of the nurses, with the advice that it might be wise to have him seen to and discharged before he settled down for the night, Lola lifted a file from the stack on the desk.
Her first patient was an elderly woman experiencing dizziness and fatigue. Possible dehydration, since the notes indicated an increased thirst and decreased skin turgor. No doubt this lady had been specifically left for Lola to deal with because of the apparently straightforward nature of the ailment, but she didn’t mind. The role of general dogsbody gave her inner wallflower a chance to disappear under paperwork and the smaller jobs more experienced doctors deemed too trivial to waste their talents on. These small steps into the medical field would carry her through until it was her moment to shine. At which point she might need some anti-anxiety pills to hand.
With her bits and pieces gathered together from the storeroom, she made her way to the cubicle. The sight of the elderly lady waiting for her behind the curtain immediately put her at ease.
‘Now, then, Mrs Jackson. I’m just going to take a wee blood sample from you, if that’s all right?’ A UE blood test would tell if the electrolytes and sodium were off—a further indication of dehydration.
The old woman smiled, the skin at the corners of her pale blue eyes creasing with laughter. ‘Sure, I’m like a pin cushion these days anyway.’
Lola noted how sunken her eyes looked, and the dryness of her lips when she smiled. The dry mucus membranes were another sure sign her diagnosis was correct.
‘So I don’t need to worry about you passing out when you see this needle?’ If only all her patients were this cooperative it would make her job a whole lot easier.
‘No, dear. You do what you have to.’ Like a professional blood donor, Mrs Jackson held out her arm and tapped on a raised blue vein. ‘That’s where they usually go for.’
The translucent skin was already punctuated with fading bruises from similar procedures. Lola cleansed the area with a wipe, grateful that she wouldn’t have to put this lovely lady through the ordeal of chasing a suitable site to insert the needle.
‘I think you could get yourself a job here,’ Lola said as she tightened the tourniquet around the upper arm.
‘Ach, away with you. I could never put in the hours you youngsters do. Sure, when would you ever find time to catch yourself a husband? Unless you’re waiting for one of those handsome male doctors to sweep you off your feet?’
The inquisitive patient brought an uninvited picture of the suave Henri Benoit into Lola’s head. Even there he looked smug that she was thinking about him.
‘If you could just make a fist for me that would be great. Now, you’ll feel a little scratch,’ Lola said as she inserted the needle and let the woman’s last question fall without an answer.
Thankfully she had managed to avoid said handsome doctor and the embarrassment of that evening thus far. So why did her senses conspire and refuse to let her forget him? The sound of his accent, the smell of his aftershave and the memory of his rarely seen smile wouldn’t leave her. It was a godsend that their hands had only touched briefly or she would surely have ended up a victim of sensory overload.
She tried desperately hard not to think about taste.
Since that final humiliation at the club, he was the last person she would turn to for help. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her inadequacy in action. Regardless of how many times she carried out standard procedures confidently and correctly, she couldn’t shake off that look of disappointment he’d given her. Her fender bender in the car park had been the only time she’d witnessed the scowl slip from the registrar’s face and the smile had somehow been worse. It had made him human, showed a softer side to him, and it had made her want to impress him so she could see it again.
‘Could you hold that cotton wool for me there, Mrs Jackson?’ Lola withdrew the needle and the helpful patient dabbed the spot of blood left behind. ‘Now, you rest until we find a bed for you on the ward, and I’ll get these sent off.’
‘Thank you, dear.’ The previously animated pensioner lay back, flattening her head of white curls into the pillows, and showed the first signs of fatigue.
Lola vowed to take all the necessary steps to get Mrs Jackson rehydrated and back on her feet as she returned to the nurses’ station—and walked into a flurry of activity.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked Jules, who was passing by in the herd of medics apparently gearing up for something more serious than an old dear having a turn.
‘Emergency call. Ambulance is on the way with a patient in cardiac arrest.’
As Jules chewed on her pen Lola could see her body thrumming with anticipation for the arrival. Maybe it was the extra year’s experience Jules had over her, but Lola hadn’t quite reached that stage of life-or-death excitement.
‘Would you care to join us, Dr Roberts?’
Apparently it took the invitation to be issued in a French accent to get her pulse racing.
‘Pardon?’ She turned to face Dr Benoit, incredulous that he had asked her to participate as if he was issuing an invitation to dinner.
‘I’m sure they can spare you from treating minor cases for a while, and I think the experience will be good for you.’
He barely glanced in her direction and carried on flicking through his notes. A prod of disappointment poked Lola in the abdomen as he dropped back into aloof doctor mode. A far cry from her sparring partner in the car park, but at least she knew where she stood with this version of Henri Benoit—and she wouldn’t let him get the better of her.
Lola lifted her chin to meet the challenge. ‘I would love to join the team.’
Equipment gathered in preparation, the assembled medical staff waited for the starting pistol, ready to get off the blocks, whilst Lola willed her limbs to stop shaking. The paramedics slammed through the door and galvanised everyone else into action.
Here we go.
‘On the count of three.’ Henri took charge as they surrounded the trolley. ‘One, two, three.’
Between the paramedics and the doctors the seemingly lifeless body of an overweight middle-aged man was transferred from the stretcher onto the bed and hooked up to a bank of monitors.
‘Get a line in, please, Lola,’ Henri instructed.
With a very small chance of bringing the patient back, there was no room for her to freeze or panic.
‘Starting CPR,’ Henri announced, starting chest compressions.
Lola’s scrubs clung to her suddenly clammy skin as she fought to insert the cannula. They needed it to inject adrenaline and try to restart the heart, and he had tasked her with the important job. Thankfully, with Henri pumping the chest to get blood and oxygen flowing around the body again, he made it possible for her to find a vein.
‘I’m in.’ She managed to keep the relief from her voice in a room full of people who did this every day of the week.
‘Get the paddles on. Do we have a shockable rhythm?’
Henri’s voice carried above all other noise and she focused on it alone to guide her through what was happening.
‘Everyone stand back. Shock delivered. One milligram of adrenaline in. Stop for rhythm, please.’
They paused and listened for signs of life. Nothing. More chest pumps, more adrenaline and more shocks were delivered by the defibrillator to kick-start the heart—until he uttered the words she longed to hear.
‘He’s back.’
Lola stood back in awe as Henri’s cool command brought a dead man back to life, indicated by the steady blip of his pulse on the screen.
Once the patient was stabilised Henri addressed the team. ‘Good job, everyone. Lola, you too. You