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Archive for March, 2010
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Chapter 24
The police officer – “Call me Bridget,” she says – sits down in the chair Josie had been in.
“So, what happens now?” I ask her.
“We’re charging her with assault,” says Bridget. “There’s CCTV footage from inside the building lobby showing the attack, and we don’t expect she’ll deny the charges. I don’t think you’ll need to appear in court or anything like that, but I do need you to give a statement, if you feel up to it.”
“Okay,” I say. “Although, I’ve had a concussion, apparently. I don’t know how valid a statement would be right now.”
“Sure,” says Bridget, nodding. “Why don’t you give me a call in a day or two when you feel up to it, then?” She hands me her card. I take it, although I’m pretty sure I still have the first one she gave me.
Josie comes back into my room, carrying a sandwich and take-away coffee cup, with my wallet held under one arm. She looks a bit surprised at the cop sitting in her chair, then walks around to the other side of my bed and sets the coffee and sandwich down on the table.
“Hi, Officer…”
“Bridget,” says Bridget.
Jo perches on the end of my bed, managing not to sit on my feet. “What’s happening to Heidi?” she says, a touch of venom in her voice.
“She’ll be held in police custody until we have a court date,” says Bridget.
“Good,” we both say at once.
Josie turns and grins at me. “Jinx,” she says.
“Child,” I reply. “Anyway,” I add, turning to Bridget, “she probably needs to be evaluated by a psychiatrist. As far as I could tell she appeared delusional.”
“Okay,” she says, taking out a small pad and making a note. “I’ll make sure she gets medical attention as soon as possible.”
“Do you need a statement from Josephine?” I ask.
“No, we’ve already spoken,” she replies. Josie nods.
“I took the bitch down,” she smirks. I can’t help laughing at her earnest expression.
Bridget thanks me for my time and I promise to call her once I’m out of the hospital. It occurs to me that, concussion aside, I must have been dosed with opiates after the surgery, so it would be doubly ill-advised for me to give a statement right now.
After Bridget leaves, Josie resumes her seat by the bed. “Ew, the seat’s warm,” she remarks.
“Yeah, I guess it would be,” I agree. “Thanks for the food. I don’t suppose they’ve changed the sign on the door yet?”
“Still says nil by mouth,” she says. “I’ll go get a nurse.”
She gets up and I hear her in the hall asking about my diet. In a moment she’s back with the nurse.
“Yes, you’re fine to have some light solids now,” says the nurse. “Sandwiches are okay.”
“Great,” I say, immediately opening the package and taking a big bite.
The nurse takes my blood pressure and temperature, noting them in my chart before she leaves.
“How is it?” asks Jo.
“Oh, god, so good,” I mumble, washing down my mouthful of sandwich with some hot coffee. It’s actually terrible – low-fibre white bread spread with cheap, oily catering butter – but it’s exactly what I want right now. Since my right arm is out of action I’m handling the coffee cup fairly carefully with my left hand, the uneaten sandwich balanced on my chest.
“Hey, slacker,” says a voice from the doorway. It’s Dave.
“Hey, yourself,” I say, setting my coffee back down on the bedside table. I take another big bite of my sandwich.
“Any excuse to get out of work, right?” Dave winks at Josie, who sniggers. I think I see her blush a little. I make a mental note to be merciless about this later.
“We got you a card,” he says, handing me an envelope.
“Oh, thank you,” I say. “Jo, do you mind?”
Josie takes the envelope and opens it for me. It’s a standard get-well-soon card, signed by half a dozen of the emergency department staff, which I place on the table by the bed, and a couple of scratch tickets. I laugh.
“Thanks, Dave,” I say with a smile. I tuck the tickets underneath my wallet on the table.
“So how are you holding up?” he asks me.
“Okay,” I say. I finish the last of my sandwich and set the packaging aside, swiping ineffectually at the crumbs on the bed sheet.
“You should see the other guy,” says Jo.
Dave picks up my chart and flips through the pages. “Yeah, you’ll be fine,” he pronounces. “Looks like you’ll have a scar on that arm, though.”
I make a face. “Could be worse,” I say. “At least I landed on my wrist and not my head.”
“Yeah, you don’t want any more holes in your head,” he smirks. “Actually, I wanted to pick your brain about a patient, while I’m here. Do you mind?”
I’m intrigued. “What is it?”
“Thirty-five year old woman, no history, with jaundiced skin and ketosis.”
“Right,” I say. “Bloods?”
“All normal,” he says.
“Liver’s normal?” I ask.
He nods.
“Jaundice,” I muse. “She’s on a diet.”
“I don’t know,” he says. “That might explain the ketosis.”
“She’s on a diet,” I repeat. “Probably replacing at least one meal a day with carrot sticks, I’d guess.”
Dave nods, getting it. “Not jaundice at all,” he says.
“Carrot poisoning?” says Jo.
I laugh. “Kind of,” I say. “Beta carotene can build up in the body and make the skin orange or yellow. And ketosis means she’s avoiding carbs.”
