10. Lauren
10
LAUREN
I was as stumped as anyone else. A ten-year-old boy and a heart attack weren't two things we ever saw in a patient chart unless we were listing next of kin for a dead patient. The others continued to spout off their ideas of what could have caused this child to have a heart attack, but I was silent in thought. I tapped my chin as I stared at the young boy whose face was ashen.
"Childhood diabetes," Dr. Cooper spat out. She ran a hand through her unruly curls and chewed on the lid of her pen. "It explains the sores on his chest and would put him at a risk of heart attack."
"No, because his A1C was normal. Keep thinking." Dr. Park had a list of symptoms on his white board which he had brought down when the infarction happened. The little guy looked so helpless in that big bed even though he was twice as big as most kids his age.
"What about hyperthyroidism?" Dr. Baine asked, but Dr. Holt scowled.
"It's got to be genetic," he countered, then added, "have we gotten a full history on the parents?" Holt swiped through the screens on his tablet and shook his head.
"I say vasculitis, or pyoderma gangrenosum." My insertion only drew another round of hard eye rolls and groans.
"Those only account for the skin sores, but what if we're missing a symptom?" Dr. Park was leading us now, as if he knew what was going on and was waiting for us to figure it out. I had nothing left. I had racked my brain for any solution to the strange symptoms and I was coming up empty.
I blamed myself. The past week had been actual torture for me. After such a steamy sexcapade with Dr. Park in his office, I couldn't even look him in the eye anymore. I wanted to jump in a cold ice bath and forget it ever happened, but every smile, every bit of praise or compliment set me on edge. No man had ever gotten me so worked up that I'd take a chance like that.
"Missing a symptom?" Dr. Cooper asked. She spat out the pen lid and looked confused. "We did a full history and we were really thorough."
"What if the obesity isn't a cause of what's going on as we've assumed? What if it is a symptom of something deeper going on?" Dr. Park's eyebrows rose, and I knew he was getting at something. He'd given up his patient exploration and he was about to take us to school. "What if it's Cushing’s?"
I shook my head firmly. "It can't be. His cortisol levels are normal." I felt in my gut that Dr. Park was wrong. The boy had normal hormone levels.
"That's just being cynical now, Dr. Newhouse." He chided me and raised an eyebrow, and I winced in physical pain at receiving a harsh response. Normally, things like this didn't affect me so much and I'd just let them roll off my back. It was how I knew his opinion of me was more important than it had ever been—that he was getting to me emotionally now.
"But, sir, the sores…" Dr. Holt was even confused by all of this. "Cushing’s wouldn't cause the sores. Do you think he also has a staph infection?"
"I think we gave him those sores. I think they're a result of the warfarin we used for busting the clot which gave him the heart attack." He took a deep breath and looked each of us in the eye as he pronounced the real diagnosis, and I swallowed hard as he met my gaze last and held it. "We're looking at Cushing's, ladies and gentlemen. Look at his parents, both very tall and slender. This young man is seventy pounds overweight and short. It has already affected his development. And the sores are a result of hypercalcemia from the disease."
"But sir," I protested, and he cut me off.
"We need an MRI to confirm the tumor on his pituitary and surgery to follow. Cooper, inform the parents. Baine and Holt, get the MRI scheduled. Newhouse, schedule the OR." Dr. Park waited for us to turn but then called after me, "And Dr. Newhouse, go to the ER now and check out the new patient. Supposedly, an elderly woman with a severe change in personality. We may need a second MRI."
Dr. Park had a way of making me feel in control, which I sort of liked. Except when he made me feel completely out of control, which I also liked. It was a constant battle between what I knew was the right thing to do and what I knew was the thing I wanted to do. I headed off toward the nurses’ station to find a computer to schedule an operating theater, but all I could think about was how even in putting me in my place and correcting me, he was still gentle and compassionate.
I had it bad for him, and I knew I had it bad before we even had sex in his office. Taking that stupid risk only intensified my infatuation with him. Like I had to have him. Like my body needed a hit of an illicit drug I'd tasted and instantly became addicted to. Only, he seemed calmer than ever. He had self-control that parallelled Zeus's, and it seemed like nothing got to him now. Though I had been acting as professional as possible, and maybe if I had been even slightly flirtatious, he'd have cracked.
I set the OR up for the surgical team pending the MRI results and marched down to the ER. I hadn't even seen the chart, but most times, it was better to hear it directly from the staff who had already been treating a patient rather than words on a screen. I strolled into the department thinking this would be a quick in and out, and it went more quickly than I imagined.
The attending in charge of the ER this evening approached me with a calm expression. "Newhouse, you're in our territory again." He winked at me playfully, and I laughed it off. He'd taken over the position I vacated when I transferred to work with Dr. Park.
"Can't keep a veteran from revisiting their stomping ground." I shrugged and felt my tablet vibrate.
"You should have just gotten the notice. We don't need diagnostics. Turns out the old woman has syphilis and it got to her brain. She'll be treated and cured." He chuckled even though there was nothing funny about it, but I could see he found it humorous.
