Dr Graham's Marriage

by Meredith Webber

  DR GRAHAM'S MARRIAGE

  Meredith Webber

  Westside – Book 1

  With her divorce going through, Dr. Gabi Graham is restarting her life. New look, new clothes, new challenges! The only thing that's missing is a new man. But when Alex suddenly reappears in her life, she realizes that she only wants the old one!

  Dr. Alex Graham can't believe it! What has Gabi done to herself? Since when was she so stunning...so brave...so independent, vibrant and adorable? Who is she doing all this for?

  And, most important...how on earth is he going to win her back?

  CHAPTER ONE

  Friday night in A and E was drawing to a close. Not a bad shift for her last night on duty—until next month. Through the glass doors and beyond the ambulance reception area, Gabi could see the streetlights growing dim as the sun began to take over, returning colour to a world bled to blacks and greys by darkness.

  Inside the building, the team on the swing shift was working on a patient, but beyond that cubicle all was in readiness for a new influx of patients—the less acutely ill who waited until morning before presenting with their pains and upset stomachs. Full drip bags hung on stands, fresh linen was spread on examination couches and, clustered around the desk, a group of nurses discussed their weekend plans, teasing the intern to bring some friends to a party one of them was holding.

  'You're invited too, Gabi,' one of the older nurses said, but Gabi shook her head.

  'This weekend I plan to lie in bed, rising occasionally for food or liquid refreshment, flipping channels on cable and generally zoning out. I'm older than you lot and it takes longer for my metabolism to make the change from night to day shifts.'

  'Oh, poor old Granny Gabi,' one of the nurses teased, while others, including the intern who'd been pursuing her for weeks, assured her, in the kindest of tones, that thirty was no longer considered old.

  'I don't think it ever was.' Gabi wasn't going to let him get away with that one. 'Except to five-year-olds just starting school, when a twenty-four-year old teacher seems ancient.'

  'Hey, I'm twenty-four,' the intern protested, and Gabi smiled.

  'In fact, thirty-plus is supposed to be the ideal age— you're the in generation these days,' Roz Cooper, the senior nurse and triage expert, reminded her.

  'Thanks,' Gabi said. 'I must remember that one day when I'm functioning properly. But this weekend it's "in bed"—that's where this member of the in generation intends to be.'

  'Ooh!'

  'Who with, Gabi?'

  'Anyone we know?'

  The wail of an approaching ambulance siren put a stop to the teasing.

  'Damn!' Roz said. 'Just when I wanted to get away on time.'

  'Did the ambulance call this in?' someone else asked.

  But Gabi was already out the door, with two nurses and an orderly wheeling the emergency cart in case the new arrival needed immediate resuscitation.

  'No panic!' the ambulance attendant said, slipping out of the driver's seat and passing a sheaf of papers to Gabi. 'He's unconscious but breathing, no blood. The driver of one of those big street-sweeper machines saw him lying in the gutter. Thought it was a bundle of rags at first. We were just returning from that transfer to the chest hospital and pulled up behind the council machine.'

  Gabi looked at the pale but beautiful face of the young man on the gurney the second attendant had rolled out of the back of the ambulance.

  'Drugs?' she asked, while her heart ached to think of the loss of innocence or security that must have led this man to this particular moment in time.

  'Most likely,' the attendant agreed, but he was edgy, awaiting a signature on the paperwork so he, too, could finish his shift.

  'Let's get him inside,' Gabi said, nodding to the other staff, then accompanying the driver into A and E. She led him over to the desk, where she checked the paperwork he'd handed her.

  'No ID?'

  'None.'

  Well, let's hope he remembers who he is when he wakes up. If not, we'll have to wait for someone to identify him.'

  Gabi signed for the unknown patient and, while the clerk took over the paperwork, setting up the admittance procedures and arranging wrist- and leg-bands for him, identifying him by numbers that would follow his progress through the hospital, took a look at him, checking, as always, the ABC of emergency care.

