to contact.
He blinked, and his mouth drooped. ‘My son and I haven’t spoken in years. Last I heard he lives somewhere in Brisbane.’
‘How long have you had arrhythmia?’ Nathan read the heart-monitor printout and asked pertinent questions.
‘Twelve months, give or take.’
‘When did the pain start?’
‘Around eleven. When it didn’t ease off I phoned for an ambulance. I hope I’m not wasting everyone’s time. It’s very busy in here.’
‘A typical Friday night,’ Molly assured him.
‘Never think you’re wasting our time. With your known condition, it’s always best we check you out.’ Nathan listened to his chest through a stethoscope. ‘You’re on warfarin. How steady are your test results?’
‘Usually my bleeding times stay within the allowable range. Prothrombin, isn’t it?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘But last week the test ran really high and I had to have the test every day until the results returned to normal.’
‘Although that’s not normal for people not on the drug, it is within the required range for someone taking the anticoagulant drug,’ Nathan explained.
Colin looked worried. ‘Isn’t that dangerous?’
‘It’s what’s preventing you having a stroke. That must’ve been explained when you first started taking it.’
Colin looked sheepish. ‘It probably was, but at the time I was too worried about everything, and not being medically minded just accepted that I needed to take the warfarin to stay alive. I could’ve gone on the internet to find out more but I’d have confused myself further.’
‘Relax. You’re not the first to react that way, and you won’t be the last.’ Nathan locked a steady gaze on his patient. ‘I’m referring you to Cardiology so they can run more tests to find out what’s going on with this pain and that spike in your prothrombin results.’
‘Better safe than sorry?’ Colin enquired, his worry-filled eyes glued on his doctor.
Nathan calmed him with his straightforward manner. ‘I don’t believe there’s a major problem but I’d prefer you spent at least the rest of tonight in the hospital, where you can be monitored and not at home alone, worrying about what might or might not be going on inside your chest.’ He was good. ‘That’d only raise your blood pressure, which we don’t want happening.’
Colin relaxed more with every sentence.
While Nathan called Cardiology, Molly went to check on eight-year-old Ollie Brown, who’d fallen out of his bunk and broken an arm. ‘Hey, young man, how’s that head?’ There was concern he’d got a concussion as well and a scan had been ordered.
‘Hurts like stink.’ Ollie grinned.
The grin vanished as his grandfather snapped, ‘You’re not on the farm now, lad.’
Molly chuckled. ‘So you’re a country guy? What are you doing in the middle of Sydney, then?’ She wanted to observe Ollie for signs of confusion or amnesia.
‘It’s the school holidays,’ Ollie said, as though she was the dumbest woman out. ‘Granddad always lets us come to stay so we can do townie things, like go on the ferries and eat take-out food and stuff.’ There was nothing wrong with his coherence.
‘You forgot to mention that fighting with your brother was why you fell out of the blasted bunk in the first place.’ The granddad scowled, but there was a load of love in his rheumy eyes.
‘Connor started it.’
‘You know better than to let him rile you, lad.’
Molly clapped her hands. ‘Okay, guys, the orderly is on his way down to take you for the scan, Ollie. Mr Brown, you can go with him, if you’d like.’
Mr Brown nodded. ‘Someone’s got to keep an eye on the young pup.’
Before Ollie could say anything, Molly cut in, ‘I’ll be here when you get back. Then the doctor will decide if you can leave.’
Suddenly the bright, brave eight-year-old slumped and looked at his grandfather. ‘I don’t want to stay here. I want to go home.’
‘Aw, shucks, lad. You’ll have a grand time. The nurses will spoil you rotten.’
Leaving them to it, Molly headed for Kath Burgess’s cubicle, only to have Hazel, the only female doctor on duty, call from the hub, ‘Molly, I want you with me when I examine Kath. She’s spent time with you already, and I think it’s important not to bring in too many new faces since you managed to calm her down.’
‘I agree.’ The woman had been distraught when she’d arrived, clutching her stomach like it was going to split open, howling that she might be losing her baby. It had taken ages to quieten her enough to get some obs done.
‘We all heard the commotion and our first instinct was to crowd in to see what we could do, until it quickly became obvious that the screeching was lowering to sobs and you had the situation under control. Nathan and I decided not to interfere unless you called for help. We didn’t want to fire her up again.’ Hazel was reading the triage notes.
‘Thank goodness you did. She refuses to be seen by a male doctor.’ That’d immediately put Molly on notice, wondering if Kath had been abused by a man, but when she’d tried to find out she had been told she’d fallen down the stairs at the back of her house. Molly had gone straight to Hazel to explain her concerns, but as Hazel had been about to suture a deep wound in a young male’s thigh, she’d flagged Kath’s notes instead and kept an eye out for whoever might be going into the cubicle.
‘That doesn’t sound good,’ Hazel commented as she led the way into the small space where Kath lay curled up on the bed, a bunch of tissues clasped in her hand.
Closing the curtains, Molly watched Kath closely as Hazel asked questions about what had brought her to hospital.
‘I fell down the steps.’
‘You’re complaining of abdominal pain. How did that happen?’
‘There was a toolbox there, all right?’ Kath’s voice was rising. ‘I must’ve landed on that.’
‘You don’t know for sure?’
‘I did.’ Tears streamed down the woman’s face.
Molly’s heart went out to her. If only she could hug her and say, ‘Tell us everything, and we’ll get you help’—but she knew where that’d lead. The police would have to be informed, and social services would send someone to help. Kath had to be ready for what that involved. It wasn’t as easy as someone who hadn’t been abused would believe. Of course, Molly could be wrong, but she doubted it. It was like looking into her own eyes from the past.
When Molly had removed the sheet covering Kath and lowered her jeans and panties, she stepped aside for Hazel’s examination, talking softly to Kath about anything that didn’t broach the subject of her husband.
Finally
