"An Egyptian prayer spoken in Russian, or a Hungarian lullaby sang in French,"
An Egyptian prayer spoken in Russian, or a Hungarian lullaby sang in French, or maybe it was even a Spanish accent pronounced in all of the wrong places. I don’t know, but it was something different from anything that I have ever heard. It was sudden, but the trauma was instant.
I snapped the latex gloves onto my hands, and eyed the ambulance bay doors in total and complete anticipation. I turned my eyes from the doors, and I let my eyes settle on a child in Trauma 2 for a second too long, because someone was screaming in my ear to get to my spot in running along side the gurney. I ripped my eyes from the unconscious child, and my legs quickly carried me to the side of gurney before I could even think to.
After awhile, it had become second nature to rush to the side of a gurney. It took me 4 years of med school, and a couple of years of internship, but by my first year of residency, I didn’t have to think about it any more. And now, my second year of residency was just the same as it had always been.
I’ve been chastised by my father maybe a million times about working in one hospital my entire life, and it might have something to do with the fact that in all of my life I’ve worked in one place. This hospital was more of a home than my actual home. Maybe that’s because when I was here I was around people, and when I went home there was no one there - no one else sharing my oxygen.
Thank God I got in shape my junior year during basketball season; otherwise I’d be so tired running along side this thing. Every one else around me were busy taking in deep breaths, and when we crashed through the trauma doors and the gurney came to rest, they all doubled over to gasp for air. You’d think that running along side an average of 10 gurneys a shift would get somebody into enough shape to keep breathing, but it didn’t.
So, I just smirked when the new male intern with a scruffy face stood up, still sucking in heavy breaths. His eyes narrowed at me, but he smiled just to let me know he was joking around, much like I had been. He looked away as though he had been caught in the act, but his eyes were really resting on a monitor to check the BP’s.
We placed a quick cut down, and the patient was rushed off to surgery. I smiled, snapping the gloves off and tossing them into the trash. The attending came up behind me, and tapped me on the shoulder.
“Good work. I need to see you when you have a free moment,” he said, squeezing my shoulder pushing through the swinging doors. I closed my eyes and wondered what he could possibly need to talk to me about. Sighing, I dragged a hand through my hair.
“I’m free now,” I said finally, following him out into the next trauma room. He turned to me on his heel with a smile. He had one of those smiles that did two things to you at once - it made you wonder what he was up to, and it made you smile too. His smile was very contradictory.
“Good,” he nodded. “Walk with me,” he said, motioning for me to follow him. We walked side by side down the hall, and I was thinking that it had been way too silent for way too long, especially for this guy who always said something when he was thinking of it. He sucked in a deep breath; causing me to uncomfortably shove my hands into the pockets of my white lab coat. “You’ve been working for, what? 3 years?”
“Actually, it’s more like 5 or 6,” I said with a certain nod. His smile faded for a second, but he quickly covered it up again.
“Okay. So, we’ve worked together for 5 years, and I was wondering if you,” he paused, slightly nervous, “had the charts for that guy with a ruptured spleen.”
“No. I don’t have those charts, but I’m sure they’re around here,” I shrugged, glaring at him before walking back to the nurse’s station. “I’m going on my break,” I said when he followed me down the hall. I stripped the lab coat from my shoulders and shoved it beneath the counter top.
I turned on my heel, determined to never return again, full well knowing that I’d walk back in less than 5 minutes later. I just knew that I had to get away from James. We dated briefly about a year ago, and we had a big fight, haven’t really talked the same since. It’s gotten better between us, the apologies were nice, but I haven’t seen him with anybody else. We started spending time together again.
But he made sure to set me off on a pretty regular basis. I walked out into the cold air, hugging myself in shock that I was this cold. I had to breathe, and I gave myself a few minutes to think about stuff.
Earlier that day, a patient came in with a threat attached to them. We were told that if we didn’t save them, we’d be killed. We did our best, I thought that he’d understood his wife had no chance when she was brought in, but I caught his form standing against the wall out of the corner of my eye.
He turned his head to look at me, and he pulled his hand from his pocket. His eyes bore into me, burning deeper holes into me than I have ever felt before in my life. The guy pushed himself from the wall, and angrily stepped towards me.
I found myself staring down the barrel of a gun. I had no words to say, I was speechless, for the first time in my life. His teeth gritted and ground against each other, and that’s when I saw the blood pour from his bottom lip.
I dropped my hands to my side, and briefly closed my eyes. I couldn’t find any words, and he didn’t say anything, so nothing was floating in the air between us. I gulped, and my own saliva burned the back of my throat.
“You don’t want to,” and my world went black. I couldn’t see anything anymore. I heard the faint noises of the man running from his act. Soon I heard shouting and the sound of beeping from machines, but I knew this was this end.
So, here I leave you with my last will. Everything I own, everything I’ve worked to achieve goes to my friends’ children. It’ll last longer that way. The money goes to their college funds, since I had no children of my own. And all of my secrets, my secrets die with you, James.