Doctors at Risk

by Alison Roberts

  It was Peter who arrived to attend to the start of the day’s routine. ‘Couldn’t stay away from us, eh?’ He grinned as he deposited a bowl of warm water on the bedside locker. ‘At least you’re only back for a brief visit. Sounds like we might be able to shunt you back to the ward by tomorrow.’ He pulled the curtains closed, cutting off the view of other staff at work, then ripped open a disposable razor packet. ‘You ready to make yourself look respectable for the day, mate?’

  ‘Sure.’ Ross accepted a soapy facecloth and rubbed his chin. Then he held the razor in one hand and a mirror in the other as he shaved as best he could above the edges of the collar. ‘So, you drew the short straw for patients today, then?’

  ‘I’ve got two,’ Peter told him. ‘You’re expected to present no problems so you’d better stick to the game plan. The young lad I’ve got in bed two is much more of a challenge. I think we’ll have him on a ventilator by the end of the day. Sharon’s got a woman with a hangman’s fracture and Felicity’s got an incomplete C6,7 dislocation fracture in traction. There’s a new admission coming down from the north island later on today as well. Car accident on the way to work.’

  Ross had listened to the account of staff duties with growing dismay. ‘So what’s Wendy doing?’

  ‘She’s on afternoon duty.’ Peter winked. ‘Maybe she’ll make my day a bit cruisier by coming in to keep an eye on you in her time off.’

  ‘She doesn’t know I’m in here.’ Ross dropped the razor and reached for the rinsed facecloth. ‘I didn’t want to give her a fright.’

  Peter whistled softly. ‘You’re a brave man, Ross Turnball. If I know Wendy, she’s not going to be very happy that she wasn’t kept informed.’

  Peter did know his colleague and Wendy wasn’t very happy at all. Coming on duty at 3 p.m., she marched into the unit and stood near the foot of Ross’s bed. It was clear that the glint in her blue eyes wasn’t due to any pleasure in seeing him.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me, Ross?’

  ‘I didn’t want to worry you.’ The excuse sounded completely lame now. He had never seen Wendy look this angry. Or hurt. Ross realised how selfish he had actually been. He hadn’t avoided Wendy getting a scare at all. He had just compounded her reaction by adding a rejection that was probably obvious to a lot of people. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I don’t think you are,’ Wendy muttered angrily. ‘It’s just a rather more public way of telling me it’s over, isn’t it?’ She moved forward just enough to read the figures showing on the bedside monitors. If she had moved any closer, Ross could have reached out and touched her hand. And held it, just long enough to impart and maybe receive some comfort. ‘You’re doing fine anyway,’ Wendy said more calmly. ‘You should be out of here by the morning as long as your next blood gas is within the normal range.’

  ‘We knew it wasn’t too serious pretty fast,’ Ross told her. ‘It really wasn’t a big enough deal to spoil your time off.’

  The look he received let Ross know that Wendy was aware of precisely how potentially serious the incident had been, and how frightening it would have been for someone who had the same knowledge base. He also had a glimpse of the level of pain he had caused by shutting her out from any involvement.

  ‘I was out all day anyway.’ Wendy sounded determinedly offhand. ‘I went climbing with some friends. That new harness is great.’

  ‘Where did you go?’ The reminder that Wendy had been out doing something Ross was never likely to enjoy doing again was a slap in the face he probably deserved.

  ‘Castle Rock. It’s the best place we’ve got locally.’

  And it had been the scene of their first date. Wendy had been able to go back there and have a good time. Without him.

  ‘Cool.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Wendy wasn’t looking at Ross. ‘Here comes Jenny. She’s your nurse for this shift.’

  Had Wendy chosen not to have Ross as a patient? He had no right to feel disappointed, let alone this hurt. This was his own doing. He had attempted to push Wendy away and she was letting him succeed.

  The hurt wore off as the afternoon wore on into evening. Every glimpse of Wendy moving around the unit advertised the energy and spirit this woman possessed and Ross knew he had made the right decision. Trying to hold Wendy in a relationship with him, no matter how badly she thought she wanted it, would be like caging a beautiful creature from the wild.

