Saving Lives.

It’s been a few weeks, but I have some content up my sleeve and I’ve also been working on a new trilogy. But I do miss posting something weekly. I’ll have to get back into the swing of things.

Enjoy.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. In my forties, divorced, no kids and a crippling student debt. Well, that’s what happens when you decide to become a doctor in your thirties. Long after all your friends are settled into careers and your husband is thinking about what it will be like to retire in twenty years.

Besides the massive financial commitment, the time spent studying and working in the hospital, I just thought everything would wait. My husband didn’t wait, that’s for sure. Our mutual friends decided that it was easier to stay friends with him because I was never available anyway, then there was life in general. It keeps on going and no matter how elbow deep you are in an abdomen cavity or stitching someone’s finger back on, life doesn’t wait.

“We need help over here!” A man ran into the Emergency room and even through the sealed doors and into Bay C where I had just finished gluing a chin back together, I could hear the raw anguish and panic in his voice. I washed my hands quickly and the wall of noise came through the doors.

“Doctor Spencer, you better come out here,” A nurse called and the doors shut again sealing her in a small cocoon of calm before she passed into the waiting area.

“Prep Bay A,” I called over my shoulder, but the nurses were already in action, anticipating what I needed before I knew I needed it.

Once I hit the green button beside the doors, they parted and the copper soaked air filled my nostrils. Police Officers were everywhere, the dark and light blue of their uniform, all soaked red.

“What happened?” I barked at the closest Officer, and the one most covered in blood.

“Our Sergeant’s been shot, twice in the stomach and one in the thigh.”

I assessed the woman’s injuries, calculating how much blood she was going to need, and where the most life-threatening injuries were. The answer was all of them.

“Call Doctor Thorn, he needs to be in theatre 1 now.”

The flock of officers were held back by a nurse as we entered the theatre corridor. The stark white of the operating theatre and the big medical lights roused the Officer, who though pale watched the activity with focus. The anaesthetist masked her up and her eyes met mine a moment before the gas kicked in, and in that moment I took a breath and focussed on saving her life.

We did. All twenty-five of us, but the four-hour operation put my teeth of edge and there was no relief until I checked on her in ICU and could tell her colleagues that barring infection that she was going to pull through.

The Officer I spoke to pulled me aside, his name tag said Detective Arlington.

“Thank you, Doc.” The gratitude in his eyes was too much to take.

“It’s our job, I’m glad she’s tough, because she lost a lot of blood.”

I turned and left him and his colleagues to their celebration, I had more patients to attend to. It was moments like these, the joyous ones that made my husband leaving and my stalled life feel less painful. I started to wonder that if I wasn’t here, would she have died? Who knows, but it makes my pain worthwhile.

It turned out that Detective Arlington – Simon, didn’t mind my long hours because he worked them too. He didn’t mind my commitment and focus because he lived his life that way as well, and he didn’t mind when I told him that I was going to marry him, he just shrugged and said, “Good because I was going to ask you the same thing.”

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Photo by ANBerlin via Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons