Caring For His Child

by Amy Andrews

  Fran dragged her gaze away from David’s sapphire eyes. ‘I’m not doing anything and you’re busy with the accounts.’

  ‘Afternoon, Catherine,’ said David, leaning on the counter and peering through the sliding glass window at them.

  ‘Dr Ross,’ Catherine acknowledged briefly.

  The photocopier stopped in mid-job. Fran pushed a few buttons and looked at Catherine enquiringly. She could see David’s amused face in her peripheral vision and she dared not look at him in case she laughed. Catherine was cranky enough at Fran invading her office.

  ‘Here, let me,’ bossed Catherine. ‘Damn thing’s been playing up lately. I usually just unplug and replug,’ she said.

  David winked at Fran as she moved out of Catherine’s way. She was too ridiculously happy just to see him at the moment to pay any heed to Catherine’s mood. Fran stood back, ignoring the receptionist’s mutterings, and grinned at David instead.

  As Catherine plugged the copier back in, the electrical sizzling and sparks didn’t register either until Catherine’s loud grunt cut into their silent flirting. It took Fran completely by surprise, as did the force at which the receptionist was thrown backwards across the office, landing on her back a good three metres from the photocopier.

  Catherine had been electrocuted! Fran may have been slow during the incident but she sprang into action immediately.

  ‘Catherine! Catherine!’ she said, getting down on the floor, shaking the still receptionist vigorously and feeling for her carotid pulse. The ten seconds it took to assess the lack of pulse seemed like an age but there was no doubt in Fran’s mind about the course of action required.

  ‘Stand back,’ she said to David, who had rushed into the office. Fran made her hand into a fist, raised it above her head and brought it down sharply, thumping Catherine hard in the middle of her chest.

  David was kneeling beside them now. ‘Well done,’ he said as he felt for Catherine’s carotid and it surged strongly against his fingers. Catherine moaned. ‘You look like you’ve done that before.’

  Fran let out the breath she’d been holding and realised she was shaking. Her whole body was reverberating to the loud bang of her heart. ‘Once or twice,’ she admitted, and helped David put Catherine into the recovery position.

  ‘You keep monitoring her cardiac output and airway,’ said David, rising and picking up the phone. ‘I’ll get Glenda to bring down the equipment and I’ll call Phil to bring the ambulance.’

  Glenda rushed down with the orange emergency box and the portable oxygen cylinder. They put the face mask that helped administer the oxygen on a protesting Catherine.

  ‘Phil will be ten minutes,’ said David.

  ‘You want to put an IV in?’ asked Fran, getting the equipment out of the box and assembling it.

  ‘Why don’t you? I figure anyone who can deliver a lifesaving pericardial thump is probably a pretty dab hand at IVs as well.’

  ‘I am pretty good at it,’ Fran said, and laughed.

  Earl had heard the news and he rushed in as David was securing the cannula that Fran had inserted into Catherine’s hand.

  ‘Oh, my God! What’s that for?’ asked a panicked Earl.

  ‘Just in case,’ said David.

  The office was even more crowded now with Earl’s massive bulk and they made the decision to move Catherine outside into the foyer where there would be more room and there was better access for Phil when he arrived. David gave Earl a job of finding a pillow and blanket because his fussing was adding an extra level of stress to the situation that none of them needed.

  Catherine moaned again and David spoke to her quietly. ‘It’s OK, Catherine. You were electrocuted but you’ve been very lucky indeed. Fran was very quick off the mark and saved your life. We’re getting you to hospital so you can be properly checked out.’

  David squeezed the starchy receptionist’s hand as she nodded weakly at him. She appeared OK now but she had been in contact with enough electricity to stop her heart. He knew the hospital would want to do at least twenty-four hours of cardiac monitoring.

  Fran inspected the small wound on Catherine’s hand where she’d been holding the electrical plug. It was about the size and shape of a five-cent piece but it was white in the middle with a dull blackish grey outer ring.

  ‘Deep thickness?’ she asked David quietly.

  He nodded at her. It would probably need a skin graft. Luckily it was a small area.