“Nice one, Sherlock,” says Dave. “I’ll ask her about the diet. I owe you a beer if you’re right. Anyway, I gotta go. I’m on until three this afternoon. Take it easy.” He gives me a little peck on the cheek on his way out, making me blush this time.
My attending doctor, Whitman, gives me the all-clear on Sunday afternoon to be discharged in the morning. Josie comes back to the hospital to help me get my stuff together and ride home in the cab with me once I get out.
“I can’t believe you only get codeine,” she says, packing my little toiletry kit into my duffel bag. “I thought you’d get morphine or something after surgery.”
“Not once they discharge me,” I tell her. “All the good stuff’s only for inpatients.”
“How much time do you have to take off work?” she asks.
“I’m taking at least a week,” I say. “The OHS guys are figuring something out for me to write with when I come back. I’ll probably just have to type on a laptop until I can use my hand again. I don’t think they’ll hire me a scribe.”
“Yeah,” she says, taking a breath. “Listen… are you going to see a therapist?”
“About all this?” I say, surprised. “Oh, I don’t know if I need to. Work might ask me to, I suppose, once I come back.”
“No,” says Josie. “I mean, not just all this. Are you planning to talk to someone about your thing with driving?”
I freeze, feeling as though I’ve been caught in something. “What?” I ask.
“Don’t look like that,” she says. “It’s pretty obvious you’re scared of driving since you had the accident.”
“I’m not scared,” I say. “I just… I can’t bring myself to drive.” I sigh. “Is it really obvious?”
“It is to me,” she says.
“You’re the first one to say anything,” I tell her. I shrug. “What do I do?”
“See a therapist, jackass,” she says. Her tone is mock-stern but I can see she’s serious. “Not to mention that anyone who’s lived with the Proctors needs their head examined.”
I smile thinly and raise my fingers to my own head, gently tracing the big bump around the sutures on my scalp. “I guess you’re right,” I say. “God knows I haven’t talked to a therapist in a long time, even since before the car accident, and… the rest.”
“Good,” says Josie. “Make an appointment with someone. I’m going to hassle you about it in a couple of weeks.”
“Jeez, all right,” I say. I’m a little amused by her tenacity on this.
An orderly appears at the door with my wheelchair and Josie helps me into it. “I’ve got your bag with all your things,” she says.
She keeps pace with us as I’m wheeled to the nurses’ station to sign the paperwork, then to the pharmacy for my discharge meds, and finally out to the waiting taxi. Josie gives the driver my address as the orderly puts my bag in the back and takes the chair back into the hospital.
“How are you feeling?” Josie asks me as the cab pulls out.
I think about it for a minute. “I’m feeling okay,” I tell her honestly.
I take out my wallet from my hip pocket and remove the two lottery tickets, plus a coin to scratch them. “It might be mainly the drugs, but right now, I feel pretty good.”
Chapter 23
Consciousness comes back to me gradually. Everything seems very far away. I’m mostly aware that my head hurts like a bastard and I’m lying on the ground in something wet. A detached part of my mind hopes that it’s sweat.
Heidi is here, which is strange since the police took her away yesterday. She’s talking to Josie – no, yelling at her. She turns and yells something at me. What? My ears are roaring and I can’t really hear anything.
She lunges towards me and shouts again. This time I think I can make it out. It sounds like she says “it’s over now”.
Everything seems to be happening in slow motion. As Heidi comes at me, Josie tackles her from behind and takes her down. For a moment I manage to feel vaguely both alarmed and proud of her, then I feel sick to my stomach and it all goes black again.
I wake up slowly, awareness of my surroundings coming gradually as the darkness clears. I’m in bed. It’s a single bed, not mine… no, it’s a hospital bed. That realisation jolts me awake the rest of the way and I sit up to look around.
I’m immediately hit by a wave of nausea and dizziness, impacting me like a physical blow. I lie down again with a little whimper.
“Hey,” says Jo, who’s sitting in the chair next to me. “You okay?”
“What in god’s name…?” I manage, keeping my eyes closed against the nausea.
“It’s all right,” she says. “Heidi attacked you outside your place. She sounded crazy. Anyway, when the police came they took her away again.”
I realise I can feel a cannula in my left arm. “Can you call for a nurse?” I ask. “I need an antiemetic.”
“Yeah,” says Josie, and a moment later I hear the call bell chiming outside the room.
“Am I okay?” I finally think to ask. Opening my eyes, I add, “Are you okay, Jo?”
“I’m fine,” she says. “And I think you’re okay. You look like shit, but apparently the surgery went well.”
I frown. “Surgery?”
“Your arm,” she says.
I look stupidly down at myself, and before the nausea makes me put my head back down on the pillow I see my right forearm is in a cast. “I didn’t even feel that,” I say. Then I remember being hit in the head. “Oh, jeez, do I have all my hair?” I ask.
“Mostly,” Jo replies. She sounds like she’s smirking. “They cut off a little bit to stitch a cut your scalp, but you can hardly see it.”
“Oh, fine, then,” I grumble. “And where’s that fucking nurse?”
“Just wait,” says Jo. “How are you feeling?”
