Chapter 14
14
One of Danni’s responsibilities as a consultant in the emergency room was to mentor new team members and the appointment of Eve Bellingham had been a welcome relief. Having a new doctor on the team was much needed, especially with Danni being restricted to lighter duties, and the impending start of her maternity leave. Eve was only thirty, but had specialised in emergency medicine since completing her training, which meant she was already a senior doctor and Danni couldn’t imagine needing to provide much in the way of mentoring, other than around the specifics of how St Piran’s operated its emergency department. She’d met Eve when she came in to be interviewed, and Danni had been asked to give her a tour around the department. Eve had been easy to talk to and someone Danni had felt would fit in with the team, so it had been welcome news to hear she was joining them.
Eve’s first day on the team passed quickly. It was a typically busy day in A it was none of her business if Eve didn’t want to share the real reason. And the truth was, she was just grateful to have her new colleague on board. Jimmy’s loss was almost certainly St Piran’s gain.
‘I don’t think our jobs are ever going to give us the quiet life.’ Danni smiled. ‘But it’s certainly a beautiful place to live. I love being able to take the dogs out on a walk along the cliffs after work, or going in for a swim whenever the mood takes me. I was at King’s College Hospital before I came here, and I thought I’d miss the city life, but I wouldn’t trade this for the world.’
‘So you’d never want to go back?’ Eve’s eyebrows shot up, half-disappearing behind her fringe. Clearly she wasn’t so certain that she wanted to stay.
‘I thought I might want to at first and I even contemplated it in my first year here. I think it’s because of the reasons I came in the first place. I was in a bit of a toxic relationship with a colleague, that wasn’t really even a relationship in the proper sense, but it was still messing with my head and stopping me from getting on with my life.’ Danni shrugged; it was funny how easy it was to talk about all those wasted years trailing around after Lucas and hoping that her best friend would fall out of love with him, so that they could be together in the way she’d been convinced they were meant to be for so long. But it had all been an illusion. She’d never really loved Lucas, and he’d certainly never loved her, he’d just been an incredibly skilled manipulator. She thanked God every day that it was her love for Esther, which had always been far stronger than the illusion of loving Lucas, that had stopped her crossing a line she would have regretted forever. She wasn’t embarrassed to talk about what had happened, even with a new colleague. Everyone in St Piran’s seemed to know the story anyway, so it was best that Eve heard it from her. It might also make her more wary if her path crossed with Lucas’s, because a beautiful young woman who was homesick for her old life, and who might be a bit vulnerable as a result, would be just the sort of person he’d hone in on. ‘Then he decided to follow me to Cornwall and I thought about heading back to London, but I love living here, and the friends I’ve made since I started at the hospital are great. There’s a sense of community here too that I never found in London. This is my home and it’s where I met Charlie, so it feels like our place too. And it’s definitely where we want to raise our son.’
‘I can see the appeal of all of that, but I’d never have left Leeds if it hadn’t been for…’ Eve hesitated for a moment, her breath seeming to catch in her throat before she continued. ‘My fiancé was brought up around here, and he needed to move back to be closer to his parents. So of course I came with him.’
‘But your heart is still in Leeds?’ As Danni asked the question, she didn’t need to wait for a response, it was written all over Eve’s face even before she nodded. ‘You can always go back. No decision about your career is forever unless you want it to be.’
‘I hope so.’ Eve seemed to shake herself, then she smiled. ‘But the decision about how long I stick around might well hang on just how good or bad this coffee turns out to be.’
‘It’s lucky Danni got them from the hospital shop and not the vending machine then, or you’d probably be handing in your notice by the time you’d finished it.’ Aidan marched towards them, clearly having caught the tail end of their conversation. ‘The good news is, if you know where to go, you can get just as good a vanilla latte in Port Kara as you can anywhere else. And I really need a decent coffee right now.’
‘Tough night?’ Danni looked at Aidan, who had dark circles under his eyes and a lot more stubble on display than he usually did, which suggested either a change of image, or that he’d started his day in a bit of a hurry.
‘We had a call from Ellen last night. She’d had a bit of spotting.’ Aidan shook his head. ‘Jase went into full panic mode and to be honest I wasn’t much better. So the pair of us got in the car and drove an hour and a half to meet her at Derriford Hospital in Plymouth. She didn’t want to go into the Early Pregnancy Unit without us, because she couldn’t face it alone if she’d lost the baby. By the time they called us in, I’d convinced myself it was over. I think it was the only way I could cope, facing the worst head on before I even got the news.’