  ‘Fran, I know you’re busy but Sid’s not looking too good. Do you think you could take a look?’ said Molly, entering the fray and then realising something serious was going down. ‘Oh, my,’ she said, patting her chest.

  ‘You go,’ said David, ‘Phil can’t be that far away.’

  Fran got up from the floor and followed Molly. Sid met them halfway along the corridor. ‘Oh, there you are, Fran,’ he said. ‘I’m feeling right terrible. The pain is the worst it’s ever been.’

  Fran didn’t need one piece of medical technology to realise the truth of Sid’s words. He looked grey and was sweating. She touched his wrist and his skin was cool and his rapid pulse fluttered weakly against her fingers.

  ‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ he said.

  Sid promptly vomited. All over Fran. It poured out in one smooth red fountainous stream. Fran gasped at the shock and looked down at her soiled uniform. Thank God they no longer wore white. The smell of warm regurgitated stomach contents filled her nostrils and she suppressed the urge to gag herself.

  She ignored the grossness of wearing somebody else’s bodily fluids and concentrated on what was important. The vomit was red. Not dark and grainy like coffee-grounds, which would have indicated an old bleed, but bright red and heavily metallic, indicating a fresh bleed. And a big one at that.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Fran,’ groaned Sid as he doubled over and clutched his stomach.

  ‘Occupational hazard, Sid, don’t worry about it. Come on, now,’ she ordered, taking his hand and dragging him back around to where David—and hopefully an ambulance—would now be waiting. Please, let Sid make it without passing out, she thought.

  ‘Another oxygen mask, Glenda,’ said Fran, as she rounded the corner.

  David, Glenda and Phil all looked up from their ministrations on Catherine.

  ‘Put him on the stretcher,’ said David recovering first from the sight of a bloodied Fran, who looked like she’d been stabbed.

  The stretcher was just inside the door and Fran led Sid straight to it.

  ‘Might be a bit longer, Catherine,’ said David, and indicated to Glenda to take over from him so he could attend to Sid.

  ‘I’m fine, Dr Ross,’ she said firmly.

  ‘You want to get changed?’ he asked Fran, handing her a cannula and a tourniquet.

  ‘After,’ Fran dismissed ignoring the cloying metallic smell and the cold wet feeling against her skin. She took the equipment and concentrated on finding a vein instead.

  David shot her a grateful smile. He wouldn’t have blamed her if she’d insisted on changing and showering immediately. But Fran was nothing if not professional and obviously knew a serious situation when she saw one. Two hands were going to be better than one if they had a hope of saving Sid.

  ‘You got some plasma expander in the ambulance?’ David asked Phil as he found a vein in the crook of Sid’s elbow and slid a wide-bore cannula into it.

  Phil had two flasks and as soon as Fran had cannulated her side she helped Phil attach giving sets and hook them into the waiting IVs.

  David applied some oxygen and Phil pulled the knob on the stretcher that allowed him to raise the end of the bed to help with Sid’s shocked status. Fran took a quick BP. Seventy systolic—not good.

  Miranda chose that moment to walk through the doors and she gasped when she saw Fran, who looked like she’d been in a war zone.

  ‘It’s OK, sweetie,’ Fran smiled. ‘It’s not mine.’

  ‘We’re a little busy, Mirry,’ said David, wanting his daughter to
be spared the gruesome sight of Sid bleeding out in the foyer of the nursing home. ‘Go with Molly to the kitchen and get something to eat. Start your homework. We’re nearly done here.’

  Miranda looked pale and frightened and looked behind her doubtfully as Molly ushered her away. David exchanged a look with Fran. He could see he would have some explaining to do when he got home that night.

  ‘How much do you reckon he’s lost?’ asked Fran, as she watched David palpate Sid’s abdomen. It was tense and rigid.

  ‘Hard to say. What was his BP?’

  ‘Seventy.’

  David looked at Fran and didn’t say any more. He just kept working, prioritising, because if he didn’t keep doing something he would shake the silly old fool for refusing treatment. This was exactly what Sid had been told would happen.

  ‘Let’s load them and go,’ he said to Phil.

  ‘What about air evac?’ asked Fran.

  ‘By the time it’s organised we can have him in Nambour. Can you come, too?’

