day and Penny didn’t really stop for a break, just made do with coffee on the run, but by one o’clock she knew that she had to get something to eat, which she would, just as soon as Mrs Hunt’s chest pain was sorted out.
‘Cardiology knows that you’re here,’ Penny explained to her patient. ‘They haven’t forgotten you. They’re just a bit busy up on CCU.’ The medication patch wasn’t working and Penny was just writing Mrs Hunt up for some morphine when the department was alerted that a severe head injury was on its way in.
‘Can you sort out that medication, Vanessa?’ Penny asked as she pulled on a fresh gown and gloves and her eye shield. ‘Maybe you could give Cardiology another page, just remind them that she’s here?’ Penny said, because one look at her new patient and Penny knew she wouldn’t be back in to see Mrs Hunt for a while.
‘Fight at school,’ a paramedic said as they lifted the young man over. ‘Fell backwards …’
The teen was still in his school uniform and was, she was told, eighteen. Penny shut out the horror and focussed on her patient, feeling the mush of his skull beneath her gloved hands.
‘CPR was started immediately and continued at the scene …’ Penny listened to the paramedics’ handover as she worked. He’d been intubated and they’d got his heart started again, but it wasn’t looking good at all. She flashed a torch into his eyes but they were fixed and dilated. Still, he’d been given atropine, a medication that, amongst other things, dilated the pupils, which could account for that.
Hopefully.
‘Has anyone seen Penny?’ She heard Jasmine’s voice.
‘Curtain one, Resus,’ Penny shouted. ‘What?’ she asked a moment later when Jasmine popped her head around.
‘Nothing.’ Jasmine saw the seriousness of the situation and came and helped Lisa with the young man. The trauma team arrived then as well, but despite their best efforts and equipment things were looking seriously grim.
‘We’ll get him round for a head CT.’ The trauma consultant was speaking with Penny and she glanced up as Ethan came in. He was wearing a black suit and had taken off his tie. His face was a touch grey and he looked down at the young man on the resus bed and then at Penny. ‘I’m just letting you know that I’m back. I’ll get changed.’
‘Before you do, could you just check in on curtain three?’ Penny said. ‘I had to leave her for this.’
Ethan never did get to change. Mrs Hunt’s chest pain was increasing.
‘Vanessa!’ Penny was trying to concentrate on her patient but she could hear a commotion starting across the room. ‘Did you give her that morphine?’
‘I’m giving it now.’
It was a horrible afternoon.
Once the young patient was being dealt with by Trauma, Penny had an extremely tart word with Vanessa but she was just met with excuses.
‘I was trying to get through to Cardiology and then I was waiting for someone to come and check the drug with me, but everyone was in with the trauma or at lunch …’
And Penny said nothing. She didn’t have to, her look said it all.
‘Two staff members have to check morphine.’ Lisa stuck up for her nurse, of course. ‘And nurses do have to eat!’ Penny bit down on a brittle response, because she’d really love to have made it to lunch too. There was a gnawing of hunger in her stomach but more than that she was annoyed that Mrs Hunt had been in pain for a good fifteen minutes when the medication had been ordered well before that. ‘We do our best, Penny,’ Lisa said.
It just wasn’t good enough for Penny, though she held on to those words.
The police came in and so to did the parents and as the trauma team had taken the young man from CT straight to Theatre, it was Penny who had to speak to them.
‘Do you want me to come in with you?’ Lisa offered, but Penny shook her head.
‘I’ll be fine.’
Ethan watched as she walked towards the interview room and thanked God that today it wasn’t him about to break terrible news.
‘Mr and Mrs Monroe.’ Penny introduced herself and sat down. ‘I was the doctor on duty when Heath was brought in.’
And she went through everything with them. They didn’t need her tears, neither did they need false hope. She told them it was incredibly serious but that their son was in Theatre, and she watched as their lives fell apart. As she walked out of the interview room, Penny wondered if she could really bear to be a mum because the agony on their features, the sobbing that had come from Mrs Monroe was, Penny realised, from a kind of love she didn’t yet know.
‘How are they?’ Ethan asked when she came back to the nurses’ station.
‘They’re just having a nice cup of tea …’ Penny bristled and then checked herself. She was aware she was terribly brittle at times. Jasmine had happily told her that on several occasions, but speaking with Heath’s parents had been incredibly hard. ‘Awful,’ she admitted, then looked at his black suit and up into his hazel eyes and she could see they were a little bit bloodshot. Normally Penny didn’t ask questions, she liked to keep everything distanced, but she had seen his eyes shutter when he’d looked at the young patient, remembered the raw pain in his voice last night, and for once she crossed the line.
‘How was the funeral?’ Penny asked.
‘It wasn’t a funeral apparently, it was a celebration of life.’ He turned back to his notes. ‘It was a funeral to me.’
‘How was the son?’
‘Trying to be brave.’ He let out a breath.
He looked beautiful in a suit; in fact, Penny couldn’t believe that she’d never noticed until recently that he was a very good-looking man. Still, her mind had been in other places in recent weeks, but it was in an unfamiliar one now, because she wanted to say something more to him, wanted to somehow say the right thing. She just didn’t know what.
‘I need to get something to eat.’ Penny, of course, said the wrong thing, but she was actually feeling sick she was so hungry. ‘I’m sorry, Ethan, that sounded …’
‘It’s fine.’ For the first time that day Ethan actually smiled. Penny really was socially awkward, Ethan realised. It just didn’t offend him so much today.
‘Can I have a word, please, Penny?’ She turned at Jasmine’s voice, remembered she had been looking for her earlier.
‘Away from here.’ Penny saw how pale her sister was and even before they had reached her office, Penny couldn’t help but ask.
‘Is it the baby?’
‘No.’ Jasmine swallowed before speaking. ‘Jed’s mum had a stroke this morning.’
‘Oh! I’m sorry to hear that. How bad is it?’
‘We’re not sure yet. Jed’s trying to get away from work and then he’s going to fly over there.’
‘You
