Episode 20:
Lost and Found
Justin
Timberlake woke up to a pitch-black room.
He glanced at the alarm clock next to the bed and groaned. It was only
“Although,
I haven’t been that great of a student myself,” he admitted to himself.
Justin
stared at the darkness for a moment, reflecting on all the mistakes he had made
in the past semester. Looking back at
the clock, Justin decided that he might as well get up and make himself
something to eat. After all, he didn’t want to be late, like he had been last
semester. He stretched his arms and
looked back at his bed, where Britney was sleeping.
She looks so peaceful when she sleeps, he thought. After giving Britney one last look, Justin
walked out of the room and quietly closed the door.
+++
Elizabeth O'Brien gave the apartment one
final glance: everything was neat, in perfect order. She nodded, satisfied. It was the way she preferred things.
Stepping around her small suitcase, she
reached in the closet for her coat. For
a split second, she wondered why it seemed so empty. Then her jaw clenched.
“It's for the best,” she said, pushing
back the threatening twinge of pain.
“Now we're both free to find real happiness.” Grabbing her coat, she ignored the sudden
waft of cologne that drifted past.
Kevin's favorite... but why did her coat smell of it? He must have hugged her at some point, the
fragrance transferring to the wool. She
drew the garment closer to her face, inhaling deeply.
A second later, she pulled back. Angry at
herself for her emotionality, she donned the coat and fastened it with
fervor. After placing her suitcases out
in the hallway, she turned and locked the apartment.
As soon as this
conference is over, she thought to
herself, I'm getting this coat dry-cleaned.
It wouldn't do to have unnecessary reminders of that which was
firmly in the past.
+++
Kevin finished going through his email and
turned off his computer. With the week's
schedule in hand, he left his office and walked down the hallway. He was so engrossed in what he was reading he
made the turn into the lounge without conscious thought.
“Want a cup?”
Startled, he looked up from the papers and
blinked. “Oh,
Hayley... hi. Um, sure, I could
use a boost.”
The redhead nodded and reached for Kevin's
mug from the wall hook. “Rough night?”
she asked.
“Didn't sleep very well,” he said
elusively. “I'll take that with-”
“Two sugars, one creamer,” Hayley
finished. “I know. I've been fixing you
coffee for years now.”
He smiled.
“I guess you have,” he said, taking the offered cup gratefully. “Thanks.”
“So wanna tell me what's been on your mind
lately?”
He quickly raised the coffee to his lips
and took a long sip.
“Delay tactics won't help,” she said,
smiling. “Spill.”
“Hay...”
“Come on, we're alone here, you can
talk. It's been obvious that you've been
out of sorts. What's up? Or is it really
none of my business?”
Knowing his long-time friend would find
out eventually, he sighed. Nodding at
the small table, he sat down; she joined him a moment later.
“Elizabeth and I broke up,” he said,
shoulders slumping.
Hayley's eyes grew wide. “What?
When did this happen?”
“Christmas,” he said.
“But didn't you go to the New Year's Eve
gala at the
He toyed with the rim of his cup. “It was a last ditch effort. One final try.”
“Which obviously didn't work,” she said,
voice full of sympathy. “I thought you
two were happy.”
“I was,” he said, then paused. “She wasn't.”
“Oh, Kev,” Hayley said, taking his
hand. He returned her squeeze and gave
her a wry smile.
“It's strange,” he said. “Getting used to being alone. I haven't been single for two years.”
“Trust me,” she replied, “you haven't
missed much.” She drank from her
cup. “So where are you staying?”
He grimaced. “The Cavalier Apartments.”
“What!
That's a total dive! You're a
doctor, surely you can afford-”
“It's only temporary,” he quickly
reassured her. “And it was the only
place I could find on really short notice.”
“It's not in the best part of town,” she
said. “I bet our residents wouldn't even
live there.”
He gave her a grin. “Well, the paper thin walls make for
interesting entertainment,” he said, leaning back. “And most of my stuff is safely locked away in
storage. Besides, it's kind of
nostalgic; reminds me of my salad days.”
She rolled her eyes. “You could always crash at my place,” she
offered. “I can guarantee there's not nightly cockroach races there.”
“I appreciate it,” he said, “but I only
have thirteen days left there. I can
make do; I have a place at the
“Now, that's more like it,” she said. “Wow, it'll really be going from rags to
riches. From filth to
fab. From awful
to awesome. From-”
“Hayley...”
“-prison to penthouse,” she continued,
eyes sparkling.
Kevin laughed at her teasing
expression. “All right, all right...
enough.” He drained the last of his
coffee and smiled at her. “You always
know how to make me laugh,” he said. “Thanks.”
“Any time,” she said, standing up. “But seriously, we'll have to go have dinner
or something soon. And
definitely not at your place, until you move.”
“Deal,” he said.
“Oh,” she said as she reached the doorway,
“don’t forget. Today you get your new shadow.”
“Shadow?”
“Med
student.”
Kevin groaned as he remembered.
“Cartwright?
“Carter,” she corrected. “Have fun!”
“Right,” he said, gathering his papers and
steeling himself for the day.
+++
It
was
Walking
towards the surgery ward, Justin suddenly saw Isabel napping on a chair in the
waiting room.
“Hey…
Isabel… wake up,” he said, shaking her shoulder. Isabel moved a bit, and then looked straight
at Justin.
“Justin??
What time is it?” she asked, looking for a nearby clock.
“Relax…
it’s only 6:52 AM.
Did you spend the night here so you won’t be late?” he asked. Though they weren’t really close to each
other, Justin and Isabel were friends.
Isabel had helped him throughout med school, and they had chatted a few
times this past semester.
“Nah…
I couldn’t sleep last night. I’m
excited, you know?” Justin nodded his
head. “And if I slept here, at least I
wouldn’t be late like you were last semester…”
Justin groaned as Isabel giggled.
“Ha ha… not funny. Am I ever gonna live that down?” Justin ran his fingers in his hair,
remembering the disaster his first day last semester had been.
“Nope! Anyways,
where are you assigned?”
“I’m
in surgery with Dr. Cannon. You?”
“Cardiology with Dr. Chung. By the way, what time is it now?”
Justin
looked at his watch. “
“Thanks!
And good luck to you in surgery!”
Justin
gave one last smile and walked upstairs to the surgery ward. Finally, he was having a good day at the
hospital.
+++
Isabel
was flustered as she set off for the cardiology ward. She thought she’d been smart, spending the
night at the hospital to make absolutely sure she was there on time for her
first shift of her new rotation. But her
plan had almost backfired; somehow, she’d slept through the alarm she thought
she had set, and if Justin hadn’t woken her up…
She
shuddered at the thought of being late; it made her break out in a cold
sweat. What a horrible first impression
to make.
As
she waited anxiously for the elevator, she reached into the pocket of her lab
coat and pulled out her cell phone. She
had promised Nick she would give him a wake-up call to make sure he didn’t
oversleep; she hoped to God he had gotten up on his own. He was starting his surgical rotation today,
and if he was late, Dr. Brunson would surely know. She was, after all, the Head of Surgery.
As
the phone began to ring in her ear, she checked her watch; only four minutes
now. Where was the elevator??
Starting
to feel panicked now, Isabel gave up and darted into the stairwell, jogging up
the steps as fast as she could, her phone still pressed tightly to the side of
her head.
“’Lo?”
she heard Nick’s voice answer finally, through a crackle of static.
“Nick!”
she shouted. “Please tell me you’re
here!”
“At – ‘spital? Ye- -‘ere.”
Isabel
blinked; he was cutting out badly.
“Sorry, I’m in the stairwell!
You’re here??” she asked breathlessly, just as she reached the fourth
floor landing. Thank God, she thought, sighing with relief as she opened the door
marked Cardiology.
Nick’s
voice came back in, “Yeah, I just got off the elevator. Listen, I gotta go find Dr. Richardson. Catch ya later?”
Now the elevator
comes!
Isabel thought in exasperation. She must
have just missed it – and him.
“Yeah,”
she sighed, feeling relieved again at the knowledge that he had made it on
time. “Good luck; I’ll see you later!”
Before
he could even respond, she hurriedly snapped the phone shut, knowing she
shouldn’t be caught using her cell phone in the middle of a hospital, on the
cardiology floor, nonetheless. She shut
off the phone and dropped it into her bag as she strode towards the nurses
station in the center of the ward, walking with much more confidence than she
felt.
Clearing
her throat, she stepped up to the counter.
“Hi, I’m Isabel Rivera, third-year med student. I’m starting my cardiology rotation with Dr.
Chung today.”
A
curly-haired, blonde nurse whose nametag said Maggie smiled and replied, “Well,
you’re in luck. Here comes Dr. Chung
now.”
She
pointed, and Isabel turned to see her mentor doctor walking towards her. She had seen Dr. Shannon Chung in the ER for
consults on the cardiology patients, but they had never been formerly
introduced.
“Dr.
Chung?” she asked, holding out her hand to the other woman, who appeared to be in
her early thirties. “I’m your new
student, Isabel Rivera.”
“Nice
to meet you, Miss Rivera,” said Dr. Chung with a professional smile and firm
handshake. Though she was slightly
shorter than Isabel – a difficult feat, as Isabel was only five-foot-three
herself – Dr. Chung had a manner about her that was slightly intimidating.
She
was very smart; Isabel made that observation in less than five seconds. Of course, she had to be smart to be a
cardiology resident, but everything about her, from her appearance to her
mannerisms, conveyed intelligence. Her
almond eyes were sharp, and while one was dark brown, almost black, the other
was surprisingly blue.
Isabel
blinked, caught off-guard by this peculiarity, and forced herself to respond,
“It’s nice to meet you too. I’m really
excited to be working with you this semester.”
Dr.
Chung nodded. “And I’m glad to teach
you. I hope you will learn a great
plenty here in the Cardio ward.”
Isabel
smiled, looking around. “Oh, I’m sure I
will.”