  ‘I suppose.’ She looked at Glenda, who nodded.

  ‘It’s easier with two patients, especially with one as critical as Sid.’

  ‘What about Miranda?’ she asked.

  David smiled at Fran, getting a real kick out of her concern for Mirry. It was nice to know that, with everything else that was happening, his daughter was at the top of her priorities.

  ‘We’ll look after her,’ Glenda assured him.

  They loaded their two patients into the ambulance. Luckily, this model was equipped with two stretchers, as were all remote-area vehicles. Phil radioed ahead and they were driving speedily through the streets of Ashworth Bay before Fran could blink.

  Sid was as stable as they could make him so it was a matter of getting to the nearest hospital as soon as possible and hope like hell the bleeding had stopped or slowed or, if not, that they were replacing Sid’s lost blood quick enough.

  Both Sid and Catherine were attached to cardiac monitors and Fran and David kept watchful eyes on the traces. Due to the electrocution affecting the conduction system of her heart, Catherine was more susceptible to lethal arrhythmia, and for Sid, one of the signs of worsening blood loss would be myocardial ischaemia and that would show up very quickly on his ECG trace.

  Fran had forgotten how nauseating it was to be sitting in the back of an ambulance being dragged backwards at high speed. The cars were quite tall with a high centre of gravity, which made them sway sickeningly. That, combined with the dark bloody stain drying on her uniform, was not good for her stomach.

  ‘You OK?’ David asked, squeezing her hand.

  ‘Nothing that a shower and a sedate sixty won’t fix.’ She smiled.

  David looked at her and thought she’d never looked more beautiful. Fine blond tendrils of hair had escaped her plait and wisped around her face, her lipstick had smudged off and she was covered in Sid’s stomach contents. But she had ignored her own discomfort and not only saved one life today but hopefully two. And she had been kind to Mirry and worried about his daughter before she’d even thought about herself.

  He knew it was the wrong time and the wrong place and she might not be ready to hear it yet, but he didn’t want to live another minute without telling her.

  ‘You look beautiful and I love you, and I know this isn’t the most romantic setting and I don’t even have a ring, but I want to marry you. I know you’re not ready yet, I just want you to know.’

  Fran didn’t move. Then she blinked. And blinked again. David had spoken aloud the words she hadn’t even been game to think. She waited for the pain to come, for the grief, for the absurd laughter, and for a rejection to form and come out her mouth. But it didn’t. A notion that had seemed unattainable just a few short months ago suddenly seemed feasible. She and David and Miranda, living together. He loved her.

  ‘Say something.’

  Fran opened her mouth to speak and then shut it again. She waited a few seconds. ‘I’m…I’m..’

  Sid’s monitor alarm went off and they both startled. David gave himself a shake as he checked his patient. A lead had come loose and was causing interference. He sat back down next to Fran. This definitely wasn’t the time for it. He needed to focus on Sid and Catherine. But he hadn’t been able to stop himself.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he apologised. ‘I shouldn’t have brought this up now. Lets talk abut it later, OK?’

  Fran nodded her head because she wasn’t sure what she’d been going to say or even how she felt. All she knew was that David loved her, and hearing those words had made her feel good, not bad. Calm, not panicked.

  They watched the monitor traces for a while in silence.

  ‘What are his chances?’ Fran asked quietly.

  ‘Slim,’ said David, and he gave her a grim look.

  ‘David, it’s not your fault. You tried to get him treatment.’

  ‘I know, I know. It’s just such an unnecessary emergency.’

  Fran nodded. ‘You can only do so much, David.’

  Phil pulled up in the ambulance bay at Nambour General soon after. Fran was grateful to be stationary for the few seconds it took for Phil to open the doors and then it was go, go, go. Rush, hurry, hurry.

  Fran, who was at home in an emergency department, stood back and let the Nambour team take over. David was in the thick of it and she was happy to let them go for it—she needed a shower desperately. The triage nurse gave her some towels, a pair of theatre scrubs and pointed her towards the staff showers.

  Ten minutes later she was done. She deliberately forced herself not to think about what had transpired in the ambulance. She knew Phil would want to get back to Ashworth Bay and there was Mirry to think about so she didn’t linger.