‘Oh Aidan, you shouldn’t even be here.’ Tears were pricking Danni’s eyes, and she couldn’t believe he’d come in to work, but he was shaking his head again.
‘It’s okay, they saw a heartbeat. Can you believe it? A tiny flickering little sign that our baby wants to stay around to meet us. Neither of us could sleep when we got in, we were so excited.’ Aidan smiled and his whole face was transformed, the joy of discovering that the baby was hanging in there so obvious that even a relative stranger like Eve seemed touched by the moment.
‘Oh congratulations, that’s amazing.’ Her voice sounded thick with emotion, but Danni was struggling to get any words out at all. Instead, she hugged him hard for at least twenty seconds, before she let him go and was finally able to respond.
‘Why didn’t you tell me? And why didn’t you take the day off?’
‘Because that would have ended up with you taking on even more work, and I’m not having that.’ Aidan wagged a finger at her and grinned. ‘You know there’s not an agency nurse on the planet who can match up to me.’
‘That’s true, in more ways than I can count.’ Danni laughed at the look of mock outrage on her friend’s face, seconds before the red phone started to ring, notifying them that a trauma call was on the way. ‘Looks like it’s just as well I’ve got the A team on today.’
‘I’m on it already, boss.’ Aidan gave her a mock salute, and moved to answer the call. There was a serious emergency on the way and, until it was dealt with, that was where the focus of everyone involved needed to be.
The trauma call was for a thirty-year-old male called Freddie Summers who’d fallen over twenty feet whilst working on the roof of a building. He’d been unconscious at the scene and incoherent following the accident. The paramedics had stabilised him, he’d been intubated and sent in for a scan almost as soon as he’d arrived at the hospital. Shortly after the call about Freddie, there’d been another trauma alert, this time about a road traffic accident involving several casualties, and the plan for Danni to stick to light duties had to be put on hold. Eve had proven every bit as adept at coping with the drama of a more serious situation as Danni had hoped she’d be, but they’d barely had a chance to talk for almost two hours. Freddie was still in the department with his family at his bedside, awaiting a space in theatre and ITU, where he’d need to go as soon as a bed became available. The scan had shown a severe head injury, which looked as if it could be life changing for both Freddie and his loved ones, and Danni just hoped the neurosurgeon would be able to do something that would make a significant difference, although sadly not even the most skilled surgeon could perform miracles.
She was on her way back through the department, and finally able to catch her breath, when she spotted Eve coming out of one of the cubicles. She was just about to call out to her new colleague, who was about twenty feet ahead of her, to check how she was doing, when Freddie’s heavily pregnant wife, Lauren, who they’d met when he was admitted, suddenly appeared in the corridor in front of Eve.
‘He’s not going to get better, is he?’ There were tears streaming down the young woman’s face, her mascara creating rivers of black as she stood in front of Eve, desperate for an answer that could give her some hope. But Eve seemed to have frozen to the spot.
‘Do you even care!’ Lauren began hammering her hands on Eve’s chest, but she still didn’t react, even as Danni caught up with them.
‘That’s not going to help anyone.’ Catching hold of one of Lauren’s arms, Danni had to weave her head to one side to avoid being struck by the woman’s other fist as it flew upwards. But then all the fight seemed to go out of her.
‘No one’s doing anything. He’s just lying there getting worse and worse, and you’re letting him.’ She was sobbing so hard it was difficult to make out what she was saying, but Danni folded her into her arms, the two of them standing awkwardly bump to bump, as Eve remained rooted to the spot.
‘He’s being kept stable, and he’ll be taken into surgery as soon as there’s a theatre available. It will be within the next hour.’ It was a promise Danni could make, because she’d been there when Freddie’s options were discussed, and the team had considered whether transferring him to another hospital might get him into surgery sooner. In the end, the decision had been taken for him to stay at St Piran’s, because the air ambulance had been on another job when the emergency services had been called, and there were no beds available in the nearest specialist units. There was only a very small neuro-surgical team who operated out of St Piran’s, but they’d been able to call enough members of the team in. That didn’t make the waiting any less hellish for his family.
Isla and Aidan had rushed towards Danni, clearly worried that something was going to kick off. But she silently mouthed over Lauren’s shoulder that it was okay, and they backed off, watching from a distance, ready to step in if she needed them.
‘I can’t do this on my own, I can’t have this baby by myself. I need Fred, we’re a team and if he’s, if he’s…’ It was a sentence Lauren couldn’t finish and Danni wished with all her heart that she could reassure the other woman that she’d get her husband back, exactly the way he had been that morning, but there was a very good chance that their lives had changed forever.
