A Wedding In December. Sarah Morgan
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people who drove too fast and paid the price, people who drank and then climbed behind the wheel and took a life. There were plenty of regular accidents, too, of course, along with heart attacks, brain hemorrhages and any number of acute emergencies that required immediate attention. And then there were the hordes who decided the emergency department was the easiest place to access medical care of the most trivial kind. Each day she waded through a mixed soup of humanity, some good, some not so good.
“When we met, he was sweet and kind. Loving. Attentive.” Sally wiped her cheek with the heel of her hand. “I’m trying not to cry, because crying hurts. The physical injuries are awful, but the worst thing is that it shakes your confidence in your own judgment. You must have seen it before. I can’t believe I’m the first.”
Katie handed her a tissue. “You’re not the first.”
“How do you handle it? Working here, you must see the worst of human behavior.”
Katie’s shoulder chose that moment to give an agonizing twinge. Yes, she saw the worst of human behavior. She had to remind herself that she also saw the best. She wondered what would happen to this woman. To this marriage. Would she forgive him? Would the cycle continue? “What will you do? Do you have a plan?”
“No. Until he threw me down the stairs I didn’t realize I needed one.” Sally blew her nose. “The house is mine, but I don’t feel safe in it right now so I’ll probably stay with my parents for a while. He wants to talk to me, and I suppose I should at least listen.”
Katie wanted to tell her not to go back, but it wasn’t her place to give advice. Her job was to fix the physical damage. Helping Sally deal with the emotional carnage and find some degree of empowerment was someone else’s responsibility. “The police want to talk to you. Are you feeling up to it?”
“Not really, but it’s important so I’ll do it. This was going to be our first Christmas together.” Sally tucked the tissue into her sleeve. “I had it all planned.”
The time of year seemed to amplify her distress, but Katie knew from experience that tragedy didn’t take a break for Christmas.
Someone opened the door. “Dr. White! We need you.”
Saturday nights in the emergency department were not for the fainthearted, although these days it wasn’t only Saturdays. Every night was insane.
“I’ll be right there.” She glanced at the nurse who had assisted. “Can you make sure Sally has all the information she needs?” She turned back to her patient. “When you’re ready, there are people you can speak to. People who can help.”
“But no one who can turn the clock back. No one who can turn him into the man I thought he was.”
Katie wondered if Sally’s worst injury was the damage to her belief system. How did you ever trust a man again? “I hope everything works out for you.”
Katie was unlikely to find out, of course. The place was like a conveyor belt of trauma. She dealt with what came through the doors, and then she moved on. There was no long-term management here.
“You’ve been very kind. Your parents must be proud.”
“Dr. White!”
Katie ground her teeth. The reality was that compassion had to be squashed into the shortest time possible. They were two doctors down and she had a queue of patients waiting for her attention, so she smiled at Sally again and left the room.
Would her parents be proud if they’d witnessed her life over the last few weeks? She didn’t think so.
She was probably letting them down. She knew she was letting herself down.
She looked at the nurse who was hovering in the corridor. “Problem?”
“The guy coughing up blood—”
“Mr. Harris.”
“Yes. Harris. How do you do that? How do you know everyone’s name even though you only spoke to him for less than a minute?”
“I like to make an inhuman experience as human as possible. What about him?”
“His tests are back. Dr. Mitford saw him and says he needs to be admitted, but there is a bed crisis.”
When wasn’t there a bed crisis? You stood more chance of finding a unicorn in your Christmas stocking than you did a hospital bed. Demand exceeded supply. A patient she’d seen at the beginning of her shift was still waiting for a bed six hours later. Because there was always a risk of hospital-acquired infection, Katie sent people home whenever she was able to do so. “Did you manage to contact his daughter? Is she on her way?”
“Yes, and yes.”
“Call me when she arrives. I’ll talk to her. He might be better off at home if there is someone there to take care of him.” And better for his dignity. She’d seen on the notes that he was a retired CEO. Once, he’d probably commanded a room. Now he was the victim of human frailty. No matter how busy she was, she tried to remember that landing in the emergency department was one of the most stressful moments of a person’s life. What was routine to her was often terrifying for the patient.
She never forgot what it had been like for her mother being in the hospital with Rosie.
Katie saw three more patients in quick succession and was then hit by a wave of dizziness.
It had happened a few times over the past few weeks and she was starting to panic. She needed to bring her A game to work, and lately that wasn’t happening.
“I’m going to grab a quick coffee before I keel over.” She turned and bumped straight into her colleague.
“Hey, Katie.” Mike Bannister had been in her year at med school and they’d remained friends.
“How was the honeymoon?”
“Let’s put it this way, two weeks in the Caribbean wasn’t enough. What are you doing at work? After what happened I thought—are you sure you should be here?”
“I’m fine.”
“Did you take any time off?”
“I don’t need time off.” She forced herself to breathe slowly, hoping Mike would move on.
He glanced over his shoulder to check no one was listening. “You’re stressed out and on the edge. I’m worried about you.”
“You’re imagining things.” She was totally stressed out. “I probably have low blood sugar. I’m cranky when I’m hungry and I haven’t had a break since I walked into this place seven hours ago. I’m about to fix that.”
“You’re allowed to be human, Katie.” Mike’s gaze settled on her face. “What happened was nasty. Scary. No one would blame you if—”
“Worry about the patients, not me. There are more than enough of them.” Katie tried to ignore the pain in her shoulder and the rapid beating of her heart. She didn’t want to think about it and she certainly didn’t want to talk about it.
She’d once overheard her mother saying to someone, Katie is solid as a rock.
Up until a month ago she wouldn’t have disagreed.
Now she felt anything but solid. She was falling apart, and it was becoming harder and harder to hide it from her colleagues. Even the thought of going to work brought her to the edge of a panic attack, and she’d never suffered from panic attacks.
Her mother kept calling suggesting lunch and she kept stalling because she was afraid she might break down.
“Sorry.” A nurse bumped into her as he sprinted from one end of the department to another and the wail of an ambulance siren told her the workload wasn’t going to ease any time soon.
“The paramedics are bringing in a nasty head injury. And that film crew are driving me insane,”