  Airway—it was clear but, to be sure, the ambulance attendant had inserted a tube. Breathing—the young man was breathing without assistance, though again, to be sure, he was masked and an extra concentration of oxygen was flowing into his lungs. C stood for circulation which, according to his pulse and blood pressure, was just fine?

  So she had to find a reason for him to have passed out.

  With help from the orderly, she and the nurse stripped the comatose man, but a superficial examination revealed no obvious injuries, no rigid scars from old needle sites, no recent needle marks. Some bruising on his legs and arms, but more conducive to a fall rather than a beating. She sniffed his breath but found no indication of the fruity breath indicative of ketoacidosis, which would be likely if the coma had been induced by diabetes. She felt his skull— there was no obvious injury to his head to explain his loss of consciousness.

  The nurse eased the unresponsive body into a hospital issue gown.

  'I'll take blood for testing, then send him to X-Ray. Could you alert them? We'll let the radiologist on duty decide if he wants scans as well.'

  As the nurse bustled off, everyone moving quickly as the end of the shift came closer, Gabi raised a vein in the patient's arm and inserted a needle, intending to take several vials of blood. Test results would come back more quickly if more people were working on the specimens. The process involved leaving the needle in place and attaching new syringes to it, then withdrawing the needle when the final specimen had been taken. Mentally she reviewed the tests she'd request. Drugs, of course, but there were other possibilities. Encephalitis as a result of some infection—and glandular fever came to mind.

  She was holding the needle to steady it while she removed the first filled syringe when all hell broke loose. The change from comatose to violent was so sudden, and so totally unexpected, that the nurse who'd just entered the cubicle with the computer-generated labels bearing the patient's numbers was knocked over by his flailing feet, while the man's arm, sweeping upward in an arc to catch Gabi unawares, spun the needle, with the precision of an arrow shot from a sling, straight into the bicep muscle in her upper right arm.

  'Don't touch me, don't touch me!' the man was yelling, and his noise, together with the nurse's scream of alarm, brought another nurse, an orderly and two security men all running.

  With a calmness she was far from feeling, Gabi removed the needle from her arm, set it on the instrument trolley, squeezed the tiny spot to make it bleed, then dabbed alcohol on the small wound.

  Two security men were holding the patient—not roughly, but certainly making sure he could do no further harm.

  Ignoring him for the moment, Gabi turned and helped the nurse to her feet, checked she was OK, then suggested she leave.

  'Get a drink and something to eat—sit for a while, then go home. It's time you were off duty anyway.'

  She bent to collect the papers off the floor, passing them to the newly arrived nurse, telling her to set them aside for the moment. Then, once satisfied order had been more or less restored, she gave her attention to the patient.

  'Are you OK?' she asked him. 'You were brought in unconscious so I guess waking up in a strange place freaked you out.'

  The young man was sitting on the edge of the gurney, still flanked and held by the security men though he showed no sign of giving more trouble.

  'I was unco
nscious?' he said. 'Damn! I thought I'd thrown that stuff off for ever.'

  He went on to explain he was epileptic, though for years medication had controlled his seizures.

  Gabi listened, and motioned to the security men to release him, but she was glad the two men remained. Most epilepsy victims she'd treated awoke drowsy and disoriented after a seizure resulting in loss of consciousness. They were confused, certainly, but rarely violent.

  'Do you know your name? Address? Do you have someone we can contact? At present you're just a number, so if you could give us some details...'

  The young man shrugged.

  'Is there any need? I mean, I'm OK now, and I can phone a friend to come and get me. If I'm not being admitted, do you need to know this stuff?'

  'Yes, we do,' Gabi told him. 'It keeps the files tidy and the powers that be happy. An ambulance dropped you off here, we signed for you, and now we can't just let you disappear into the ether. Who knows when someone might turn up and accuse us of losing you?'

