8. Malcolm
Malcolm
“Twenty-eight-year-old female, suspected appendicitis. She’d been hiking, and we picked her up in Drumnadrochit. She was in and out with pain and exhaustion during transport. She’s had one litre of saline.”
Rory directs the medics to roll the trolley into room two while I pull on gloves. As I walk toward her, I look at her face to check her coloring.
“Makenna!”
“Makenna, is it?” Rory looks at me with raised eyebrows.
“I know her. I mean, I met her.” She looked good last night. Perfectly healthy. But if this is appendicitis, that makes sense. It comes on quickly.
She wakes groaning, and curls in on herself. I lean over, trying to get in her line of sight, but I can tell she’s not really seeing me. “Makenna, I’m gonna press on your abdomen.”
I examine her as quickly and gently as I can. Still, the noises she makes break my heart.
“Her temp is 101, and her B.P. is 80/55,” Rory says.
I watch Elsie finish the blood draw and head toward the lab.
“Let’s get her to C.T., but go ahead and call the O.R.,” I tell Rory. “Tell them to prepare for an appendectomy.”
When the need for surgery is confirmed by bloodwork and C.T.
scan, I accompany Makenna upstairs where, thankfully, our best general surgeon awaits.
He quickly assesses her and her results and agrees she needs surgery now.
I stand outside the operating room for a moment, feeling stressed.
I say a quick prayer for her safety and healing, then remember she has celiac disease.
I unlock my tablet, add it to her chart, then head back to the E. D.
Rory’s on me as soon as he sees me. “Where have you been, man? Elsie and Cat have been on me again about dating Cat’s granddaughter. Why aren’t they after you?”
“They gave up and switched to you when you started working here.” I sit down in the chair next to Rory. “I went up to see Makenna to surgery.”
“Special treatment for this mysterious Makenna.” Rory pumps his eyebrows up and down.
“Not special,” I say, knowing full well that I wouldn’t typically stay so long upstairs, I’d have been back down here moving on to my next patient. But, apart from Makenna, the E.D. has been quiet today, so I had the time. And, yes, I feel a small amount of responsibility for her, but that’s it.
“Uh-huh. So how do you know this girl?”
“I met her last night. She was eating dinner at the pub. You could have met her if you’d shown up, ya nyaff.”
“Hey. I can’t come to all your shows.”
“Yeah, but you said you were coming.”
“Did you shed a tear when you realized I wasn’t there?”
“Couldn’t stop smiling, actually. Best performance I’ve had.” I grin at my friend. He’s the best, and giving him a hard time is one of my favorite things.
“Eejit.” He cuffs me on the shoulder. “So back to Makenna. Tell me what happened.”
“I just talked to her briefly between sets. She’s from the US, so that’s that.”
“You looked at her like that wasn’t that. Not that I blame you, she looked about as bonnie as someone can look writhing in pain.”
She did. But it was difficult to watch. I can normally separate myself from my patient’s pain. I have to, or I would never survive it here. But seeing her in pain felt different, like I’d rather take the pain myself. And yet, she was little more than a stranger.
“It doesn’t matter. I’m gonna keep it simple and find a girl from here. Have you checked in on the migraine in four?”
He gave me a look like he knew I was only changing the subject, but thankfully went with it. “I peeked in a minute ago and he was sleeping.”
“Great, the meds must be working. Keep me up to date.”