  It felt great to be clean and smell good, and David whistled as she approached and she felt like a million dollars. Like some kind of supermodel instead of plain squeaky-clean Fran.

  ‘Come on, let’s go home,’ said David, giving her a brief hug, and Fran almost cried it sounded so good.

  Fran quickly ducked her head in to say goodbye to Catherine. She was sleeping so Fran squeezed her bandaged hand and whispered, ‘Take care, Catherine.’

  The receptionist’s eyes fluttered open and her lips allowed a fleeting smile. ‘Thank you, Fran. I owe you my life.’

  ‘Catherine?’ said Fran, unable to believe her ears. ‘Did you just call me Fran? I thought I had to be a native for fifty years before you’d call me by my first name.’

  ‘I always make exceptions for outsiders who save my life.’ She smiled.

  Fran laughed. ‘If I’d have known that, I would have photocopied long ago!’

  Catherine laughed, too, and Fran felt she’d glimpsed the doll that Glenda had insisted Catherine was once you got to know her. It felt good, leaving on such a high note.

  They rode up front with Phil on the return trip and he chatted away amiably to them. The more sedate pace had them back in Ashworth Bay in half an hour instead of the fifteen minutes it had taken the other way, and Fran’s stomach was grateful. Phil dropped them back at the home and Fran couldn’t believe it had only been two hours ago that Catherine had been electrocuted and the afternoon had gone to hell in a hurry.

  They found Mirry asleep in the television lounge between Molly, Dolly and Polly.

  David frowned. Asleep again before bedtime? That just wasn’t like his Mirry. He felt a prickle of alarm and quashed it immediately. Panic was stupid. He was a doctor. Assess her first.

  ‘Come on, darling,’ he said, kissing his daughter lightly on the cheek. Her face was flushed and felt hot against his lips. ‘Mirry?’

  She stirred and opened her eyes. ‘I don’t feel very well, Daddy. I’m so tired,’ she said, and shut her eyes again.

  David sat her up, concerned that her breathing sounded noisy. He listened to her chest with his ever-present stethoscope and heard the tell-tale fine crackling sound of fluid in her airways. He inspected her hands and noticed they looked a little puffy.

&n
bsp; David tried to quell the sickening rise of dread inside. He tried not to think about how tired Jen had been before she’d died or how tired Mirry had always been before her transplant.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Fran. ‘What’s wrong?’ She could tell by the look on David’s face he was worried. Hell, he looked worse than worried. He looked petrified.

  ‘We need to get her to Brisbane. Right away,’ he said, sweeping Miranda up into his arms. ‘Will you come?’

  And right then and there, it hit her. As he stood in front of her, the worries of the world on his shoulders, asking her to be with him, she knew she couldn’t refuse him. Because she loved him. She loved David Ross and she wouldn’t deny him in his hour of deepest need.

  Even though as she followed him, a very sick Miranda lolling in his arms, a dreadful sense of déjà vu settled around her. She loved him but she couldn’t watch another child die.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THEY MADE a quick detour home. David threw clothes and toiletries for him and Miranda into a bag. Fran got out of the scrubs and packed a small overnight bag. She grabbed a book off the bookshelf and tossed it in, too. They were gone again ten minutes later.

  Fran offered to sit in the back with Miranda and as much as David wanted to have her close to him, to gain reassurance from being able to touch her, he knew an excellent suggestion when he heard one. Fran could keep a close eye on her and alert him to any worsening of her condition.

  Miranda flopped her head against Fran’s arm as Fran buckled herself into the middle seat. She put her arm around the girl’s shoulders and cradled her carefully. She felt so hot and Fran didn’t have to feel Miranda’s pulse to count it—her little body shook with each bounding thud.

  Fran watched David’s grim profile as he sped through the night, cursing people who drove too slowly and only really relaxing a little once they hit the dual carriageway that would take them straight into the heart of Brisbane.

  What a day! Fran would never have thought it could have got any worse after delivering an electrocution and an acutely bleeding critical patient to Nambour. Surely that had been a reasonable assumption. But this? This had come from left field and Fran refused to let her mind wander down the what-if track.