  Wendy had stalked away from the interchange with Ross, trying to hold onto the anger she had used to spark what now seemed like cruel jibes about her going climbing and having avoided being assigned Ross as a patient. She had been amazed how quickly the anger had kicked in after she’d arrived at the staff changeover meeting this morning, completely ignorant of the drama surrounding Ross. At least the anger was easier to function with than the devastating realisation that Ross could have been facing death and had chosen not to have her by his side. The barrier she had been so confidently planning to undermine was looking like Fort Knox right now, and she wasn’t even sure she wanted to try and break through. It was just as well she had a challenging patient who would allow little time for any personal reflections.

  Peter’s patient in bed two had become her responsibility for the afternoon shift and the prediction that the young man’s condition would deteriorate had been accurate. Shortly after Wendy’s duty started, her patient’s spinal oedema progressed to the point at which his breathing no longer gave him a satisfactory level of oxygenation. Endotracheal intubation was performed and artificial ventilation initiated. With an unstable cardiac rhythm that frequently dropped to a bradycardia, both Wendy and the registrar, John Bradley, were kept focussed for hours.

  The drug regime was adjusted repeatedly and the patient’s low blood pressure was problematic. John did a peritoneal lavage in the early hours of the evening which confirmed that abdominal trauma was causing hypovolaemic shock, so the level of fluid replacement also needed adjustment. Suction had to be performed with extreme care, as well as additional drug therapy to prevent the possibility of triggering a cardiac arrest. Between the major dramas Wendy had enough smaller concerns to keep her attention firmly away from Ross. Even getting the humidity of the inspired air to the correct level to prevent secretions becoming viscid and difficult to clear seemed to be a problem, and John took much longer than usual to get an arterial blood gas sample needed to check oxygen levels.

  Ross watched the medical team working and saw John shake his head while trying to obtain arterial access for the blood sample. He was glad he would only need one more stab like that himself. The artery ran deep so it was painful even with local anaesthetic. His blood now contained a high level of heparin, the anticoagulant used to treat clots, so it was difficult to stop the bleeding after the procedure. It had taken twenty minutes of pressure for the blood vessel to stop leaking last time so when Ross saw Jenny glance at her watch, having stood for fifteen minutes pressing on his final puncture site, he offered to continue the pressure himself.

  ‘You’re late going off duty, anyway. It’s nearly 11 p.m. and you’ve missed the staff meeting for changeover.’

  ‘That’s OK. You’re an easy patient so I didn’t need to be there. It’s Wendy who’s going to be really late tonight and she’s back on mornings tomorrow.’

  Ross slid his fingers under Jenny’s and pressed hard on his arm. ‘I can do this,’ he reassured her. ‘I’m a doctor, remember?’

  ‘OK.’ Jenny gave up being reluctant. ‘Don’t let go for at least another ten minutes, though. And get someone to check on it before you go to sleep.’

  It was after 11 p.m. and it had been a long, hard shift. Wendy was exhausted and more than ready to head for home. The satisfaction that her patient was now stable and improving was largely negated by the fact that Ross had been so close all day and she had deliberately avoided talking to him on the rare moments she could have. He hadn’t really deserved the anger she’d directed at him. She knew that Ross would never be deliberately cruel. He had obviously thought
he was doing the right thing in keeping her uninformed. She, on the other hand, had been deliberately cruel by telling him about the trip to Castle Rock. Had it seemed like she had just gone back to the place they’d had their first date and had had a good time without him? Amends needed to be made and an apology, however brief, was called for.

  The curtains had been drawn around Ross’s bed to encourage him to get some rest. With the consultant’s approval he would be moved back to the ward in the morning as his last blood-gas result and ECG had been virtually normal. The back brace was now ready and he could move into a much more intense phase of rehabilitation with the expectation that he wouldn’t suffer any further serious physical setbacks.