+++
Kevin glanced at his watch as he saw the
tall blond emerge from the elevator. Right
on time... a good start, anyway. Lord, but they get younger every year...
“Dr. Richardson?” the newcomer asked
tentatively. “I'm Nick, Nick Carter.”
He nodded.
They had met before; Carter had been Brian’s student. And not a bad one at that,
if he remembered last semester’s conversations with his cousin correctly. That was a relief, though it was still a pain
to have to be responsible for a med student, on top of all the other stresses
of his job.
“Mr. Carter,” he said, holding out a
hand. He was rewarded with a
surprisingly firm handshake. “Looking
forward to your surgical rotation?”
“Yes, sir,” the blond said, perhaps a bit
eagerly.
Kevin smiled, remembering his own early days. “Well, let me show you around the floor while
things are quiet. I have no surgeries
scheduled today because there’s supposed to be a big ice storm heading our way
– they cancelled all the electives, so we'll have to take what comes in from
the ER.”
The younger man lost a good deal of his
nervousness as Kevin familiarized him with the various areas of the surgical
wing. When quizzed on various aspects of
surgical prep procedure, Nick seemed to know his stuff... another plus. The pair ended up in the lounge.
“Normally I'd be in my office, doing
paperwork or reading over case files and surgical journals,” he explained. “But it's kind of small for two, so we'll
just stay here.”
“Sounds good,” the student said. “It's kind of strange, all this quiet.”
“I imagine after doing your ER rotation,
it would be,” Kevin said. “But believe me, things can get pretty chaotic up here. You'll learn to appreciate the quiet times
when they come.”
He settled at a table, spreading his
paperwork across the surface. When Nick
moved towards the bookshelves that lined one wall of the lounge, he suggested a
well-used anatomy book to help pass the time.
Once the student was settled, Kevin turned to his own work.
Nearly an hour and a half later, he put
his paperwork in a neat stack, grateful it was finally finished. Glancing out the window, he saw that the
predicted winter storm had already begun.
Unfortunately, that meant an upswing in activity in both the ER and
surgery. People never learned.
He knew Nick was restless and, no doubt,
bored. One of Nick's friends, a young
man whose name eluded him, came into the lounge, semi-complaining about the
lack of action. Secretly, Kevin agreed.
Their rescue came from Holli Brunson, surprisingly
enough. In her usual brusque way, she
announced an incoming surgical case and did an impromptu interrogation on two
somewhat startled med students. Kevin
was rather proud that it was Nick who proved the most knowledgeable. As he followed Brunson out of the lounge, his
focus narrowed as he mentally reviews procedure, all thoughts of boredom gone.
+++
Nick’s
first impression of the surgical department was that it was much less chaotic
than the ER. This floor was sparse and
sterile, not at all like the cramped and bustling halls and trauma rooms in the
Emergency department.
At first, this came as a breath of fresh air, but as the day went on, he
quickly started to get bored. He was
itching to get into an OR to observe an operation, but all elective procedures
had been cancelled as a result of the ice storm that was due to hit the
He
couldn’t keep himself from looking out the window every few seconds as he sat
in the lounge with Dr. Richardson, an anatomy textbook open in front of
him. “Here, why don’t you brush up on
your A&P?” his mentor surgeon had suggested, dropping the thick book down
on the table in front of him before settling back to work on some of his own
paperwork. “You never know when it will
come in handy; if the roads get bad with this storm, we could have some
emergencies coming in. There’s always a lot of bad MVAs in a storm.” (AN:
MVA = Motor Vehicle Accident)
Nick
had nodded agreeably and opened the book, but after flipping through a few
pages, he had quickly lost interest in studying. The whole point of being a third-year, he
thought, was that you got to get away
from the classroom, away from the
textbooks, and actually put your knowledge to use, actually do something. He wanted to do something interesting, or at
least watch something interesting,
but for now, the most interesting thing in the vicinity was the sleet that had
started to come down outside.
He
watched it for a few minutes, stealing glances in between pretending to study
the diagrams in his book, but within minutes, the window was fogged up and iced
over, and he could no longer see out of it.
“Looks
like it’s starting to get bad,” he observed, pointing to the window.
Dr.
Richardson looked up. “Yep. The MVAs should start rolling in any
minute. Stupid people, out driving in
this when they should just stay in…” he muttered, shaking his head as he went
back to his work.
Was
it wrong to secretly hope for some of those stupid people to wreck? Nick felt guilty for it, but he was really
hoping for a surgery to happen soon. He
didn’t have the attention span to sit around like this, just waiting, not even
sure what to study for because he didn’t know what procedure he’d be observing
first, or even if he would get to observe a procedure at all.
Justin
Timberlake apparently felt the same way.
Nick looked up as his fellow-third year came banging into the lounge,
his body slouched. “Man, this sucks,” he
complained to Nick as he went to the refrigerator, pulling out a twenty-four
ounce bottle of Mountain Dew. Twisting
open the top, he took a long slurp and exhaled loudly. “You seen any procedures yet, Carter?”
“Nope… you?” Nick
was afraid to complain about the lack of excitement around Dr. Richardson; the
man seemed nice enough from the few occasions Nick had been around him, but he
also had a seriousness about him that was intimidating. Nick didn’t want to get on his bad side on
the first day.
Justin
snorted. “No… man, Dr. Cannon’s got me
practicing reading X-rays to classify bone fractures. I learned how to read a friggin’ x-ray in the
ER; I’m ready for some action!”
Out
of the corner of his eye, Nick saw Dr. Richardson look up, but the older
surgeon didn’t say anything.
As
if answering their prayers, Dr. Brunson, whom Nick never would have thought of
as an answer to any prayer, suddenly
burst into the lounge.
“We’ve
got a patient coming down with severe peritonitis. I’ve booked OR 1 for emergency surgery.
Dr.
Richardson jumped up, setting his charts aside.
“Of course.”
He looked over at Nick and started to add, “Can-”
“Ahh,
Mr. Timberlake. And Mr. Carter,”
interrupted Dr. Brunson, who had followed Kevin’s gaze and was now looking at
each of the students in turn. “I take it
you’re both on surgical rotation as of today?”
The
two students nodded, and Justin added a rather squeaky “Yes, ma’am.”
Suck-up, thought Nick,
smirking over at him. He couldn’t blame
Justin for trying though; he’d had more than his fair share of run-ins with the
formidable Dr. Brunson during their fall semester.
“Well,
perhaps one of you would like to observe the procedure then?” Brunson
suggested, and they both nodded eagerly.
“Alright then, who can tell me what peritonitis is?”
Nick
and Justin exchanged looks, only to realize at the same time that they were
being quizzed. Nick’s mind started to
race, but luckily, this was a fairly easy one.
“It’s an inflammation of the peritoneum, caused by infection?” he
managed to get out, while Justin was still on an “Uhh…,” his face all screwed
up in concentration.
“Are
you asking me or telling me, Carter?” barked Dr. Brunson
“Telling
you,” Nick quickly replied.
“Good. And I assume you know your anatomy – the
peritoneum is what, exactly?”
Nick
had already known that answer before today, but by the hand of fate, the page
of the anatomy textbook he had been staring at for the last half hour was the
gastrointestinal system. “It’s the
membrane that lines the abdominal wall,” he answered easily. “It covers most of the organs, especially the
gastrointestinal ones.”
“Correct
– not that I would have expected any less from a third-year. That’s basic anatomy,” snapped Dr. Brunson,
glaring over at Justin, whose mouth was gaping soundlessly. “And what can you tell me about the
presentation of peritonitis?”
“Infection!” Justin blurted, so quickly and so loudly
that, this time, Nick was rendered speechless, in order to stop and look at
him. Blushing, Justin stammered, “I-I
mean, the patient will present with… with signs of an infection.”
“Well,
of course, seeing as how Mr. Carter has already informed us that peritonitis is
caused by infection,” Brunson said irritably.
“Could you possibly grace us with some more specific symptoms, Mr. Timberlake?”
Justin
opened and closed his mouth a few times before finally asking, “High white
blood count?”
Dr.
Brunson made a tutting noise. “Not if
the patient has already become septic; then he or she would probably be
leucopenic. Mr. Carter, do you know of
any characteristic signs that present themselves upon physical examination?”
“Uh… well, they’d be tender to palpitation of
the abdomen,” said Nick, thinking back to the many physical examinations he’d
done in the ER. “And the abdomen would
be stiff, maybe even distended? They
could be nauseous or vomiting too.”
Dr.
Brunson nodded shortly. “That’s a start
anyway. This particular patient was
admitted several days ago with a small bowel obstruction due to Crohn’s
disease. Dr. Emerson performed the
surgery to remove the blockage. Today,
three days post-op, the patient developed severe abdominal pain, high-grade
fever, tachycardia, vomiting, and decreased urine output. I consulted with the physician; diagnosis is
peritonitis. What would you suspect is
the cause, Mr. Carter?”
Nick
thought quickly, trying to process all the information she had given him. “Well, since he just had surgery, it could
have been caused by a complication – maybe his intestines got punctured?”
“Good
hypothesis. We won’t know until we open her up, but yes, a tear in the bowel is
a definite possibility. Too bad Emerson
isn’t on call today to repair his mistake, if that’s the case. As it is, Dr. Richardson is here to assist,
and Mr. Carter, since you seem to have a solid understanding of the condition,
why don’t you tag along and learn the surgical remedy?”
Nick’s
heart leapt. “I can observe?” he asked
hopefully.
“Yes,
if you’re available to scrub in the next two minutes,” replied Dr.
Brunson. Nick nodded eagerly, and Dr.
Richardson smiled at him over Dr. Brunson’s shoulder.
“Can
I… um, Dr. Brunson, would you mind if I came too?” Justin asked
tentatively. “I haven’t seen a procedure
yet, and-”
“And
you won’t, until you can prove you have a solid understanding of the cause for
the procedure,” snapped Dr. Brunson, rounding on him, her sharp, hawkish eyes
flashing dangerously. “I’m sure Dr.
