"If you keep fighting kids you are going to be coming here more often," Her mother stood by the door looking down at her phone, texting. It was probably the taxi cab driver that she'd met when she was coming home from a poker tournament or it was the fire fighter that she had been setting fire to stuff in their house to meet. "I can't afford for you to be coming to see the doctor all the time."
"This is the first time since I was eight that I've been to see a doctor," Sam responded. "They still had my height down as four feet three inches. I think you can handle once a decade."
Her mother didn't even acknowledge that she had said anything. She was typing away on her phone. Sam sighed it wasn't even her fault. She was just trying out a new iCarly bit with Gibby, and yeah he didn't want to do it but still.
There was a soft knock on the door and a woman opened it slowly. It knocked against Sam's mother's foot. She looked up at the doctor who was entering expecting an apology. When one didn't come she put her phone away and crossed her arms.
"Excuse me," She said. "What makes you think that you can just come barging in here? This is a doctor's office."
"Yes, Mrs..." She flipped through a few sheets, "Puckett. I know that, I am the doctor."
"You can't be a doctor." She responded, "You're a woman."
"Mom." Sam scolded. She could not believe that her mom could be so stupid sometimes. Her mother picked up her purse from the chair that it had been thrown on and rolled her eyes.
"I'll be in the waiting room." The doctor stepped out of her way and she stomped past her and out of the room. The doctor turned to Sam who had a slight blush creeping up her neck. This is why she didn't bring her mother places with her.
"I'm sorry about her." Sam said, "She was born rude."
"Oh no, it's fine. I'm your doctor, Charlie Phillips" She responded. She shook Sam's hand and then looked through the chart that she had brought with her. "I notice that this is your first time in a medical treatment area in quite a few years. So, why did you decide to come in?"
"I was messing around with a friend about a month ago and I think I hurt myself." Sam said, she rubbed her right forearm, "The pain has just gotten progressively worse."
"Okay. Let me just take a look at it." Doctor Phillips said. She put down the chart and walked over to Sam. She felt around her arm, asking Sam where it hurt and when it hurt. Sam responded by wincing and groaning. Charlie walked back over to the counter where the chart was, looked through it and then turned back to Sam. "It doesn't seem like it is broken, but there could be a hairline fracture in your radius- that's this bone here." She gestured to the inside of her right forearm, "So you're nurse is going to come in here and take you to get an x-ray done. We will get the results back in about twenty-four hours. So we will call you then, but until then I'm going to take all the precautions and I want you to wear a sling that your nurse will bring you. Okay?"
Sam nodded and watched the doctor leave. It only took a few minutes for the nurse who had helped her when she first got there to pop back into the room.
"Well we're going to head on down to the x-ray room and then I will help you with your sling."
Sam followed her down the hall and into a room. A long slab of stainless steel was in the middle with the x-ray above it. A white wall sectioned off a small area with a large window in it. Sam sat down on the stool that the nurse had set down for her. She had a bib that had lead in it placed on top of her and her arm was moved around until the nurse decided that it was in the perfect position. The x-rays took all of three minutes and before she knew it she was walking out of the office in a blue and white sling, her mother complaining that there was no way she really needed x-rays and that this was all just an elaborate hoax for them to get more money out of her.
When she got to Bushwell Plaza for the iCarly rehearsal she texted Carly before she got on the elevator to warn her that she had a sling on but that Carly should not freak out because it was no big deal.
Still when she stepped out on the ninth floor Carly was there, tears in her eyes, she was hugging Sam and babbling about how she couldn't believe that she had gotten hurt here and how she was so sorry, like it was her fault.
"Carls. Carls." Sam kept repeating, trying to get her friend to calm down. When Carly let go of her Sam explained how it was nothing, the doctor was just being cautious. "I'll be able to take it off tomorrow and everything will be fine."
"You're sure it's not broken?" Carly asked wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her pink and blue-stripped shirt.
"Yes. I am sure." Sam said, of course she wasn't sure but she couldn't have Carly crying and blaming herself the whole rehearsal. "Where's Freddie?"
"Oh, he's getting a SMD-something techy." Carly said shrugging off whatever Freddie was doing. She didn't really care about what cables he had to use, she wasn't really interested in any tech stuff.
Once Freddie got back with a cable that was supposed to make the streaming of iCarly episodes lag .65 seconds less they started rehearsal. It went off with out a hitch and they were ready for the show on Friday. She couldn't wait to do the new bit she'd thought of on the show, it would be a hit she just knew it.
They celebrated with Strawberry Splat smoothies and a chick-flick that Freddie was opposed to but stayed and watched anyway. It had started snowing while they were there, and it would be inevitable that there would be no school the next day. That's how Seattle worked it never had half-assed precipitation. Sam decided to stay over, she slept on the couch and Spencer made "No School Waffles" for them in the morning.
She got a call from her mother at noon. She had to go back to see the doctor, she didn't tell Carly, because she would freak out because this most likely meant that Sam would have to get a cast put on and Carly would turn into a crying mess. So Sam told the Shay's that her mother had misplaced her bra and she had to go find it. Spencer shivered and groaned because that was not something he liked to think about. Carly told her to come back over when they found it because they always spent snow days together.
Her mother picked her up in front of the Bushwell Plaza and spent the whole ride listening to her mother complain and tell her that she shouldn't need to go to the doctor two days in a row. It wasn't Sam's choice to have a broken arm but she couldn't tell her mother this. She pulled up to the doors and Sam got out.
"I'll be waiting for you out here," She called out the window. "Don't take too long."
Sam sighed, put on a brave face, and entered the building. She walked up to the receptionist and leaned towards the woman who was painting her nails a light blue color.
"I'm here for my appointment," She said, the woman looked up with a disgusted look. "I'm, uh, Samantha Puckett."
The woman's face fell and she stood up, motioned to a person that was out of Sam's sight. The door to the left of the reception window opened and the nurse who had helped her yesterday motioned for her to follow her. They were in exam room three. The doctor would be with her soon. It was all very nerve wrecking for her. Of course they must have done plenty of casts, but she had never had a broken bone. She'd never had anything happen to her. She fidgeted, tearing off small pieces of the paper that lined the exam table she sat on. Doctor Phillips entered.
She didn't remember much.
Her memory of the moment was fuzzy.
She was sixteen.
She was dying.