quotethis_muses | June Prompt
All hope abandon, ye who enter in. >> Dante Alighieri
If I’m an expert in anything, it’s losing hope. I doubt that gives me a one way ticket to offer advice to anyone finding themselves in a similar position, but I nay doubt it allows me to try and set one of my closest friends straight when I see him spiralling into despair.
A needlestick injury is just about every medical professional’s fear. It’s something we’re all well aware can happen and does happen to colleagues on a regular basis. But the thing is, you never really think it’s going to be you or one of your own. Until suddenly it is. When news came that Riley had be attacked by a drug-affected mental health patient during his shift in the ER, it was frightening enough. But to hear the patient had stabbed him with a blood-contaminated needle was devastating. He’s nay even been a year in practice. I knew immediately this was going to set him on unstable ground about his ability to be a doctor. It’s usually your first patient death at your hand that does it, nay a tragedy like this.
And to make matters worse, Riley lost his spleen following a car crash many years ago. Without a spleen, his body doesnae have the same fighting skills a normal body does to fight diseases and infection. It makes him much more highly susceptible to illnesses… meaning if the blood on that syringe was the patient’s, there is a high chance Riley will be left HIV positive.
Fuck.
The worst part about it is that he knows. He knows the risks, he knows the consequences and he knows there is a chance his life will never be the same again. I’ve been in that boat - I am in that boat - and I know how it easy it is to just want to give up and not forge through it. I know how it is to feel so sick and so exhausted that you think you just cannae forge through it.
He needs help. He needs all the help and support he can get. It was a huge relief for me to hear his sister decide to return to his side because he wouldnae ask for help. You get to the point where you think there is no point to having help. You think no one understands and cannae possibly completely know how you’re feeling. Tabitha is Riley’s number one and always has been. If he thought for a minute she wanted and needed to be elsewhere, he would nay ever want to impede that. He spoke briefly about it to me when he first arrived in Princeton. He wants to be part of her life but doesnae feel he’ll ever fit into her way of life and doesnae want her to ever see him as a third wheel. Said it would break his heart if she ever felt that way towards him and he wanted to keep his distance where he could so he didnae risk that happening and didnae impose on him.
Poor bastard. Tab’s been the only family he’s really ever put any importance in. He doesnae realise that family can never be an imposition and doesnae seem to realise a twin could hardly ever be a third wheel when he’s half of the first wheel. But he needs her and he willnae tell her because he’s stubborn in he sense he’ll always put her first beyond his own needs, whether it’s as simple as him needing life blood verses her needing a peanut butter sandwich - she’ll get the sandwich before he saves himself.
I guess I understand stubborn in that sense. Tara tells me all the time I’m the same. In fact, only yesterday I found her giving me that knowing look when I got on my soapbox about Riley needing help and needing to learn to lean on people. She gave me the eyes and merely offered a, “Pot, kettle, black, sweetheart.” I couldnae really argue.
I feel helpless. I wish there was more I could do for him, more advice I could offer, but it’s nay going to really help at the end of the day. It’s just a waiting game. No one likes to hear their life could be a ticking time bomb. We just have to be there for him when he needs us and hope to god every day that this doesnae break him.
[pullmysteth and asinthecity referenced with permission]
Word Count | 735
If I’m an expert in anything, it’s losing hope. I doubt that gives me a one way ticket to offer advice to anyone finding themselves in a similar position, but I nay doubt it allows me to try and set one of my closest friends straight when I see him spiralling into despair.
A needlestick injury is just about every medical professional’s fear. It’s something we’re all well aware can happen and does happen to colleagues on a regular basis. But the thing is, you never really think it’s going to be you or one of your own. Until suddenly it is. When news came that Riley had be attacked by a drug-affected mental health patient during his shift in the ER, it was frightening enough. But to hear the patient had stabbed him with a blood-contaminated needle was devastating. He’s nay even been a year in practice. I knew immediately this was going to set him on unstable ground about his ability to be a doctor. It’s usually your first patient death at your hand that does it, nay a tragedy like this.
And to make matters worse, Riley lost his spleen following a car crash many years ago. Without a spleen, his body doesnae have the same fighting skills a normal body does to fight diseases and infection. It makes him much more highly susceptible to illnesses… meaning if the blood on that syringe was the patient’s, there is a high chance Riley will be left HIV positive.
Fuck.
The worst part about it is that he knows. He knows the risks, he knows the consequences and he knows there is a chance his life will never be the same again. I’ve been in that boat - I am in that boat - and I know how it easy it is to just want to give up and not forge through it. I know how it is to feel so sick and so exhausted that you think you just cannae forge through it.
He needs help. He needs all the help and support he can get. It was a huge relief for me to hear his sister decide to return to his side because he wouldnae ask for help. You get to the point where you think there is no point to having help. You think no one understands and cannae possibly completely know how you’re feeling. Tabitha is Riley’s number one and always has been. If he thought for a minute she wanted and needed to be elsewhere, he would nay ever want to impede that. He spoke briefly about it to me when he first arrived in Princeton. He wants to be part of her life but doesnae feel he’ll ever fit into her way of life and doesnae want her to ever see him as a third wheel. Said it would break his heart if she ever felt that way towards him and he wanted to keep his distance where he could so he didnae risk that happening and didnae impose on him.
Poor bastard. Tab’s been the only family he’s really ever put any importance in. He doesnae realise that family can never be an imposition and doesnae seem to realise a twin could hardly ever be a third wheel when he’s half of the first wheel. But he needs her and he willnae tell her because he’s stubborn in he sense he’ll always put her first beyond his own needs, whether it’s as simple as him needing life blood verses her needing a peanut butter sandwich - she’ll get the sandwich before he saves himself.
I guess I understand stubborn in that sense. Tara tells me all the time I’m the same. In fact, only yesterday I found her giving me that knowing look when I got on my soapbox about Riley needing help and needing to learn to lean on people. She gave me the eyes and merely offered a, “Pot, kettle, black, sweetheart.” I couldnae really argue.
I feel helpless. I wish there was more I could do for him, more advice I could offer, but it’s nay going to really help at the end of the day. It’s just a waiting game. No one likes to hear their life could be a ticking time bomb. We just have to be there for him when he needs us and hope to god every day that this doesnae break him.
[pullmysteth and asinthecity referenced with permission]
Word Count | 735