Cannon can provide you with some reading material to help enlighten you, Mr.
Timberlake. Or there’s always chart work
to be done.” With that, she stalked
away, calling over her shoulder, “Richardson, Carter, we need to scrub in now, or we’ll have a septic patient on
our table!”
“Come
on, Nick,” said Dr. Richardson, putting a hand on his shoulder as he steered
Nick out of the room. Nick felt a rush
of excitement that was only curbed slightly when he glanced back to see the
dejected look on Justin’s face.
+++
“What
do you think?” Brian sat back and watched the little girl examine the row of
neat, dark stitches on her palm.
“It
doesn’t hurt,” she announced after a few moments.
Brian
smiled at the little girl’s mother, who watched her daughter nervously. “Good.
Now, I won’t have to give you any medicine if you follow my
directions. How’s that sound?”
“Awesome!” She grinned, showing off a missing tooth.
“I
can assure you, Stella’s going to do everything you tell her, Dr.
Littrell. She’s certainly not going near
the ice from now on. I don’t ever want
her to have to go through this again,” the mother spoke anxiously, her gaze
darting from her daughter’s face to the stitches.
Brian
nodded. “I don’t want Stella to have to
go through it either, but I don’t think she has to be banned from ice
skating. You can relax, Mrs.
Matthews. All Stella has to do when she
gets home is change into warm clothes, drink hot chocolate, and not go outside
for the rest of the day. It’s getting
dangerous out there.”
“That’s
all?” Stella asked, in wonder at the fact that she could just have fun and get
better easily.
“That’s
it,” Brian assured her. “Oh, and
remember to clean the stitches and change the bandage every day. I think your mom can help you with that,
right?”
Mrs.
Matthews nodded, a relieved smile forming on her face. “I absolutely will help. Anything it takes to fix this.”
Brian
jotted down his notes on the chart.
“Great! Well, you’re all set here.
Remember to come back in ten days to have the stitches removed. And drive carefully on your way home. It’s getting icy outside.”
Ruffling
Stella’s hair and hearing her giggle, Brian smiled to himself and headed back
into the fray of chaos that the ER had been all morning.
+++
“… and there’s number
eleven. Damn Howie, guess I owe you
twenty bucks,” AJ grumbled as they passed their tenth abandoned car on the side
of the road.
Howie chuckled as he
won their little bet. “Sorry man, but
you were the stupid one to think there wouldn’t be more then ten cars on the
side of the road. But now you can buy me
dinner.” Howie smirked as he made sure
to glance into the car to just be sure no one was sitting it in.
“The hell if I’m
buying you dinner; I’ll give you your twenty bucks for you to buy your own
dinner. And I just figured these
backroads hillbillies would be stupid enough to be out on the road.” AJ carefully turned down a road, slowing down
enough to keep from spinning or sliding on the newly-forming ice.
Howie glanced at his
friend with a smirk. “Um, AJ… in case
you didn’t realize, you’re one of
those ‘backroads hillbillies,’ as you so blatantly put it. May I remind you that you live on
AJ rolled his
eyes. “You’re lucky you already have
yourself a woman, D, cause with that sense of humor, you’d never get another
one.” He momentarily took his eyes off
the road to get Howie a good sneer.
Howie was just about
to flip his friend off when suddenly he saw a car coming around the next corner
rather out of control. “AJ, LOOK OUT!”
AJ swiftly took his
foot off of the gas pedal, fighting not to act on instinct and hit the
breaks. Luckily for the two paramedics,
the out of control car slid across the pavement a few feet away. Unluckily for them, as their rig came to a
slow halt, they witnessed the car bounce harshly against the side of the nearby
ditch.
“Son of a…” AJ mumbled.
Howie’s eyes went
wide as he saw the passenger sail right through the windshield. After sitting there for a moment in complete
shock, he snapped into action. “AJ, radio this in.
I’ll get the passenger; you check the driver.” After barking out the orders, he grabbed his
bag and a backboard and slid out onto the slick street, making his way to the
person that was sprawled out on the cold, hard ground.
It wasn’t often that
they witnessed the actual accident, especially one to this extent. All too soon, he found himself crouched down
next to the young woman who was laid out on her side. “Miss? Miss? Can you hear me??” Howie began unzipping his medical bag.
The girl let out a
moan; tears were streaming down her face.
“Oh no… oh no, oh no.”
“Can you tell me your
name, Miss?” Howie asked as he quickly
worked to strap a neck brace on her.
The girl visibly
swallowed hard, her voice shaking.
“A…Anna… Anna Spencer.
James?? Where’s James???!”
“I need you to stay
as still as possible, Anna; I’m worried about your injuries. Were you not wearing your seatbelt?”
“You didn’t answer
me, WHERE’S JAMES?!! JAMES! JAMES!”
She tried yelling out for her boyfriend.
“Calm down, dear,
he’s still in the car. My partner is
tending to him. Now can you tell me if
anything hurts? Does it hurt to
breathe?”
Her teeth chattered a
little. “Um... actually, not much is
hurting; is that bad?”
Howie bit his lip
briefly, trying to not show his worry.
“I’m sure it’s just the shock, honey.”
Her whole body had
started to quiver, her rapid breath coming in small clouds. “It’s so icy…” she murmured, her teeth
chattering harder. “Th-they let us out
of sc-school early, be-because of the st-storm…
J-James is a good driver, but he… he lost control. The road was so s-slippery…”
Howie looked at her
in sympathy and wondered how the boy was doing.
“Do you think you can just stay very still for me while I go check on
your friend and get some help from my partner?”
“J-just make sure
James is okay, please?”
Howie nodded and gave
her hand a slight squeeze before hopping up to his feet and heading towards the
mangled car. He noticed that AJ had been
able to get the car door open and had also placed a neck brace on the
victim. “Hey J, give me his stats.”
AJ was quick to
ramble off the information Howie had asked for.
“Male driver, late teens maybe early twenties, unconscious from the get
go. He has severe trauma to his chest
and abdomen from the impact of the steering wheel. BP is way low; I started an IV, but I think
we’re gonna have to tube him once we get him on the stretcher. We need to get him to the hospital
fast!” AJ had managed to rush over to
the ambulance during his exchange and pull the stretcher out.
“Okay, let’s do this;
the girl isn’t faring much better either.
I’m worried about some kinda spinal injury and she’s losing a lot of
blood from her abdomen and legs.”
Both men worked together quickly as they get both of
their patients into the awaiting ambulance just as the police cars began to
pull up. With the sirens blaring, Howie
began tending to them in the back, while AJ carefully made his way through the
icy streets, hoping to get to the hospital in time to save these two.
+++
Half
an hour later, still reeling from the horrific accident scene that he and Howie
had just witnessed, AJ stood just outside of the ambulance bay smoking a
cigarette in attempts to calm his nerves.
Howie exited the hospital and handed him a cup of coffee.
“Thanks,”
he said, taking a draw off the cigarette and slowly exhaling the smoke.
“Dani
make it home okay?”
Howie
nodded. “I had to listen to Sophie rant
for a few minutes though. Apparently,
she took it as a direct insult to her parenting skills that I was checking up
on our daughter.”
The
sudden crackle of static over the ambulance radio interrupted the conversation,
and both AJ and Howie ran to the ambulance…
“We
have just received reports of a missing eight-year-old male, Luke Carlton,
sandy brown hair and blue eyes. He was
last seen leaving
“Dear
Lord, a kid’s lost in this weather?” AJ asked in disbelief.
“He
goes to Dani’s school,” Howie stated worriedly.
“Do
you know him?” AJ asked.
Howie
shook his head.
“Still, AJ… that’s someone’s child out there. The police are going to need all the help
they can get.”
AJ
nodded in agreement as he looked up at the quickly darkening sky.
“Well,
either way, it would be good to have medical personnel around when the little
boy is found.”
Howie
smiled, knowing that was AJ’s way of saying he was all for helping find
Luke. With the decision made, AJ and
Howie quickly got into the ambulance, both praying that Luke would be found
soon and return home safely.
+++
Nick Carter had proved himself eager to
learn and fairly capable in the OR, despite his lack of prior experience. Kevin had caught Holli's look of approval -
when the younger man wasn't aware, of course - and his estimation of the
student hitched up a degree. With time
and training, and a lot of experience, Carter had a real chance of being a
sound doctor.
Once Holli had gone, and Nick was
observing proper closure procedures, Kevin spoke.
“This was an easy one,” he said. “Fairly cut and dried, if you'll excuse the
expression. But you can learn from every
case if you pay attention.”
“It's amazing how small that laceration
was; I almost missed it even when you pointed it out,” Nick admitted.
“Dr. Brunson is one of the best,” Kevin
acknowledged. “Eyes of
an eagle. Not much gets by her,
as you'll come to find out.”
“I can believe it,” Nick muttered, causing
Kevin to smile
Turning back to the task at hand, he continued
his demonstration.
+++
“So,
Carter, what did you think?” asked Dr. Richardson as he and Nick walked out of
the OR.
Nick
grinned. “That was cool,” he admitted,
not caring how young he sounded for saying so.
Though
he had done nothing more than hold tools and, occasionally, suction during the
surgery, it had still been fascinating to have stood there, all gowned up and
sterilized, like a real surgeon, and watch as Drs. Brunson and Richardson had
cut into the middle-aged woman on the operating table, draining the infection
that had spread throughout her abdomen, and repairing the small tear in her
large intestine that had caused it. The
surgery had gone well, and Brunson had even let Dr. Richardson take extra time
in closing to show Nick the proper way to apply the sutures and steri-strips
that would help seal the woman’s incision.
Dr.
Richardson laughed, crinkles appearing at the corners of his green eyes. “Well, if you thought that was ‘cool,’ just
wait. You’ll see a lot more interesting
surgical cases than peritonitis this semester.”
