Page 38 of Stranded with the Surgeon
‘And she’s normally hypertensive?’
‘Yes. She’s on a beta-blocker for that.’
‘Keep a close eye on her then. With beta blockade, she won’t be showing a rise in heart rate to warn you of hypovolaemia. Get IV access and put fluids up.’
‘Will it need packing?’
‘Get back to me when you’ve decided on the bleeding point. If it’s posterior and still severe, we might need to use a Foley’s catheter in combination with anterior packing. She’ll probably need some sedation to cope with that. She’ll also need antibiotics if it’s packed, and we’ll have to admit her.’
A nurse hurried up, holding a cardboard container. ‘Mrs Bennett’s just vomited.’ She held out the bowl, which appeared to contain a large volume of fresh blood.
Jennifer started moving rapidly towards Cubicle 7.
‘Mel? Could you get someone from ENT to come down, please?’
Staff from the ear, nose and throat department were not readily available, which would have been a nuisance for Jennifer a few weeks ago, keeping her tied to the treatment of a single patient and unavailable for the next critical case to come through the doors. The satisfaction to be gained from focusing on one patient was a new phenomenon, but the change in the way Professor Allen worked had not gone unnoticed.
‘Are you going visiting this afternoon?’ Mel held up a pair of spectacles. ‘Only these are Mr Smith’s glasses and if you’re going up to ICU, I won’t have to find an orderly to deliver them.’
Jennifer took the spectacles. ‘I’ll pop up and see how he’s getting on after my shift finishes.’ She glanced at the wall clock. ‘Which should be in about ten minutes.’
It was actually more like an hour. What should have been a swift final consult to finish her day, as she saw the toddler who’d been screaming intermittently for half the afternoon and prescribed antibiotics for an angry ear infection, was hijacked by the distraught mother of a fourteen-year-old girl.
There were no staff members immediately available to talk to the quietly sobbing woman, so Jennifer took her into the relatives’ room herself and closed the door.
‘You’re Courtney’s mother, aren’t you?’
She nodded. ‘I’m Jane. They’ve just taken Courtney to the operating theatre.’
‘She needs a D and C,’ Jennifer explained gently. ‘The miscarriage wasn’t complete.’
‘I didn’t even know she was pregnant. I had no idea! I should have known.’ Tears flowed afresh. ‘And she’d been raped at a party. Why didn’t she tell me?’
‘Sometimes, when something terrible happens, it’s easier to try and pretend it didn’t happen than to have to go over and over it in your head. Telling someone forces you to confront the reality, and that’s a hard thing to do.’
Jennifer hadn’t spoken to her colleagues or even close friends in any detail about her experience of the plane crash. Maybe that was why it was proving so difficult to stop thinking about it all. About the narrow brush with death. About losing a patient she had desperately wanted to save. About the ordeal of the long trek to safety.
About Guy Knight.
‘I should have known something had happened. I just thought she’d fallen out with her friends at school or she was worried about exams or something. She’s been so quiet for the last few weeks. Not eating or sleeping properly. Not going out with her mates.’
It sounded remarkably familiar to Jennifer. She hadn’t been raped, of course – quite the opposite – but the terror of the crash and its aftermath had to rank fairly highly in any list of traumatic events.
‘You’ll get through this,’ Jennifer said reassuringly. ‘It’ll take time and it might not be easy, but your daughter needs your support now more than ever.’
Jane sniffed and then nodded. ‘I would have been there for her, even if she’d ended up having the baby. Except… how could you love the child if the father had donethat? This is probably the best thing that could have happened. That’s an awful thing to say, isn’t it?’
‘It’s a perfectly understandable reaction,’ Jennifer assured her. ‘And now Courtney’s got the chance to put it behind her and move on with her life. With your support.’
It was just as well Jennifer hadn’t ended up with any kind of reminder more tangible than memories. It hadn’t even occurred to her at the time that she was risking pregnancy… or worse. Jennifernevertook risks like that. She must have been out of her mind. She had been lucky, but it had been stupid, and Jennifer didn’t try to push back the anger her stupidity generated even now.
‘I’d like to be there when she wakes up.’
‘They’ll let you into the recovery room. It’s a fairly quick procedure so you won’t have to wait much longer.’
‘Can I go there now?’
‘I don’t see why not.’ Jennifer stood up. Her flash of anger was fading into a vague irritation, and movement seemed like a good way to completely dispel what could become a negative mood. ‘I’m on my way to the intensive care unit so I go past Recovery. I’ll show you the way and have a word with the nursing staff.’