  The blood on the mattress was a nasty surprise. Wendy grabbed a gauze pad from the tray beneath the cardiac monitor and clamped it over the stained dressing. The startled gaze Ross gave her changed as he turned to see what she was doing. He swore softly.

  ‘I was so sure it had stopped. I checked it five minutes ago and it was clean.’

  ‘You’re full of bat spit,’ Wendy reminded him. ‘These arterial stabs can be the devil to get under control when you’re so well anti-coagulated.’

  ‘I can do that.’

  ‘It’s OK.’ Wendy perched one hip on the side of the bed. ‘I was coming in to talk to you for a minute, anyway. I wanted to say sorry…about this morning.’

  ‘No. I’m sorry. I should have let them call you yesterday.’

  ‘Why? It’s not as though I’m next of kin or anything.’

  There was a long silence as the implications of not being ‘anything’ hung in the air. Wendy increased the pressure of her fingers a little, watching intently to make sure no trickle of blood was escaping.

  ‘You’re the closest thing to next of kin I’ve ever had,’ Ross told her softly. ‘Or ever will have, I suspect.’

  Wendy met his gaze. Ross had never mentioned his family or his upbringing. When she thought about it, she knew very little about this man she had fallen in love with, but it made no difference. She knew enough to know she loved him and that she wanted to be with him for the rest of her life.

  ‘Were you scared?’

  Ross hesitated and then nodded slowly. ‘I thought it might be the end. Part of me thought it might be better if it was but then I realised just how much I wanted to live…and to beat this.’

  ‘You will,’ Wendy said fervently. ‘I just wish you’d let me help you. I love you, Ross.’

  ‘I’m not the same person you think you love.’ Wendy didn’t break the short silence that fell between them. ‘I guess I haven’t explained things well enough,’ Ross continued. ‘This has changed me. You don’t know who I am now. I’m not even sure I know yet.’

  ‘The change is physical. It might be only temporary. It’s you I love, Ross. What’s inside. The things you are capable of doing with your body are just a bonus.’

  Ross raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘So it wasn’t that fantastic, then?’

  ‘What wasn’t?’

  ‘The sex.’

  ‘Oh-h-h.’ Wendy fixed her gaze on her fingers again. She ignored the discomfort the pressure was beginning to cause. She had to choose her words very carefully. The thought of Ross never being able to make love to her like that again hurt a lot, but the thought of him never even touching her again was far worse. Wendy raised her gaze and found Ross watching her very intently. She knew the feeling of privacy the curtains afforded was illusory but she couldn’t afford to pass up this opportunity. She had the chance to really talk to Ross here. An unexpected opportunity and one she wasn’t prepared to forgo. Wendy lowered her voice.

  ‘I’ve never loved anybody the way I love you, Ross,’ she said slowly. ‘And I never even imagined that sex could be that good.’

  Ross nodded as she paused. A slow nod that signified complete agreement. He had known it had been the same for both of them, and that knowledge was a source of both pleasure and pain.

  ‘I know that it could never possibly be that good with anyone else.’

  Ross made no response this time as Wendy paused to draw breath. She lowered her voice to a whisper that had no chance of being overheard. ‘I would rather just be touched by your hands and nothing else than even consider having some wild romp with any other man.’

  The very idea of Wendy having a wild romp with anyone else gave Ross a wave of jealousy that was as much of a new experience as the way he felt about her. But he had no right to feel possessive. Or jealous.

  ‘It may well be possible to have a very good sex life.’ Wendy was taking his silence as a positive response but she wasn’t meeting his eyes now. Her words seemed awkward. Far more awkward than Ross suspected they would be if she had been discussing this subject with a patient. A stranger who would be making do with an inadequate sexual performance with someone other than her as a recipient.

  ‘It wouldn’t be the same, though.’ Ross was tormenting himself as much as Wendy with his bald statement. ‘It wouldn’t be as good.’

  ‘It would be a lot better than nothing.’