Nick
nodded, half-eager, half-worried. He had
learned a lot just from this operation alone, yet he didn’t see how he would
ever be able to master as much as the two elder surgeons obviously had. The inside of the human body looked very
little like the colorful diagrams in his anatomy textbooks; most of the organs
were similar in color, and with all of the connective tissue to prod through,
he’d found it hard to tell what was what at first. How would he ever learn to spot the smallest
of holes, as Dr. Brunson had, and skillfully repair them without tearing
anything else?
Nick
had always had good hand-eye coordination, and it had served him well in the
ER, especially with the smaller proportions of the pediatric patients he had
treated under Dr. Littrell, but surgical procedures were much more intense and
invasive than the procedures he’d learned to do in the ER. It made him nervous to think that one small knick
could result in a patient getting very sick, possibly even dying.
“Well,
why don’t you take a break, grab some lunch,” Dr. Richardson suggested. “Just like in the ER, you never know when
there might be an emergency, so it’s always good to grab something to eat when
you can.”
Nick
nodded obediently; he really wasn’t hungry, after observing the operation, but
a semester in the ER had demonstrated how right Kevin was. They could be called for a consult or whisked
away to scrub in for an unscheduled surgery at any time.
“I’ll
be in the lounge if you need me,” Dr. Richardson added. “I brown-bagged it today.”
“Oh,
okay. Well, I think I’m just gonna grab
something from the vending machine,” said Nick, motioning towards a waiting
area, where there were two of them. He
didn’t feel like a big lunch; a bag of chips or a candy bar would serve him
fine for now.
“Suit
yourself,” said Dr. Richardson, turning to head back
to the lounge.
Nick
had just started towards the vending machines, when he heard someone call,
“Kevin!” He turned at the same time Dr.
Richardson did; the tall, red-haired head nurse of the surgery, Hayley, was
bustling out from the nurses station. “Chris Kirkpatrick just called from the ER;
they had a major MVA come in, and there are two patients in need of a surgical
consult down there. He said one’s
critical,” she added.
Dr.
Richardson nodded. “Thanks, Hayley; I’ll
head down right now.” Turning, he
noticed Nick and called, “So, Nick, you wanna see some action?”
Abandoning
all thoughts of a candy bar, Nick nodded.
“Yeah, totally!” he exclaimed, jogging over to fall in step with his
mentor.
Together,
the two men ducked into the stairwell and followed the flight of stairs down to
the ER.
+++
“In
here,” said Chris Kirkpatrick when he saw Kevin and Nick in the ER, beckoning
them into one of the trauma rooms. JC
Chasez and two other nurses surrounded the patient, a teenage boy, Nick
realized, as he followed Kevin to the foot of the gurney.
“Patient
is James Buckley, eighteen years old, victim of a single-car MVA,” Chris filled
them in. “He was smashed against the
steering wheel in the collision and has trauma to the chest and abdomen from
the impact.”
Nick
could see the bruises already starting to form on the unconscious boy’s torso. Other than the contusions and a few scratches
on his face, he looked unharmed, but Nick knew from experience that his insides
could look a lot worse.
“We
suspect internal hemorrhaging,” added Dr. Chasez, confirming Nick’s
suspicions. Dr. Richardson seemed to
have guessed the same, for he gave a short nod and came around to one side of
the gurney, motioning for Nick to follow.
Dr.
Richardson looked at the monitors keeping track of James’s vital signs; his
heart rate was high, his blood pressure low.
The trauma team had already started him on oxygen and blood
transfusions.
“What
are his breath sounds like?”
“Decreased
on the left; he had a tension pneumo when he was brought in, but I already did
a thoracostomy and placed a chest tube,” said Dr. Chasez promptly, motioning to
the thin tubing that snaked out of the side of the boy’s chest.
“Set
up for ultrasound,” Dr. Richardson directed.
“Nick, examine the belly; check for tenderness or distention.”
Nodding,
Nick carefully pressed his fingers into the boy’s abdomen, as he had learned to
do during his ER rotation. Though
unconscious, James moaned lightly as his touch.
“His abdomen is tender,” Nick observed, continuing to prod.
He
was vaguely aware of the sound of doors crashing open and glanced up briefly to
see nurse Natalie Spade stick her head through the
doors that connected to the adjoining trauma room. “Dr. Richardson, Dr. O’Brien said to tell you
that we need a surgical consult in here as well.”
Dr.
Richardson’s voice sounded annoyed when he asked, “What’s the situation?”
“We’ve
got a female adolescent, victim of an MVA, with massive trauma to the lower
half of her body, particularly the legs.
She’s going to need surgery.”
“Another MVA?” Nick asked curiously, looking up again.
“She’s
his girlfriend,” Chris informed him, gesturing to the patient whose belly Nick
was palpitating.
“What
are her vitals? Is she critical?” Dr.
Richardson grilled Natalie.
“No,
she’s in shock, but stable.”
“Well,
this boy could be critical; he has chest and abdominal trauma. Yours sounds like it could be more of an
orthopedic case. Call back up to surgery
and get Amory Cannon to come down and take a look at her,” said Dr. Richardson,
dismissing her.
When
Natalie had gone back into the other room, Nick spoke up, “Dr. Richardson? He’s distended, especially on the left.” He felt a place on the boy’s belly which
seemed swollen and firm.
“Good. Step back,” instructed Dr. Richardson, taking
Nick’s place. He repeated the exam
briefly and nodded. “You’re right;
distention on the left. It could be the
spleen. Let’s look on the ultrasound.”
One
of the nurses handed him the probe that was connected to the ultrasound
monitor; Dr. Richardson ran it slowly across James’s torso, studying the images
on the screen intensely. “What do you
see, Nick?” he asked.
Nick
squinted at the monitor. He still found
ultrasounds hard to read at times, and this one was especially tough; he could
barely distinguish the different organs because everything seemed to be blurred
by… “Blood? Is that blood?”
Dr.
Richardson nodded grimly. “There’s
definitely hemorrhaging; the spleen is probably lacerated, and based on the
amount of blood in the belly, the injuries could be more intensive than
that. I’d like to get a CT of the chest,
but there’s no time; his pressure could bottom out at any minute. We need to get him up to the OR while he’s
still fairly stable. Chris,
could you call ahead upstairs and tell them to book us an OR immediately?”
Chris
nodded, immediately reaching for the phone in the trauma room, while the other
nurses got James ready to move.
“Can
I scrub in?” Nick asked breathlessly as he ran alongside the gurney, helping
Dr. Richardson and the nurses transport James to the elevator.
Dr.
Richardson nodded. “Of
course.”
Though
Nick felt bad for the teenage boy on the gurney, a faint smile shone on his
distorted reflection as he stood in front of stainless steel doors, waiting for
the elevator.
+++
Back in the ER already, thought Isabel with
a rueful smile as the elevator dinged, announcing its arrival on the first
floor. Standing alongside Dr. Chung, she
waited anxiously for the doors to open.
They were responding to a call for a cardiology consult that had come in
just minutes ago.
As
the steel doors slid open, Isabel caught sight of a group of doctors and nurses
waiting with a patient a few feet from the elevator. She hurried out so that they could get in,
but not before a familiar voice called her name.
Looking
over her shoulder, she saw Nick waving at her as he helped back the gurney into
the elevator. She smiled, feeling a rush
of warmth travel through her, as if she’d just downed a cup of hot cocoa (which
sounded very good right about now, in the midst of the ice storm raging
outside). She waved back, giving him a quick thumbs up, before the elevator doors started to
close, and Dr. Chung said, “Miss Rivera?
Are you coming?”
Fast
on her mentor’s heels, Isabel followed Dr. Chung’s brisk pace to the correct
examining room. There, she was surprised
to find her former mentor, Dr. Jack Palmer, standing over the patient.
“Well,
well,” Dr. Palmer said with a grin when he spotted Isabel. “Welcome back, Isabel.”
Isabel
smiled; it made her feel important to be coming to the ER as a consult
now. Well, accompanying the consulting
physician, in any case.
“What
do we have here?” asked Dr. Chung, stepping up to observe the patient in the
bed, an elderly man. He was conscious
and propped up in bed, his bare chest covered with white, sticky pads. Isabel’s eyes followed the lead wires from
the pads up to the heart monitor, which was beeping out an irregular rhythm.
“Walter
Marriott, age seventy-four, MI while attempting to scrape ice in his driveway,”
said Dr. Palmer. “Mr. Marriott
experienced sudden angina and trouble breathing. Luckily, his wife looked out the window and
called 911 as soon as she saw he was having trouble. You’re lucky you have such an attentive wife,
sir,” he added to Mr. Marriott, smiling.
“Oh,
I’ll never live this down now,” the old man said wheezily, giving a tired smile
in return. “She’s always worrying about
me, and now I’ve given her an actual reason.”
Isabel
and Dr. Palmer both chuckled, but Dr. Chung was more serious. “Have you done an ECG?”
“Right
here,” said Dr. Palmer, handing her a long strip of paper that had recorded Mr.
Marriott’s heart rhythm. “He showed all
the classic signs of an MI, so we gave him aspirin, heparin, beta blockers, and
nitroglycerin. We got his heart rate
down, but he’s still experiencing arrhythmia with ST elevation.”
Dr.
Chung spent a few minutes reviewing the patient’s chart and looking over the
ECG, pointing out certain distinguishing characteristics to Isabel. “What further treatment would you recommend,
Miss Rivera?” she asked finally.
“He
seems like a good candidate for PTCA,” said Isabel, suspecting that Mr.
Marriott needed an angioplasty procedure to widen the narrowed coronary
arteries that had caused his heart attack.
During her ER rotation, she had seen many patients come in with the same
situation, though she had never observed an actual angioplasty.
Dr.
Chung nodded. “I agree. Call up to the cath lab. We’ll need to get him upstairs right away.”
Isabel
nodded and immediately picked up the phone.
+++
After
half a day of doing nothing but charts, Justin was pretty bored. But he didn’t complain much. He would rather be doing charts than be
quizzed by Dr. Brunson again. He felt even more foolish hours later than he had
when he was being quizzed.
