifted his shirt. He lay his head back on the pillow.
Cal squeezed the jelly onto Suleman’s tan, hairy belly like a packet of ketchup. “Just a bit of cold jelly, here,”
“I know what it is,” snapped Suleman. “I was here three days ago.”
“All right, Mr. Suleman. Bit of pressure.”
He applied the wand to the skin and the screen blipped to life, layers of flesh, organs and sinew blobbing across the screen in black and white. He angled the tip this way and that, scanning, as the machines hummed and beeped rhythmically. Suleman’s body relaxed. His breath came in shallow sighs. He was asleep.
Cal pressed the wand a little more firmly, and the bowels on the screen gave way to the hard, pale lump of the engorged prostate. He saved anterior and lateral views of each part of the organ.
Cal applied more jelly, then glanced at Suleman. While the man slept, he might as well get a little practice in. No harm done. He slid the wand upward, and saw kidneys, liver, stomach. Small intestine. Appendix. Each organ in its place, each with a good pulse. He tweaked the gain and made each image clear and complete. Click. Click. Click. He glanced at Suleman. Little did the man know, he was getting thousands in screening radiology right now for free. Without the doctor’s review, it was all useless, of course. But anyway.
Suddenly, near the lower lobe of the liver, next to Suleman’s spine, Cal saw a small white nodule. With the gain increased, he could make out tiny filaments branching out from it. He thought back to biology. Was it the spleen? No, it couldn’t be. He shook his head. Not a dolphin spleen, either. He rotated, zoomed and tweaked the image. He was sure of it: there was no medical explanation for this nodule, this organ. He snapped an image.
“Mr. Suleman?” he said, nudging him. “We’re all done.”
“Hmph,” said Suleman.
Back in the office, Cal paged Dr. Montgomery. He examined the prostate images, just to make sure they were ok, but he stared at the whitish globe, comparing it to Medical Reference. There was no explanation. A tumor? The density wasn’t right.
He heard her heels click from down the hall and he quickly tabbed back to the prostate images.
“Let’s see what you got,” said Dr. Montgomery, in a rush as always. Cal nodded.
“Suleman, right? I already got it pulled up.”
“Whew,” she said. “That’s the biggest prostate I’ve ever seen. Yep. That’s coming out for sure.”
“Okay?” said Cal.
“Yes,” said Dr. Montgomery, checking her phone. “Send these up to my office, please. Suleman’s chart.”
“Of course,” said Cal. She paused, tapping out an email.
“Hey, Dr. Montgomery?” said Cal. “I did find something else, I wondered if you might like to take a look at it?”
She glanced up. “What is it?”
He showed her. She stared at the screen. Frowned. “Cal…”
“Dr. Montgomery?” said Cal. His voice sounded far away. “I can’t find it in the reference. What is it?”
The room was swimming. Cal felt warm. He realized his eyes were closed. He wasn’t in the radiology lab at all. He was in his bed, at home. He had been having his favorite dream again, and he was just waking up.
He smiled softly to himself as her hand slid across his chest. Her lips at his ear. She giggled.
“Dr. Montgomery?” he said softly, without opening his eyes in the morning light. He reached out a hand to touch her skin. “What is it, doctor?”
“Oh, that?” she cooed in his ear. “That’s Hower’s Gland, of course. Doctor Cal Hower’s Gland.”
They spent the rest of the afternoon in bed.