  Ross had to strain to hear those quiet words. ‘No. For me, it would be worse than nothing. If I’d been stuck in a wheelchair when you met me it might have been different, but we both know how good it was, don’t we? And anything less would just be a reminder and I’d hate it. And it would get harder and harder to try and do anything and then you’d start to hate it.’ The tone of Ross’s words was becoming steadily harsher. ‘And eventually it would destroy even the memories of how good it was and…and maybe I’d just rather keep those memories intact.’

  ‘But you don’t even know yet what it’s going to be like.’ Wendy shook her head, refusing to accept his reasoning. ‘OK, things might be a bit different at first but they might improve. In a few weeks, or months, you might find things just as good as they ever were.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Ross sounded dubious. ‘But unless I reach that point I’m not going to allow the possibility that I’ll be anyone’s lover.’

  Wendy caught the grain of hope eagerly. ‘So if you recover completely you’ll change your mind?’

  Ross gritted his teeth. If he said yes, then Wendy would be happy. She’d offer to wait for him and she’d mean it. And it would destroy the chance that she could find someone else and get on with her life.

  ‘About sex? Yes.’ Ross swallowed painfully. ‘About us? No. It could take years, Wendy. We’ll both be very different people by then. I’m different already. Something like this changes your life. It changes what’s inside as much as what can be seen. It’s not something anyone who hasn’t experienced it could possibly understand.’

  ‘I want to understand.’ Wendy hated the way Ross was so determined to erect a barrier between them but simply trying to batter it down wasn’t going to work. He just added another layer to the barrier as a form of defence. She had to try and understand. To offer something he could use to build a bridge, not a wall. Was it just male pride that made the concept of an altered sex life so unacceptable? They could work through that, she knew they could—but only if Ross was as willing as she was to start the journey. If only the roles were reversed. She would be happy to offer physical fulfilment to Ross, even if it wasn’t the same for her any more. Ninety per cent of sexual satisfaction was in the mind, wasn’t it?

  ‘I know you want to understand,’ Ross said sadly. ‘The only thing you really need to understand right now is that I love you far too much to offer you anything that’s second best. It would destroy me. And in the end it would destroy you as well and I’m simply not going to let that happen.’

  Wendy looked away. She gave herself a few moments to think by checking the puncture site beneath her fingers. The bleeding appeared to have stopped finally and she reached for a new dressing, her mind still turning over his words.

  Ross still loved her. She loved him. Somehow, there had to be a way through this. She would wait—as long as it took, because she had no choice. Ross might not want her to wait but that w
asn’t his choice and he was very much mistaken if he thought he had a say in it.

  But if he guessed that she was waiting he’d just find another way of strengthening the barrier. Wendy needed him to believe that she had accepted what he wanted. She also needed to find a way to stay close enough to monitor the condition of that barrier. Her belief that time alone might be enough to weather and then crumble the wall was strong. Strong enough to make Wendy smile.

  ‘It doesn’t mean that we can’t be friends, does it, Ross?’

  ‘Of course not.’ Ross closed his eyes tightly as Wendy taped a pressure dressing to his arm. It was just long enough to register the wave of pain. Wendy was prepared to walk away from their relationship—but that was good, wasn’t it? It was what he wanted. What he knew he had to achieve. Maybe he just hadn’t expected to achieve it this easily.

  He opened his eyes slowly. ‘I’m going to need my friends,’ he admitted. It was a small ray of light in the darkness that represented a future without Wendy. However painful it might be, Ross couldn’t bring himself to deny at least seeing her again. Talking to her. Sharing the kinds of things friends—good friends—could give and receive. ‘Especially you.’

  ‘That’s cool.’ Wendy’s smile hid a very large crack in her heart. ‘I’ll get someone to come and check your arm again in a few minutes. I’d better get home and get some beauty sleep before I have to head back here again.’ Her hesitation was only slight. ‘Friends are allowed a kiss goodbye, aren’t they?’

  ‘Only on the cheek.’ Ross tried to make it sound like a joke but it was all he could do to keep tears at bay. He was just weakened by his injury and the complication, he told himself. Physically and emotionally.