Round Two #2
“I-I don’t understand what I’m…” She swings her focus to the window at my back, her eyes narrowing at the bright white wall of snow drifting to the ground.
Then, when Janine rushes back in, Jane wrenches her head that way, the monitor beep-beep-beeping and her heels digging viciously into the mattress.
She attempts to scramble backwards, half-climbing the railing and almost spilling over the side.
“Stop! Ma’am!” I catch her again and pin her by the shoulders, then I meet Janine’s eyes and look to the tray in her hands—lorazepam, to calm Jane down, and droperidol, to knock her the hell out, both in injectable form. “No.”
She skids to a stop. Assessing. Then, twisting and putting the tray on the far counter.
Good.
Let’s bring the energy wayyyy fuckin’ down.
Calmly, I bring my focus back to Jane. “You’re safe. We’re here to help you. I know you’re scared and confused, but you need to stay put. You have a brain injury and a bleed that could get much worse if you keep jumping around and falling off beds.”
“I have a…” Hiccupping, she probes the back of her head with a blood-stained hand, hissing when she finds the tender spot. “What?”
“If you promise to stay still, I promise to tell you everything I know.” For the second time in as many minutes, I draw my hands back.
“My name is Doctor Darling.” Slowly, so fucking carefully, I point to the embroidered name on my coat.
“I bet you have a massive headache right about now. So if it’s okay with you, we might get you something for that. ”
I nod for Janine.
That’s all the communication she needs to turn on her heels and leave.
“Most people just call me Ollie. Since Doctor Darling comes across as kinda pretentious.” I inch backwards and grab the cord for the blinds, pulling them most of the way closed and blocking out the stark white glare coming off the snowy hills outside.
“I was on shift last night when you came in via ambulance. Do you remember what happened to you?”
With less light, the squint of her eyes softens. Fractionally. But her pulse continues sprinting. Long, tan legs sit exposed outside her gown, and her blankets glow bright, fresh-blood red.
“Do you remember being hit by a car?”
She rubs the back of her head again, fat, devastated tears rolling onto her cheeks. “No, I… I don’t remember that.”
“Do you remember seeing me last night?” I glance toward the door as Janine comes back in carrying a cup of water in one hand and a cup of pills in the other.
Jane swings her head around, her pulse screaming louder and louder.
“She’s a nurse,” I explain. “She won’t hurt you either, I promise.”
“For your pain.” Janine approaches slowly, her hands extended. “This is just ibuprofen. We’ll get your IV hooked back up shortly, and I’ll be able to get you something better.”
Jane looks down at the pills. Then the water. Then she fists her messy bed sheets and brings terrified eyes back my way. “I got hit by a car?”
“A big car. And it’s one of those old, heavy steel kinds with a massive grille. Not like the plastic cars in showrooms these days. Barbara insisted she keep her Pontiac all these years, ‘cos she was afraid of hitting a deer someday. Which, by the way, has literally never happened.”
Jane looks me up and down, trembling all over. Her chest and shoulders rise and fall with every shaky inhalation, the movement highlighting just how much her collarbones stick out.
When was the last time she ate a full meal?
Gulping, she brings her eyes back up to mine. “B-Barbara?”
“That’s who hit you. And though it’s not really my place to comment, you should know it was probably an accident. She’s old and fussy and the queen of gossip. She’s held grudges for eighty years and not run any of those people down, so I doubt this one was intentional.”
“I-I don’t remember you…” Her brows furrow, heavily shadowing her eyes. “I don’t…” She shakes her head.
“It’s okay that you don’t.” I wander forward and perch on the edge of her bed, carefully—slowly, so I don’t scare her—setting my hands in my lap.
“I got you to open your eyes for a second just before we went in for CT last night, but then you were out again. This is the first time you’ve woken since then.
” I twist and snag her file, flipping it open to reveal her scans.
“You have what’s called a traumatic brain injury.
Yours is reasonably mild, which is probably why you have a massive headache, your eyes hurt because of the light, and you’re feeling a little confused.
You have a contusion about—” I reach up and touch the back of my skull, right where she was touching hers, “—here. Contusion is a fancy word for a bruise. And you have a subdural hematoma—” I move my hand two inches lower, “—here. That means you’re bleeding internally. ”
Even a confused, scared, tired woman would react to ‘internal bleeding.’ Predictably, her pulse skitters, and the beep-beep-beep of the monitor just four feet away fills the room.
“It’s not so bad, though. You don’t need surgery, and so long as you don’t fall out of bed or fight my nurses, it should stay that way.
” I set the file in my lap and place my hands over top, and though I see the spray of blood across the front of her gown—and the blankets, and the floor, and Janine, too—I know it’s not real.
Not in the traditional someone-is-dying sense.
“You’ve had quite the adventure, ma’am. But I’m hopeful the rest of your week will be better from here on out. ”
Glancing toward Janine, I extend my hand. And like the well-oiled machine we are, she sets the cup of water in my palm and waits with the pills.
“We should discuss allergies soon. Because I’d hate to dose you up with something you can’t have.
But these…” I take the pill cup and hold it halfway between us.
“These are fine. You already had some in your IV. You’re gonna be in pain for the next few days; there’s no reason to be a martyr about it when we have pain relief to help you get through. ”
“I don’t…” She drops her glittering gaze to the cup, visibly swallowing so her throat bobs. “I-I don’t think I should.”
“Can you tell me your name?” I lower my arm, but I don’t take my offerings away.
She’ll accept them soon enough. “You’re logged in as Jane Doe at the moment, and I’ve said ma’am a time or two.
But I’ll have to inspect your sutures in a minute, and I’d really rather know your real name, if it’s all the same to you. ”
“My name?”
She’s so slow. The synapses in her brain, excruciatingly relaxed, though I know she wishes otherwise. She reaches forward with a grazed, dirty hand and takes the pills. But she nurses the cup in her lap and stares down at them.
“Ma’am?”
“I don’t know…” Frightened, she brings overflowing eyes back up to mine. “I don’t know my name.”