And, of course, Nick had to be Mr. Perfect… again, he thought. Justin couldn’t help but feel like an idiot
compared to him. That’s how it had
always been, ever since their first year of med school. The professors would praise Nick, while
Justin would get scolded for making one simple mistake.
He
was about to sink further into a sea of despair when he heard Dr. Cannon yell
at him. “Timberlake! Scrub in!
We have a young girl who needs our help!” she said, rushing to the
nearby sink.
Justin
didn’t hesitate for one second. He
quickly stood up and ran to the sink.
After scrubbing in, Justin rushed to Dr. Cannon’s side as the patient
was wheeled in. As the young girl was getting
prepared for the surgery, Justin turned pale.
Her
legs were mangled, and her stomach was covered in blood. She had a few scratches on her face and her
upper body, but her lower body was a mess, for a lack of better words.
“Anna
Spencer, age seventeen. Thrown out of the vehicle when she and her boyfriend wrecked on the
way home from school. Her lower
body was smashed against the dashboard as she was thrown out. Her legs are broken, her pelvic bone smashed,
deep cuts on each leg and on her stomach, and both ACLs in her legs are
torn. Looks like we have a long surgery
ahead of us,” Dr. Cannon said.
Justin
stared at the poor girl again. He felt
bile coming up his throat.
“Timberlake,
could you PLEASE act more mature with this?
You’re going to see more patients like this, perhaps even worse. And I pray that day won’t come. Come on!” Dr. Cannon said.
Justin
swallowed whatever was in his throat and went to watch the surgeons do their
jobs.
+++
In
the OR, Nick looked down into James Buckley’s open belly with dismay. There was so much blood that he could barely
tell the digestive organs apart. Dr.
Richardson had already removed the lacerated spleen, and still, the blood kept
coming.
“Nick,
more suction,” ordered Dr. Richardson, his voice unusually sharp. Nick had been suctioning the whole time,
sending a steady stream of blood into a machine called the cell saver, which
cleaned it and sent it pumping back into James’s body. But the blood was leaking faster than the
machine could suction it, and the patient’s vital signs were getting
progressively worse.
“I’m
trying,” said Nick, his voice cracking.
“There’s just so much blood…”
His throat felt tight; he swallowed hard, moving the suction hose
around, to no effect.
Feeling
slightly queasy by the sight of such massive hemorrhaging, Nick looked up and
over the table. The strip of face he
could see between Dr. Richardson’s surgical mask and cap was covered in a sheen of perspiration.
The
sight unnerved Nick; he had never seen the surgeon look anything but cool and
composed. Yet as James’s blood pressure
steadily dropped, Dr. Richardson’s stress skyrocketed.
“I
can’t see a damn thing,” he finally cursed, expelling a sigh of frustration
beneath his mask. “How am I supposed to
repair the colon when I can’t even see what I’m doing?”
“Do
you want me to call Brunson?” asked Hayley, the nurse who was assisting. Her eyes looked wary above her mask.
Dr.
Richardson seemed to hesitate. “Not
yet,” he said finally. “Give me a few
more minutes. Nick, more suction.”
Nick
dutifully moved the suction hose about, clearing as much blood as he could.
For
a moment, things seemed to be going better; Hayley wiped the sweat from Dr.
Richardson’s forehead, and the surgeon dove back in, his thick eyebrows furrowed
with determination.
Then, all hell broke loose. As Dr.
Richardson lifted the colon, a geyser of blood gushed out at him, splattering
the front of his surgical gown with a fresh splash of bright red. Seconds later, all of the monitors went haywire.
“Pressure’s
bottoming out… Lost
his pressure!” Hayley called out, staring fretfully at the monitor. The erratic beep that signified James’s
heartbeat became a shrill wail. “Flatline.”
“Get
Brunson,” Dr. Richardson barked. “I’m
gonna crack his chest. Nick, hand me the
sternal saw.”
Abandoning
the suction, Nick followed the surgeon’s pointing finger and retrieved the saw
that was meant to slice through ribs and sternum to open up a patient’s
chest. He passed it to Dr. Richardson,
who didn’t hesitate one moment before applying it expertly to the ashen
teenager on the table. The mere sound of
the saw made Nick cringe, but he kept his composure, admiring his mentor
surgeon’s quick work.
“Hayley,
charge the defibrillator,” Dr. Richardson commanded to the nurse, who had just
finished paging the chief of surgery.
“Ever shocked anyone from inside the chest, Nick?”
“No,”
said Nick, almost breathless.
“After
today, you will have. Internal
paddles?” Hayley passed a set of small,
tong-like paddles to Dr. Richardson.
Nick watched in wonder as he stuck them straight into James’s open
chest, placing them in position on either side of his unbeating heart. “Here, Nick… take them,” he ordered, and Nick
put his hands over the older man’s, taking command of the paddles.
“Charge
to 50?”
“Charged,”
said Hayley.
“Then
whenever you’re ready, Nick.”
Nick
hesitated not even a second. “Clear!”
his voice shook, and he closed his eyes as he delivered the shock straight into
the boy’s heart.
+++
“Clear!”
Isabel
squeezed her eyes shut as the word was issued.
She opened them in dismay when she heard the nurse’s voice say, “No
change. Still in
V-fib.”
“Charge
again. 250,” came
Dr. Chung’s curt command.
“Charging…”
Isabel
watched, this time, as Dr. Chung pressed the paddles against Mr. Marriott’s
chest. His old, feeble body jumped on
the table with the surge of electricity, but when her eyes flew to the heart
monitor, the faltering line did not change.
Her
own heart hurt with sorrow. The
angioplasty was supposed to been a routine procedure; though she had never
observed one until now, Isabel had read all about them. They were a very common way of treating
patients with blood clots and narrowed coronaries.
Mr.
Marriott should have sailed through, but instead, he’d suffered a second heart
attack in the middle of the procedure.
It had been over fifteen minutes, and his damaged heart had still not
recovered a rhythm that would sustain life.
“Asystole,”
the nurse said suddenly, and Isabel looked up again to see that the line on the
heart monitor had flattened completely.
“Should
I do chest compressions?” she asked Dr. Chung, moving forward. She stopped when the petite cardiologist
shook her head, her mouth pressed into a narrow, firm line.
“It’s
too late,” she said, her voice soft, but sure.
“His heart has been unresponsive for nearly twenty minutes; we will not
get him back. Too much damage has been
done.”
Isabel
let out a shaky breath, feeling helpless.
She wanted to protest that they should at least try CPR, but the
decision had already been made. Dr.
Chung was stripping off her gloves and looking toward the clock. “Time of death:
***
“Time
of death:
Nick
looked up. “Thanks,” he muttered,
feeling he didn’t deserve any kind of praise.
The patient had died.
“You’ll
close and clean up, I assume?” asked Dr. Brunson, her heavy, dark eyebrows
arching above her mask. She had come in
just to witness the last-ditch attempt to save the boy’s life. It had been she who had declared it a lost cause
and ordered Dr. Richardson to call his death.
Dr.
Richardson nodded, and the head of surgery promptly left, tossing her clean
surgical garb in the waste bin on her way out.
“Well,
Nick, you can close if you want. Sad as
it is to say, this is a good opportunity for you to get some practice at good
suturing. It won’t matter what this
kid’s scar looks like.”
The
thought of sewing the poor teenager’s dead body back together made Nick feel
sick, but he swallowed hard and nodded, listening closely as Dr. Richardson
demonstrated how to do it.
+++
Hayley Aldworth watched warily as Kevin
called the time of death. Her sharp ears
had no trouble detecting the pain in his voice; he had given his all, but it
hadn't been enough. Normally, she knew,
he wouldn't have lingered in the OR, faced with his so-called failure, but
there was still work to be done. Sad as
it was, it was still a learning opportunity for the young student under Kevin's
care. As she began gathering bloodied
instruments onto the rolling tray, she absently listened to him instructing
Carter on technique. Although Nick
looked a bit green, he went ahead with the poignant duty of stitching together
the lifeless body on the table.
The job was quickly finished, and Nick was
the first one out of the room. She
waited for Kevin, silently accompanying him to the adjoining area and helping
him strip off his blood-soaked gown.
“Thanks,” he said,
his voice low and tired.
“You did what you could,” she offered.
“I know.”
She gave his shoulder a squeeze. “It's hard when they're so young.”
“Always.”
“Go home, get some rest, okay? We'll fight the good fight tomorrow.”
He managed a small smile. “That we will.”
She left, giving him the bit of solitude
she knew he needed. Ten minutes later, purse and coat in hand, she watched the
elevator doors close shut, putting the day behind her at last.
+++
With
each passing minute, Howie knew that Luke’s chances were decreasing. The temperature was dropping steadily. As the sun set, it was well below freezing,
and Luke’s risk of developing hypothermia from the cold was rising
steadily. What worried AJ and Howie the
most was the fact that it was a rural area, meaning there was a lot of trees
and other landscape that would conceal a scared and lost little boy in the
darkness.
It
had been AJ’s idea to start at the elementary school where Luke was last seen
and then move in the direction of his home.
It had been a very logical choice, but so far had proved unsuccessful.
AJ
drove along slowly. He and Howie were
both looking around for any sign of Luke.
“AJ,
we’re not really getting anywhere… and we’re running out of time,” he added
worriedly. “Do you want to try on foot?”
“Where,
D? I mean, did you have a particular
area in mind?”
“I’m
trying to think like a lost little boy,” Howie said. “At this point, he’s probably disoriented
from the hypothermia and extremely scared, I’m sure. He would probably seek shelter. Listen, there’s wooded areas all around
here. Why don’t we grab the medical bag
and flashlights and look around?”
“It
can’t hurt. No one else seems to be
having any luck.”
AJ
and Howie chose a small cluster of forest that was about midway between the
school and Luke’s home. Grabbing medical
supplies, blankets and flashlights, the two paramedics set out in search of
Luke.
