But today, Armand was in a hurry. His doctor had called at 8 a.m. with a voice that was too calm, which meant bad news. “Armand, I’ve looked at your scan from Angers Radiologie. Please come in tomorrow.”
Tomorrow. That was eighteen hours of wondering if the shadow in his lung had grown teeth.
His granddaughter, Léa, a teenager with purple headphones and a mercy streak, sat at the kitchen table. “Papy, give me the paper they gave you.”
Armand leaned over her shoulder, his breath smelling of coffee and fear. “It’s not possible. The images are private. They are inside the hospital.”
Click.
He grumbled and handed her the compte rendu with the QR code. On the top right corner of the page, printed in modest blue font, were the words: – Je visualise mes examens – Espace Patient .
The old man’s name was Armand, and he did not trust the internet. He trusted the grey film sheets he kept in long brown envelopes, the ones you held up to the light of a cloudy window to see the ghost of your own spine.
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