I make an irritated little noise, realising as I do that I probably sound like a complete child. “Sick,” I tell her. “But not sore, at least. I must have some decent pain killers on board.”
“I guess,” she says. “I’m glad you’re okay, you know.” Her voice catches a bit, and I force myself to turn my head to look at her. She’s wiping at tears.
“Hey, I’m fine,” I say.
A familiar-looking nurse enters the room with my chart.
“How are you doing, Lucy?” she asks me.
“Okay,” I say. “Nauseous. Can I get some Zofran?”
“Hm,” she says, checking the chart. “Yes, doctor’s written you up for some Zofran, if you need it.” She looks up at me. “Are you a nurse?”
I frown. “I’m a doctor,” I reply, trying to keep the contempt from my voice. “I’m a doctor here, actually,” I add, having just realised that’s where I am.
The nurse leaves to get the medication. “So what did I do to my arm?” I ask Josie.
“You fell on your wrist,” she says. “You seem to be more lucid now,” she adds. “I’ve gone through this with you twice already.”
“Really?” I say, turning slightly to arch my eyebrows at her.
“Yeah,” she says. “You woke up a couple of times before, but you were still pretty out of it. You kept asking the nurse about your blood pressure.”
An unpleasant thought hits me. “Hey, what day is it?” I ask.
“Only Saturday,” she replies with a smile. “Mum and Dad get back tomorrow night.”
“Um, don’t tell them I’m in the hospital, okay?” I say. “They’ll only want to visit me. Maybe.”
“All right,” she says.
The nurse comes back in with a syringe in a kidney dish. She injects the antiemetic into my IV and leaves again.
“Chatty one, isn’t she?” says Jo.
I smirk at that. “So, did you get your stuff moved okay this morning?” I ask her.
She nods. “I didn’t think you’d mind if I left here for a couple of hours to sort it out,” she says.
“Of course not,” I say. “Particularly since I was unconscious. So what exactly happened with Heidi?”
“Before, or… after?”
“Both, I guess.”
Jo licks her lips. “Well, she thought you had locked her out,” she says. “Which I suppose you had, technically. She was mad, and she seemed to think she was breaking up with you over it.”
“We really weren’t together,” I put in.
Jo shrugs. “Tell her that. Anyway, that bald spot you’ve now got is where she whomped you with a cricket bat.”
I wince. “Where would she even get a cricket bat? Why?”
She shrugs again and produces a bottle of soda, taking a long swig. I eyeball it, suddenly realising how thirsty I am.
“You’re still nil by mouth,” she says, seeing my gaze.
“Oh, balls,” I mutter. I reach behind my head for the nurse call button. “I shouldn’t be, unless I’m having more surgery.” I glance at Jo. “I’m not, am I?”
“I don’t think so,” she says, finishing the soda and dropping the bottle in the bin by her chair. “You had a scan of your head last night, but no one said anything was wrong.”
“A CT scan?”
“I think so, yeah,” says Jo.
A different ward nurse, who I don’t recognise, comes in. “How are you feeling?” she asks.
“Thirsty,” I tell her, unable to keep myself from scowling. “Is there a reason I’m NPO?”
“I think the doctor wanted to wait for your scan results,” she says.
“Okay,” I say. “Do we have the results now? I had the CT last night, didn’t I?”
She takes my chart from the back of the door and leafs through it. “Yep,” she says finally. “All fine.”
“So I’m okay to eat and drink now?” I say hopefully.
“I don’t see why not,” she says slowly. “Let me check with my supervisor and I’ll let you know.”
I nod and she leaves.
“Freaking nurses,” I say under my breath.
“I don’t think she knows you outrank her, Luce,” whispers Josie.
“I don’t know how much authority I command at the moment,” I say. I reach for the bed control and gently raise the head of the bed so I can see my surroundings better. The nausea is not too bad now.
“What time is it?” I ask Jo.
She checks her watch. “Ten,” she reports.
“Great, so I missed breakfast, and it’s ages until lunch,” I say, frowning. “Josie, can you please run down to the cafeteria and get me a coffee and a sandwich?”
“Sure,” she says. “Grumpy bitch when you’re concussed, aren’t you? What sandwich do you want?”
I shrug. “Egg or something,” I say. “Just grab my wallet out of – oh, where is my bag?”
“It’s in the drawer by the bed,” says Jo. “Your clothes are there, too.”
I hadn’t yet noticed, but I guess I am wearing a hospital gown. I feel myself blush slightly as I realise someone must have undressed me – probably someone I work with in emergency.
Jo takes ten dollars from my wallet and heads off to get me some brunch. I’m actually pretty ravenous, so I expect I’ll be more than happy to eat again when lunch comes around.
While I’m waiting for Jo and the nurse to come back, I turn on the television and flip around the channels. I’m glad to be in a private room; Jo must have arranged it when I came in. I’ll have to thank her and make sure she found my health insurance card with all the details for admissions.
There’s a short knock at my door. I glance up and see the female police officer who was at my apartment the other day.
“May I come in?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I say, “I guess you’d better.”