It
wasn’t easy going; the icy ground made walking a difficult task, and the
flashlights provided little light to penetrate the winter darkness.
They
trudged on, flashlights scanning everywhere as they called Luke’s name. They were almost ready to give up hope, Howie
questioning his reasons for setting out on foot. Suddenly, Howie’s flashlight caught something
red lying on the icy ground. Upon closer
investigation, he realized it was a backpack… a Spiderman backpack. Moving the flashlight inches forward, Howie
saw the little boy lying on his stomach, face down and apparently unconscious.
“AJ,
I found him!’ Howie shouted
Howie’s
heart sank, his first thought being that Luke was dead. “Luke,” he said leaning down to touch the
little boy’s back. He felt immensely
relieved when he felt Luke stir beneath his touch.
“Luke,
can you hear me?” he asked gently.
The
little boy’s reply was muffled and barely above a whisper, but it was there nonetheless.
“Luke,
listen to me, my name is Howie. I’m here
to help you. You just have to stay with
me, okay?”
“Okay,”
Luke mumbled weakly.
“Are
you hurt?” Howie asked.
“No…
just c-cold,” Luke said through chattering teeth.
“Don’t
worry, son. We’re gonna get you out of
here,” AJ spoke up reassuringly. He and
Howie bundled Luke in blankets, and Howie carefully lifted the little boy’s
light frame into his arms.
“Luke,
keep talking to me, kiddo,” Howie said, knowing it was important to keep Luke
awake. “Tell me how you got lost.”
“I
was walking home from school after we got out.
Mommy and Daddy work during the day and couldn’t come and get me. I got turned around and got lost.”
Howie
continued asking Luke a variety of trivial questions in attempts to keep him
awake, everything from who his favorite baseball team was, to which one of
Spiderman’s powers was his favorite.
After
what seemed like forever, they reached the highway and the parked
ambulance. They quickly alerted the
hospital to inform them that Luke had been found. As AJ drove the speeding ambulance to the
hospital, Howie checked Luke’s vitals and hooked the little boy up to an IV of
warm saline to bring his body temperature back up. He certainly wasn’t out of the woods yet.
Howie
removed Luke’s shoes. “Luke, can you
feel your toes?” he asked.
“No,
they’re numb,” Luke replied.
Howie
was saddened at the possibly that Luke could lose some toes. He tried to keep a positive attitude as he
continued examining Luke.
They
reached the hospital at last, and Luke was taken into the care of the awaiting
staff of doctors and nurses. Howie and
AJ hung back, both exhausted from their ordeal.
“You
think he’s gonna be okay?” AJ asked.
“I
don’t know,” Howie said. “He’s been
through a lot. He obviously a tough kid,
though. We’ll just have to wait and
pray.”
+++
“Dr.
Harnett, you’ve got a call on line three,” an exhausted Melissa at the nurses’
station held a phone out to Ivory. “I
think it’s your cousin, Tom. At least, I
think that’s what he said his name was.”
She smiled wearily. “It’s been
kind of a crazy day, so I’m not too sharp at the moment.”
Ivory
patted her hand. “It’s okay. It has
been wild, what with the storm and all.
I’m glad we didn’t lose power because you know how awful that generator
is.”
“Tell
me about it.” Melissa rolled her
eyes. “You’d think being a hospital
where people need electricity to operate the machines that help them live, we’d get a decent generator. Of course not. Anyway, phone for you.”
Ivory
took the receiver. “Thanks, Mel. Hello?” she spoke into the phone.
“Ives! Hey, it’s Tommy,” a familiar male voice on
the other end responded cheerily.
“Remember me?”
“How
could I forget?” Ivory smiled. “How’ve
you been? How’s your clinic running?”
she added, remembering the place he’d opened in downtown
“I’m
all right. The clinic… well, it’s not
too great.” He sighed. “Actually, it’s sort of why I called you. I know you’re at work and all, but I had this
idea and need your help.”
“It
couldn’t wait another three hours until I got home?”
“Ivory,
you know I forget stuff like that.
Sorry,” he apologized. “Besides,
I wanted to find out how things are going with that investigation.”
Awful. She closed her eyes briefly as the
humiliation swarmed through her again.
“It sucks,” she admitted. “They
keep calling me in front of a panel, asking me the same questions, and letting
me go. On top of that, they won’t let me
work more than thirty-five hours a week.
Do you know how terrible that is?”
“Honestly? I don’t, but I can feel your pain. My partner quit last week,” he told her. “I’m trying to run this clinic
single-handedly, and I’m in desperate need of some help.”
“Wish
I could help,” she replied.
“Well,
you know if you ever decide you’re tired of the yo-yo sensation the hospital’s
giving you, you’re absolutely welcome to come and help me out,” Tom offered.
Ivory
frowned, unsure whether he was joking or not.
“Are you serious?”
“Uh, not really.
I know how much you love
“Of
course, I’ll help! I’m sorry about the
partner, and I’ll let you know the second I run into anyone who might want to
take the job. Good luck in the
meantime.”
“Yeah, you, too.
Oh, and I like the DVDs you sent me for Christmas. Good stuff.”
Ivory
smiled. “I’m glad you liked them. Anyway, I have to get going. I’ll call you later?”
“Yeah, absolutely.
That is, if the clinic hasn’t eaten my soul,” he answered, jokingly.
“Fight
that beast, Tommy. I’ll talk to you
later.”
“Bye,
Ivory.”
She
hung up and stood thinking for a few moments.
Who did she know who might want to uproot themselves three thousand
miles for work? The only doctors she
knew were the ones she worked with, or friends at other practices. None of them were unhappy with their
positions… not like she was.
Tom
had been joking when he’d offered her the job, but what if she took it? What if she quit her job before they got
around to dismissing her? She could
start fresh in a
Wait a minute. Am I seriously considering calling Tom back
and offering myself for the post? Ivory
frowned at the packed waiting room, not really seeing them as she was lost in
thought. Could I really leave this hospital, my friends, Brian?
Brian.
“Hey,
what’s wrong?” An arm slid around her waist,
and she looked up into weary, but cheerful, blue eyes.
“Hi.” She relaxed in his hold. “Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s fine.” Of course, she couldn’t leave this man. He made the whole mess worthwhile for
her. She couldn’t go.
Brian
kissed her lightly. “You’re sure
everything’s okay? You were frowning at
the patients like they were the plague.”
“I
was talking to my cousin,” she told him.
“He’s got a clinic in
“Almost over. Thank
God.” Brian smiled back, glad that it
hadn’t been something about the investigation making her upset. “This storm has given me plenty of patients
since I got in this morning.”
“Oh,
I know.” She walked with him towards the
lounge. “I’ve had nothing but broken
bones and stitches all day. If I have to
see another X-ray of a fracture, it’ll be too soon.”
In
the lounge, Brian poured a mug of stale coffee and grimaced when he
sipped. “I know what you mean. I’ve had kids come in who’ve fallen on the
ice and split skin. Others broke wrists,
ankles, and a couple tailbones here and there.”
Ivory
grinned. “I bet spending time with the
good Dr. Littrell fixed them right up.”
“You
know it.” Smiling, he was leaning
towards her when the door swung open.
“Brian! There’s a kid coming in with hypothermia,” a
rushed Susan told him. “Dorough and
McLean called ahead to alert you. The
little boy’s been out in the storm all day, and they’re not sure he’ll make
it.”
Brian
hurried out the door after her and reached the ER in time to see Howie and AJ
roll in a gurney with a small child strapped into it.
“We
found him wandering. He’s been outside
since this morning,” Howie explained as he helped Brian get the child into a
trauma room. “He’s frozen to the bone. BP’s not doing too well,
his temp’s dropped extremely low.”
Brian
noted the blue lips, the icy skin, and ordered one of the nurses to aid him in
stripping off the boy’s clothes. They
seemed to be frozen to him, and ice clung to every inch of his clothing and
hair.
When
he moaned a little and opened his eyes halfway, Brian shone a light in his
eyes. “Pupils are dilated,” he muttered
to himself before raising his voice. “Hey there, big guy.
I hear you’ve been out in the cold for quite some time.”
“Hurts,”
came the reply.
“I
know, buddy. We’re going to try to fix
you up good as new, okay?” Brian checked the pulse and noted it was dipping
dangerously low. “Can you tell me your
name?”
“Luke,”
he whispered. “I want my mom.”
Brian
glanced over at one of the nurses. “Can
you call his parents for me? I know
they’re probably really worried about him.”
He looked back down at the child.
“Hang in there, okay? We’re going to get your parents here and have you
feeling better in no time.”
Luke
tried to nod, but his eyes drooped shut, and the heart rate monitor began
wildly beeping.
“He’s
dropping rapidly!” Susan called out.
Brian
snapped out an order for the crash cart.
“And where are those heated blankets I asked for three minutes ago?”
“In
the waiting room,” Susan answered.
“They’ve been handing them out to the homeless who’ve gathered in
there.”
“Well,
can you round some up for me? This
little boy needs them more! And Addie,
can you get a core temp?”
The
nurses sprang into action, Susan running for the supplies he had requested,
while Addie tried to measure Luke’s temperature. Brian turned back to the little boy.
“He
has an arrhythmia,” said Jaela, pointing to the heart monitor, which had
registered the irregular heart rhythm.
Brian
took a deep breath. “Alright, let’s be
very gentle with him, everyone. He’s in
an advanced stage of hypothermia, and if we jostle him too much, he could
arrest. Jaela, let’s give him bretylium,
5 mgs per kilogram IV, and another round of warm saline. I’m going to intubate him; then we can keep
him oxygenated with heated O2.”
Brian
had just finished guiding the tube down the boy’s narrow throat when the heart
monitor changed its pattern. “He’s in
V-fib!” cried Jaela. Brian jumped around
from the head of the bed.
“Jaela, start chest compressions. Addie, you bag him. Susan, did you bring that crash cart?”