‘The surgeons deal with these kinds of head injuries all the time and there are rehabilitation services which can make a huge difference too. Right now, the important thing is that he’s stable and ready for his operation. But you need to take care of yourself and the baby too. It won’t help Freddie if he’s got to worry about the two of you.’
‘I can’t leave him. His mum and dad are with him, but I still can’t go.’ Lauren looked completely exhausted as she stepped back from Danni. It was as if she was being pulled in two directions and Danni didn’t know what to advise. She had no idea how she’d have reacted in the same circumstances.
‘They’re ready to take Freddie up to surgery.’ It was Zahir who broke the silence in the end, as he came into view.
‘Oh, thank God.’ It was a good job Danni was close enough to reach out and steady Lauren, otherwise she suspected the other woman might have ended up in a heap on the floor. The tears didn’t stop flowing, even as she turned to look at Danni, and then towards Eve, who still hadn’t said a word, but there was a tiny spark of hope in her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t believe I lashed out like that, but I was so scared.’
‘Don’t worry, I just hope he’s okay.’ Eve’s chin wobbled as she finally spoke, the intake of air afterwards shuddery as she breathed in.
‘I need to see him before he goes. Just in case.’ Lauren was already pulling away, desperate to say a goodbye to her husband, which none of them knew whether he’d be able to hear. The hardest thing about Danni’s job was that sometimes the outcome for her patients was completely out of her control. She’d done all she could for Freddie and his family. The rest was in other people’s hands now, and the forces of fate. But what she could do was talk to Eve, and try to get to the bottom of what had caused her new colleague to completely freeze. Danni just hoped it wasn’t something that would affect what had seemed such a promising future at St Piran’s for Eve.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened. I just had no idea what to say to her.’ Eve hadn’t even given Danni a chance to ask the question when they got into Dr Moorhouse’s office, where she’d suggested they go for a chat.
‘We all have moments that affect us in unexpected ways, but you must have had to deal with family members going through this kind of thing before.’
‘More times than I want to count.’ Running a hand through her dark, glossy hair, Eve seemed so put together and in control, yet she’d been like a rabbit in the headlights when Lauren had approached her. It didn’t make any sense, unless it had reminded her of something far more personal. Danni had been there herself, and she was going to take a chance that her hunch was right.
‘My dad died of cardiac arrest when I was ten years old. It was what made me want to become a doctor, but it still hits me hard every time I find myself in a situation like my dad faced that day. The first couple of times I froze, and for a while I wasn’t sure it was something I could get over. But with the support of my colleagues, I found a way. If the situation with Freddie and Lauren is like that for you, I want you to know you can talk to me.’
‘My f…’ Eve hesitated for a moment, then swallowed hard and met Danni’s eyes. ‘My friend sustained a serious head injury in an accident, and I was with him at the hospital. Like Lauren, I was waiting for someone to tell me he was going to be okay, but they never did, and he never was. Nothing anyone said to me that day helped, and I desperately wanted to find something to say to her today that would – even a little bit – but I couldn’t seem to open my mouth.’
‘I want to say it gets easier and it does, but not all by itself.’ Danni reached out and gently squeezed her arm. ‘I don’t think I’d ever have got past it if I didn’t get some help to process what it feels like to be back in a moment when you felt so helpless. Have you spoken to anyone about this before?’
‘No. It’s just that the circumstances today were so similar in a lot of ways. Freddie was the same age as my friend, and I was there by the bedside with his parents, who were distraught too. I didn’t realise it could still hit me so hard, and I’m scared I’ll let everyone down and won’t be able to do my job.’
‘Of course you can do your job, and with the right support this will make you even better at it. There’s nothing the families of our patients need more than to be shown some empathy; you can do that in a way that people who haven’t experienced something similar just can’t do. I do think it would help you to speak to someone about it though. Maybe one of the hospital counsellors would be a good starting point?’
‘I think it would.’ Eve nodded. ‘Thank you so much for understanding and not just tearing a strip off me for being useless.’
‘You’ve been great today, and I can already tell you’re going to fit in perfectly. Do you do hugs?’ Danni smiled, as Eve nodded. Hugging her new colleague, she hoped she was right, because there was no doubting Eve had a lot to offer. She wouldn’t be around soon, because of her maternity leave, but the team at St Piran’s had a way of pulling together unlike any other she’d ever worked with, and she couldn’t be leaving Eve’s future at the hospital in better hands.