  She spoke lightly, hoping to dispel the tension she could feel radiating from the as yet unidentified patient. The security men must also be feeling it, for she'd noticed them both tensing—with almost imperceptible movements she hoped only she had seen.

  She picked up the file and tried to look as non-threatening as possible—not hard for someone five-six in the medium heels she wore to work.

  'Now, if we could start with your name?'

  Robin Blair offered this so hesitantly Gabi guessed it was false, while she was almost sure the address he gave, 14 Smith Street, Kirrawee, had been made up on the spot. But he claimed he was just visiting Queensland on business, up from Sydney, and she didn't know the southern city well enough to know if such a suburb existed.

  However, it was what she was given, so she filled in the spaces on the file.

  'Did you have a wallet with you? Or any valuables on you? Is it likely someone took advantage of your illness to rob you?'

  Robin Blair offered her the kind of smile she'd swear had got him out of trouble in the past.

  'Nothing on me. All I had were some notes and change. I was out cruising with friends so I left most of my things in the hotel safe. When they went on to a disco I decided to go home. The flashing lights can bring on attacks, so I tend to avoid places like that. If you wouldn't mind passing me my jeans, I'll check if the money's still there.'

  'It is—or at least there's a twenty and a fifty and some change in your fob pocket. The ambulancemen found it when searching for some ID and noted it on your file.'

  But she wasn't quite ready to pass him his clothes.

  'I'd like to do a skull X-ray in case you hit your head when you fell, and possibly a brain scan just to check out what's happening there.' She spoke casually, hoping he'd just agree, knowing they were tests she couldn't, now he was conscious, do without his consent.

  He shook his head.

  'No way. I'm out of here! Thanks for all you did, but I'm a working man. I've just time to get a cab back to the hotel, shower, change and head for day two of the conference I'm attending.' He smiled almost slyly at Gabi. 'Can't keep a patient against his will, can you?'

  'I just need a few more details. Who's your local GP? You should see him—perhaps your medication needs changing.'

  'I'll handle that,' Robin assured her, and Gabi went from suspecting lies to outright disbelief. But she couldn't nail his feet to the floor until he told her what she wanted to know, neither could she, as he had so rightly pointed out, keep him against his will.

  She handed him his clothes, nodded to the security men to remain in the cubicle and walked out, unconsciously rubbing her arm where the needle had pricked her.

  Damn! Her failure to find out more about the mystery patient had left her feeling far wearier than usual after a night on duty. On top of that, there were so many rules and regulations about needle-stick injuries it could be another two hours before she was out of here.

  At least she had some of his blood. Or did she? She looked around, searching for the syringe. She'd dropped the needle into a bowl but the syringe was gone.

  Damn again! Donor blood was always the first thing the Workplace Health and Safety officer requested. Though Robin didn't know she had his blood. Was the hospital legally within its rights keeping it? Or testing it without his consent?

  No way!

  Because he'd been unconscious, and not able to give consent when admitted, she had been legally within her rights to take it in the first place—to type-match it should he be bleeding internally and need a transfusion, and to test for any kind of infection that might have caused him to lose consciousness.

  But now that he was conscious she needed his permission to test it for hepatitis B and also HIV, however unlikely it was that he was suffering from either disease. But protocols were protocols, and the sooner she reported the accidental needle-stick, the sooner she'd be out of the place.

  Which meant seeing the patient again.

  He was dressed and obviously about to leave when she went back into the cubicle.

  'I'll only keep you another minute,' she told him. 'When you were brought in unconscious I took some blood to test for something that might have caused your loss of consciousness. I don't know if you remember but, coming out of it, you banged my arm and I jabbed myself with the needle. You're not in any way responsible, but hospital regulations say I have to report I was stuck, and the Workplace Health and Safety officer will also want both my blood and your blood tested for anything contagious. Is that OK with you?'

  She tried to sound as casual as possible, but knew, from the moment she mentioned the injury, Robin Blair had tensed up again.