“Right
here, Dr. Littrell.”
“Good. Let’s try shocking him. Charge to fifty.”
Susan
charged the defibrillator and slapped a couple of pads onto Luke’s cold, pale chest,
before handing Brian the paddles.
“Clear!” he called and put them against their targets, causing the boy’s
body to jump stiffly. There was no
change on the monitors. He shocked
again, two more times. Still no change.
Then
the line on the heart monitor went flat.
“Asystole,” Jaela said quietly.
“No pulse.”
“Resume
CPR,” Brian urged, and the nurse went back to her chest compressions. “Come on, buddy,” he spoke quietly to his
young patient, as the nurses tried diligently to bring him back. “I know you’ve been through a lot, I know
you’re cold, but we’re warming you up… you’ll be okay now; you just need to
come back to us. Come back, Luke.” He wrapped his warm hand around the boy’s
small, cold one, squeezing hard, willing some warmth back into the lifeless
body in front of him.
“Dr.
Littrell… Brian,” Jaela spoke after some
time, her voice cracking. “It’s been
almost half an hour, he’s been down… no pulse…”
She
was still diligently pushing on Luke’s chest, but he could see that she was
getting tired and had lost hope. When
she looked up, meeting his gaze across the table, he saw there were tears in
her eyes. Jaela was a mother, he knew;
she didn’t want to lose this little boy any more than he did. But she was right… he had been without a heartbeat
for a long time…
Suddenly,
Susan spoke up. “Don’t give up yet. We could still get him back.” When Jaela and Addie both looked at her like
she was delusional, the newer nurse argued, “I used to work at a trauma center
in
The
other two women still looked skeptical, but Brian offered her a slight smile
and a nod. “I’ve heard that too.” Checking a reading, he added, “His temp is
still too low. If we can warm him up and
get his heart beating again, we have a shot.
Keep going with CPR, and Susan, call up to surgery and get someone down
here; maybe we can set him up on bypass to warm his blood faster.”
Susan
nodded and got on the phone, while Brian took over chest compressions for the
exhausted Jaela. After a few more
minutes, the heart monitor suddenly registered it – a heartbeat. All heads in the room looked up as it beeped
once… then twice… then again, slowly, hesitantly, again.
“He
has a faint pulse,” whispered Jaela in almost disbelief, as the heart monitor
continued to beep, faster and faster, like an accelerating train. “Normal sinus rhythm.”
“You
were right, Susan,” Brian smiled at the other nurse before looking back down at
the boy. “Welcome back, Luke.”
“What
do we have here?” asked another voice, and Brian looked to see Rita Sumari, the
cardiothoracic surgeon, coming in. He
explained quickly what had happened and assisted her in placing two catheters
in Luke’s body, which would be used to filter blood in and out of his body, through
a bypass machine, warming it in the process.
Once
Luke was stable on the bypass machine, Brian left Rita in charge and went to
talk to the boy’s parents, who had arrived.
His mother was tearful, his father practically trembling. They both thanked him profusely, even when he
told them that Luke wasn’t quite out of the woods yet.
“At
least he’s here now. The police office
told us he probably would have died if he had been lost any longer,” Luke’s
mother said tremulously. “Thank God
those paramedics found him when they did.”
His
father jumped in with, “Do you know how we could get in contact with them? The paramedics that saved
Luke? We want to thank them.”
Brian
smiled. “I should be able to get them
over here for you.” Going back into the
trauma room, he said, “Hey, Rita, you think you can get a hold of that
boyfriend of yours? I’ve got two parents
in the waiting room who are eager to thank him and his
partner.”
Rita
smiled with pride. “I think I could
manage that.”
+++
“We
can never thank you enough. You went out
on a limb to find him, and if it hadn’t been for you, he probably would have
died. You saved his life,” gushed Luke’s
mother, speaking over her son’s bedside.
Howie
smiled down at the little boy, who was sleeping, but warm again and finally out
of danger. It was a great relief to
Howie to see that his and AJ’s efforts had been worth it. Luke had survived, and that was all that
mattered.
“I’m
a dad myself,” he told the boy’s parents.
“I have a little girl, Danielle, who’s close to Luke’s age. I can’t imagine how terrified I would have
been if it had been her lost in the cold.
It was just second nature to want to help find Luke.”
“God
bless you both,” said Luke’s father, shaking Howie’s hand and then AJ’s.
The
two paramedics left the room a few minutes later with smiles on their
faces. “We did good,
J,” said Howie, putting his arm playfully around AJ’s shoulders.
“It
was your idea, D,” AJ pointed out.
“You’re the one who found him.”
“Yeah,
but you’re the one who got him here without sliding into a ditch,” Howie
replied, glancing out the ER doors, into the ambulance bay. The bright lights outside lit up the
otherwise dark sky and illuminated the thick sheet of ice on the ground. “That in itself is a miracle.”
AJ
smiled. “All in a
day’s work, my friend. All in a day’s work.”
Glad
that their trying shift had at least had a happy end, the two set out into the
ice.
+++
After
her surgery, Anna Spencer was wheeled to the ICU, where she was hooked up to
all sorts of machines. Justin sat in a
chair on the other side of the room, deep in thought. Anna had survived, but she would be paralyzed
from the waist down for the rest of her life.
The nerve damage was too intense to fully repair. Her legs were scarred from the cuts, and she
was wrapped in casts and bandages from her stomach to her toes. To make matters worse, her boyfriend had died
on the operating table, and Justin had to break the news to her. Dr. Cannon would be there, too, but Justin
would be the one speaking.
What do I say? “Sorry,
you’re paralyzed for the rest of your life, your legs are horribly scarred, and
oh, your boyfriend died?” he
thought, running his fingers though his hair.
After
a half an hour, Anna was waking up.
“Now
Justin, remember. This is a highly
sensitive situation. Be as gentle and
understanding as you can,” Dr. Cannon whispered to the young medical student.
“Wha…what
happened? Where’s James?” Anna asked.
Justin
swallowed excess saliva and stood up.
“Miss Spencer? My name’s Justin Timberlake, and I watched over your surgery. You had major cuts on your stomach and your
legs. Your legs were broken, and you
tore both ACLs and severed many nerves in both legs. Your pelvic bone was smashed. The bones should heal nicely, but I’m afraid
that you will carry the scars and be paralyzed for the rest of your life. The nerve damage was too massive to fix. I’m really sorry, Miss Spencer,” Justin said.
Anna
started to cry. “And… what about James?”
she asked, looking straight at him.
Justin looked at the floor.
“He
was admitted to the hospital and taken to surgery… but he didn’t make it.” Justin continued to look at the floor. He didn’t want to see her cry.
“Oh God!
James!!” she sobbed. Justin
started to tear up too. This was the
part of being a doctor that he really hated.
“No one’s going to love me now!
Not when I’m paralyzed and have ugly scars!” Justin couldn’t take it anymore. It broke his heart to see people crying. Justin ran to Anna’s bed and held her hands.
“Shhhh…
don’t cry… listen, Anna. It’s going to
be okay. You’re not ugly, and any guy
would be lucky to be with you. You’re
going to get the best help you can get, and get better, all right? I promise,” Justin said.
“Are
you sure?” she asked.
“Yeah…
your parents are in the waiting room, and I bet they’ll be excited to see
you.” Justin then walked out of the
room, closing the door behind him.
“Wow…
I didn’t know you had that in you, Mr. Timberlake,” Dr. Cannon said.
“Neither
did I…” he responded.
Justin
stared at the floor as they walked to the waiting room. He kept quiet, reflecting on the past events
of the day.
“Hey…
why don’t you just take a break? I’ll
deal with the family. It’s been a hard
day for you,” Dr. Cannon said, sensing that Justin could break down at any
moment.
“Really? I mean, I need to learn –,”
“Justin,
no offense, but you look like you could use a break. Go.
I’ll take it from here.”
He
gave Dr. Cannon a thankful look as he nodded and headed towards the break
room. As soon as he walked in, Justin
closed the door and cried. He hated
breaking bad news to people. Just hated it. He
cried for Anna, her family, and even for James.
But mostly he cried because he could do nothing else to help.
+++
Isabel
felt utterly drained as she plodded down the fourth floor staircase at the end
of the day. Though she’d seen many
patients die after working over four months in the hospital, it hadn’t gotten
any easier to accept death. The death of
Mr. Marriott had hit her just as hard as the first death she’d witnessed in the
ER. And accompanying Dr. Chung to break
the news to his poor wife had been even harder.
She’d
been at the hospital for far more than twenty-four hours now and couldn’t wait
to get home to her own bed. She was glad
her body felt as tired as it did, for even though her mind, too, felt thick
with exhaustion, she was afraid she would lay awake, dwelling on the events of
the day as she often did, if she did not first succumb to her physical
weariness.
She
stopped off at the second floor landing, entering the surgery ward in search of
Nick. He should have been off then too,
if he had not gotten tied up in an emergency surgery. Looking around, she started to walk over to
the nurse’s station to ask about him, when she heard his voice call her name.
“Isabel?”
Turning,
she found him coming out of the staff room, his jacket draped haphazardly over
one shoulder. He looked as exhausted as
she felt.
“Ready
to go?” she asked, forcing a smile.
“Never
been readier,” he smiled back tiredly.
He reached for her hand, and they walked back to the stairs together.
In
the privacy of the stairwell, she brought his hand to her lips and gave it a
gentle kiss. “Mmm,” she sighed, inhaling
the scent of antiseptic soap beneath his fingernails, “you smell… clean.”
“All
that scrubbing will do that to a person,” he remarked with a wry smile.
“So
you got to scrub in?”
“Yep.”
“How
was it?” she asked eagerly.
He
shrugged. “You win some, you lose
some. We lost bad. A teenage kid who got into
an accident on the way home from school with his girlfriend. She lived, according to Timberlake. He died on our table. Massive hemorrhaging. I felt like I was in a scene from The Shining. You know that part with the waves of blood
coming out from behind the doors?”