"I guess I'll just go back up to diagnostics then. How are you liking the job?" He was a good doctor, but he wouldn’t have been my pick to take over the shift when I left.
"Hey, yeah, it's okay." He glanced back at the ambulance entrance as his pager chimed, and I knew that meant he had to run. "Later, Doc."
"Yeah…" I watched him walk away and then turned to head back to Dr. Park's office, but as I walked past one of the exam rooms, a very familiar voice met my ear. I stopped and listened and my heart sank. "Jason?" I mumbled as I tore the curtain back, and my brother was there, seated in a chair next to a bed where a patient lay strapped down and intubated. "What the…?"
"Oh, hey, Lauren…" One look at his eyes told me he was on something.
"Jason, what are you doing here?" I rushed to his side, ignoring protocol, and grabbed his hand. His eyes lazily traced up my arm to my face. He blinked slowly and looked as if he were about to pass out. The pinpricks that were his pupils and glassy gaze gave him away. "What are you on?" I snapped harshly, but also quietly. I didn't need my coworkers knowing my personal business.
"I ain't on nothin', I swear." He yanked his arm away from my grasp, and I looked over at his friend as he continued. "Kurt OD'd and I brought him in. I'm here with him. That's all."
I wanted to tear him limb from limb and force him to do a drug test, but that would only draw more attention to me than I wanted.
"My God, you really are on something." I shook my head. "You need to get out of here right now and go home. If they find out this kid was on something and you were with him, you'll both get locked up." I pointed in the general direction of the exit and he rolled his eyes at me.
"I can't leave him here. His family doesn't live around here." He folded his arms over his chest in protest, and I wasn't having it.
"Now, Jason. Your family does live around here, and I can't afford to bail you out of jail. Now go home before the cops show up, because you know they come every time there's an overdose." I stood my ground until he got up and walked out, muttering some choice expletives at me as he passed.
I was frustrated and worked up as I headed out of the emergency department and back to Dr. Park's office. The silver lining was the patient we were slated to get was now off the roster and we had a bit of a down moment. It would give me a few minutes to clear my head before the others returned from doing their tasks. Dr. Park was probably following up with them, and I hoped to have the office to myself for a few seconds.
But when I got up to the office, Dr. Park was already there, seated at his desk. I tried not to let my emotion show, but even from the chair in the outer office where I sank and covered my face, Dr. Park saw me. I heard the door squeak before his voice, and I braced myself.
"Is everything okay? I just got the word about our new patient." He sounded less professional and more like a concerned friend.
"It's sort of personal…" I lowered my hands, still not knowing where I stood—somewhere in the valley between colleagues and lovers. While my body said we were almost to the peak of Mount Lustmore, my mind had been leaning toward the professional side all week, or at least trying to.
"That's alright. Your personal life can directly affect your ability to think clearly for work. Why don't you tell me what's happening?" He sat in the chair next to me and folded his hands over the table. For the first time since last week when we had sex, I felt comfortable around him, as if the looming arousal and desire I had for him were tempered by the shock of my brother in the ER high on drugs.
"I sort of told you about my brother, how I'm raising him. And I can't even remember how much I told you, but he has a drug problem. I need to get him into rehab. He was just in emergency with his friend who OD'd, and I'm terrified one day, it will be him." My lip pushed out into a pout all by itself and I felt tears welling up. I was confiding something deeply personal and embarrassing to my boss. Something that might have him looking down on me for not handling it better.
Instead of judgment in his eyes, though, I saw compassion. He reached up and touched my face, brushing his thumb over my lower lip. I retracted it and bit it, protecting myself from that sizzling touch I knew would ignite my soul if I allowed it to.
"Now isn’t the time for something this serious, and I really want to listen to you and help you. So I'd like to invite you to have dinner with me, at my home. Does tonight work?"
I saw movement out in the hallway and straightened. Dr. Park glanced in that direction and put his hand down quickly. I couldn't do this—the sneaking around and hiding whatever the heck was going on. If I was going to get wrapped up in someone when I was already in a mess of emotional issues, it would be someone who didn't have to hide me.
"No. I don't think that's a good idea. We work together. We can’t do this…" I let my words trail off as the door opened and Dr. Cooper and Dr. Baine walked into the office.
Dr. Park stood up and joined them, poring over the content on the tablet shared between them, and I felt a little part of my heart die. I wanted to see what could happen between me and Dr. Park, but it felt so wrong. He was my boss, not just some man I met casually. And the hospital had a policy against this. Even if they approved of coworkers dating, I knew this instance would be a hard no. He wasn’t just a colleague. He was my superior.
I turned and looked up at his large blue eyes that held such wisdom and understanding and knew I needed someone to talk to. Amber had tried so hard for years to help me, and she just never had the right words. If talking and listening was all he wanted, maybe I shouldn't have turned him down.
"Uh, Dr. Park…" I waited until he looked up at me. "That shift you need covered tonight… The one you just asked me about. If you still want me to do it, I will."
His face lit up slowly into a professional smile. "Perfect. Thank you. We can discuss details in a moment."
So I'd have dinner with my boss. What could go wrong? He was going to listen to my woes about my family life and nothing more.
Right?