  'I don't think so.'

  Suspicious as she'd been, she was still staggered by his refusal.

  'Do you have a notifiable disease? Is that why you don't want the test done?'

  'Of course I haven't!' The look of disgust was well done, but Gabi had already put him down as a good actor. 'I just don't like people taking my blood. Had too much of it as a kid, with the epilepsy. It's my right to refuse, you know!'

  He smiled his charming smile again and walked out, pausing briefly to sign 'Robin Blair' on the discharge form a nurse produced.

  'If that's his name I'm a Martian,' one of the security men said to her, and Gabi laughed.

  'I'm glad I'm not the only one who didn't believe a word he said. And the way he spoke about rights, I wonder if there's a conference for baby lawyers on in town.'

  But it left her with a problem, and for a moment she considered not reporting the injury, because without donor blood she'd have to be tested regularly until there was no chance of HIV antibodies showing up in her blood.

  Muttering grimly to herself, she found the required reporting forms—one an incident report, the other for her injury—and sat down to complete them. The new shift had arrived, but needle-stick injuries were so common no one was commenting on it.

  Except for Jenny Thomas, the resident coming on duty.

  'Oh, poor you!' she said, after peering over Gabi's shoulder to see the paperwork. 'This'll keep you from your bed for a couple of hours.'

  'Don't I know it!' Gabi groaned. 'Though if he happens to have been hep. B positive, I guess the precautions are worth it.'

  'Did he look like a user, or someone who might be positive?'

  'No, and no, though I'm sure he lied through his teeth when he gave his name and address. He positively oozed shiftiness, so he had to be up to something, and didn't want to be caught out.'

  She finished the paperwork, left the incident report for the clerk to file and took the other paper with her to the staff safety officer.

  'I can't believe you didn't get donor blood,' the safety officer, a woman Gabi had never met before, grumbled, and Gabi, who'd had about as much as she could take, snapped.

  'Well, I guess I could have got Security to hold him down while I got some, or I could have scrabbled around on the floor and found the bit I did get and igno
red the fact it was probably contaminated. Then we could have tested it without his permission and set the hospital up for legal action against it!'

  'Now you're being silly!' the woman said, bringing Gabi's personnel file up on her computer. 'Your hep. B vaccinations are up to date, but as you don't have donor blood—' Gabi considered murder '—we have to give you a booster. You know the figures?'

  'Chances of catching hep. B from a carrier through needle-stick injury are something like thirty per cent,' Gabi recited. 'Hence the precautions. But he looked a really healthy young man. I can't imagine there being any risks.'

  The woman—Gabi couldn't read her name tag as it was slung low around her neck with the name hidden by the desk—nodded.

  'And less than point five per cent with HIV,' she said, tapping information from Gabi's report into the computer.

  'The jury's still out on whether to treat staff stuck with blood from a positive patient with AZT or not, but staff with needle-stick injury from a known positive patient can opt to have the injection if they wish. However—'

  'I haven't any donor blood,' Gabi finished for her. 'I think you've got the message about that across!'

  The woman looked up from the screen, the martyred look on her face telling Gabi she was determined to ignore her rudeness.

  'You're probably hungry. I have to organise the hep. B shot. Why don't you go down to the canteen and have a coffee and something to eat, then come back up when you're...' she'd probably guessed Gabi might do her physical harm if she'd uttered the words 'feeling better' '...ready.'

  Having something to eat was probably a better option than stabbing the safety officer with one of her own pens. It would also pass the time and keep her awake—though she couldn't see why rustling up hepatitis B vaccine should take long.

  'I suppose I could,' she said, beyond caring that she sounded bitchy and ungracious.

  The woman glanced at her watch.

  'It's change of shift, as you know. Could you call back in an hour?'

  Gabi held back the sigh which threatened to escape and left the office, heading down to the ground-floor canteen.