Isabel
shrugged. “I don’t really like scary
movies. But I know what you mean. I’m sorry,” she said sympathetically, patting
his arm. She knew just how he felt. “I lost a patient too,” she told him. “An old man. He had an MI while he was out trying to
scrape ice. He was doing pretty well
after he was brought in, but he coded in the cath lab.”
“Sorry,”
Nick returned the sentiments, putting his arm around her and giving her a
little squeeze.
They
continued down the stairs slowly, their arms around each other. They barely broke their hold as they passed
through the ER, still bustling with traumas in the aftermath of the ice storm;
it was as if they almost needed to lean on each other, literally.
When
they passed through ambulance bay, Isabel straightened, but held onto Nick’s
arm even tighter. The maintenance
workers had done a good job at keeping the bay clear of ice, but once they got
past the path of clear, wet pavement, it was a mess. There was no snow, but nearly an inch of
pure, solid ice coating everything.
“I
wish we had ice skates,” Isabel managed to joke as she and Nick both slipped
and slid, clinging to what little traction their shoes provided. His had more than hers, so he held onto her
tightly, keeping her upright. They took
short, quick steps, like a couple of penguins, as they made their way toward
their cars.
Behind
them, they heard a sudden shout, followed by the unmistakable sound of a pair of
feet skidding across the ice. They both
turned just in time to see Holli Brunson fall hard on her hip upon the icy
ground.
“Oh,
shit,” Nick swore, letting go of Isabel so that he could hurry back to Dr.
Brunson. Isabel shuffled after him,
sliding with each step. “Are you okay,
Dr. Brunson?” she heard him ask as he knelt down beside
her, putting his knee against the wet, cold ice.
Dr.
Brunson’s reply was surprisingly sharp.
“I’m fine!” she snarled, looking rather like a turtle who
had been turned over on its shell as she struggled to get up.
“Hang
on, lemme help you,” Nick said determinedly, gritting his teeth as he reached
to put his arm around her, but she swatted his hand away.
“I
told you, I’m fine, Carter! Go on; I can
get up on my own,” Brunson insisted with a ferociousness that was severe, even
for her.
Isabel
bit her lip as she watched the older woman struggle, in obvious frustration and
humiliation. “You really shouldn’t
move!” she called out, against her better judgment. “You might have hurt your hip.”
“I’m
not that old, Miss Rivera! My hip’s
fine; just a contusion, I’m sure,” spat Brunson. “Now, if the two of you would just scram and
let me have some dignity-“
Nick
and Isabel exchanged worried glances; Nick was still poised to help her, but
she was steadfastly refusing to let him so much as touch her. Isabel was just beginning to wonder if the
chief of staff had also struck her head during the fall and was possibly
mentally altered when another voice joined the mix.
“Dr.
Brunson? Are you alright?”
Another
woman was coming toward them; she was older than Isabel, but younger than
Brunson, and she wore blue scrubs beneath her winter coat. Isabel did not know her, but Nick said, “Hey,
Dr. Cannon. She just took a pretty bad
fall, and she won’t let us help her up.”
Isabel
fully expected the other doctor to insist that Brunson let Nick help her, but
instead, Dr. Cannon looked between the two med students for a moment and then
said, “I can take it from here. You two
go on home. Here, Holli.”
Gently
nudging Nick aside, the younger doctor bent down and put her arm around
Brunson. To Isabel’s surprise, Brunson
did not recoil this time, but let her.
Still on the ground, Dr. Cannon looked up, and when she saw that the two
students were still standing there, staring at her, she added, “Drive safely.”
She
was clearly insinuating that they should leave.
Shrugging, Nick finally gave up and made his way back over to
Isabel. She gave him a questioning look,
and he returned it with one that was equally clueless. “I guess we’ll go,” he muttered, taking her
arm again.
She
felt bad about leaving Dr. Brunson on the ground, no matter how spiteful the
older doctor could be, but when she chanced a look back over her shoulder, Dr.
Cannon had Brunson sitting up and was talking to her quietly. She appeared to be okay.
“You
wanna come over to my place for awhile?” asked Nick, when they finally reached
her car.
Isabel
really just wanted to sleep, but she hadn’t seen her boyfriend all day, except
for the brief few seconds they’d crossed paths at the elevator, and she knew
that with him working in surgery this semester, their time together might be
scarce as it was. Besides, it would be
good to talk to him for awhile, get some of her feelings out before she tried
to sleep.
“How
about you come over to my place?” she suggested. “I can make us some cocoa.”
Nick
smiled. “
+++
Kevin walked towards the lounge, heading
for a final half cup of coffee and reviewing the Buckley case in his head. Could he have done things differently? Acted faster, more decisively? Had he waited too long to
call Brunson?
No, he concluded. He'd done everything he knew of to save the
boy. Even Brunson had told him there
wasn't anything else to be done. Still,
the loss hurt.
He opened the door to the lounge and was
taken aback by the sound of muffled crying.
There, head bowed and faced covered, was Nick's friend, the curly-haired
student from earlier. Not knowing what
to say, he simply walked over to the coffee machine and grabbed a Styrofoam
cup. There was a hitch in the crying,
and he turned.
The young man's eyes were red as he
desperately tried to wipe the wetness from his cheeks. Sniffling loudly, he said, “S-sorry, Doctor. I didn't mean to...”
“It's okay,” Kevin replied smoothly. “I take it you had a rough day?”
“Yes, sir,” came the miserable reply. Another sniffle.
“What's your name? I know you're Carter's friend, but-”
After a fleetingly puzzled look, the young
man said, “My name's Justin. Timberlake.”
“Justin.
Right.”
“You're not gonna- gonna report me or
anything, are you?” he said shakily.
“Report you? For what?” Kevin
asked, surprised.
“For
being... well... like this. I mean...”
Kevin mixed sugar into his cup. “We all have bad days, Justin. It's part of the territory, something you
have to learn to live with.”
“But there was this girl… it was so
unfair; she was in this accident, and now her whole life is messed up forever,”
he said tightly.
“At least she has a life,” Kevin
replied flatly after a moment.
Justin sniffled once more. “Well, yeah, I guess...”
“The hardest part of being a doctor is knowing that you can't save them all, you can't wave a
magic wand and have happy endings all the time.
You have to accept that, and find a way to cope.”
“I don't see anyone else crying like some
wimp,” Justin said bitterly.
“I think it just proves that you're human,
that you care about other people. That's
not a bad thing. Far
from it. Without compassion,
without true caring, we'd be nothing more than robots or machines.” He tested his coffee, finding it
acceptable. “Tell me, when Dr. Brunson
was quizzing you today, did you actually know the answers?”
“Yeah,” he said, looking down. “Well, most of them. But I got flustered.”
“Your emotions got the best of you, in
other words. It's the same here. You're going to have to figure out how to
channel your emotions into something productive. If you can't do it, or aren't willing to work
at it, then you aren't cut out to be a doctor.”
Justin remained silent.
“Think about it,” Kevin said, putting a
lid on his cup and snapping it in place. “Being a doctor isn't something you
can take on lightly. It's not a
temporary job, it's a lifetime career.
Be real sure it's something you truly want to commit to, because believe
me, it's not easy.”
He was almost to the door when Justin
spoke.
“Are you glad you became a doctor?”
Kevin didn't hesitate. “Every
day, Justin. Every
day.”
+++
All Risha Veers
wanted was to go home. It had been a
long, tiring day. Too
many people slipping on the ice, or being reckless enough to drive in the
dangerous icy weather. She headed
outside. It was good to go home, even if
it was cold and alone.
From her pocket, she
took out a salt shaker with a smile.
Remembering was easy; it was when she forgot he was gone that really
killed her. Risha stared at the object
in her hand wistfully. Some things, she
just couldn’t forget…
The young redhead ran
to her class hurriedly. Who cared about
the snow? She was going to be so
late. Again. Damn that alarm!
The cold nipped at
her face, making her cheeks seem rosy.
She tried to be careful, but she felt herself lose balance on the icy
ground and fell flat on her behind as the students walking back laughed at
her. She turned bright red.
“Great start today,
Risha,” she scolded herself quietly.
A hand came into her
view. “Want some help?” a kind voice
offered. She looked up to see a gentle
face, a sympathetic gaze that held no false pretenses. She smiled and took his hand, letting him
help her up.
“Thanks,” she said
shyly, hoping her cheeks would stop feeling so warm soon.
“I’m John.” He grinned.
“My name’s
Risha. Nice to meet
you.”
“Want to know a trick
for not falling? I’ve never tried it as
I was racing somewhere though,” he joked with a chuckle.
Risha couldn’t help
but smile. “Oh yeah?
What?”
He pulled out a salt
shaker, waving a hand around it like it was a lump of gold in his hand. “Ta-da!”
She laughed. “A salt shaker…?”
John shook some on
the sidewalk around them. “Yep, makes it
less slippery.” He handed the salt
shaker to her. “You can have mine; I
have spares at home.”
“What’s the catch?”
He laughed,
his smile bright and full of life. “We
meet for cocoa tomorrow afternoon. I’d
say morning, but I have Child Development then.”
Risha nodded. “I’d like that.” She caught sight of her watch with a
groan. “I am so late.”
He wrote his number
on her arm and smiled. “We’ll talk,” he
winked and headed off to his own class.
She watched him go, class forgotten again as she stared down at the salt
shaker in her hand…
…
the same one that was in her hand now. So many years later, and she still had it;
she’d kept it as her prized possession.
She
was lost in the memory so much that she didn’t hear Kevin approach her, as she
shook some salt in front of her. Then
she looked up. He smiled,
his jade eyes dazzling in the winter night light.
“Hey.”
“Hey. If you don’t mind me asking… what’s with the
salt shaker?”
Risha grinned as her red hair blew in the wind. “Just a trick I learned for weather like
this.”
As Kevin looked after her in curiosity, she headed off
into the cold, warmed by times before.
+++