Page 21 of Broken Heart Syndrome
‘Ash, could you check on Tom today? He’s acting weird and I’m worried he’s sick or something.’
Ash smiled. ‘I bet.’
‘You bet what?’
‘I bet he’s acting weird, and I bet you have no clue why.’
I huffed in frustration. Why did Ash always have to be so cryptic? Too tired to try to decipher his meaning, and too focused on the day ahead, I decided to let it pass.
‘Whatever. Just keep an eye on him, okay?’
As I was walking out to my bike, my shoulders hunched with the familiar weight of responsibility for what was waiting for me at home, and I wished for the millionth time that I had just bitten the bullet and forced myself to get a car.
Chapter 9
Death wish
‘But why would anyone care?’ Ash asked me again, genuinely perplexed. We were standing at the central desk in CCU with Lisa, and Mary the ward sister. Lisa was the staff nurse who made me do all the cannulas on my first day. We had now formed a bond mostly forged over a shared love of crap telly and Victoria sponge.
Lisa rolled her eyes at Ash. ‘It’s the Oscars, Ash; everyone cares what the stars wear to the Oscars.’ Ash and I had been on call last night till eleven. It had been surprisingly quiet and we had managed to get some time off in the mess. The doctors’ mess consisted of a small kitchen attached to a large TV room with old squeaky sofas. I had forced a bewildered Ash to watchFashion Policelive from the red carpet of the Oscars. This had been his idea of hell.
‘I’ll grant you that the women whose breasts were practically hanging out, or whose vaginas were nearly showing, were entertaining,’ he said dryly. ‘But how it is even possible to discuss one outfit for twenty minutes straight is mind-boggling, and it is not an experience I want to repeatever. The other programme you forced me to suffer through was arguably worse, as it involved listening to screaming children.’
‘Supernannyis awesome,’ I informed him.
‘Why these parents allow a strange English lady into their house to berate them in front of their children, I will never understand.’
‘Jo Frost is wise,’ I said reverently. Lisa and Mary were frantically nodding their heads in agreement. ‘She’s like a modern-day prophet.’ Ash was looking at us like we had lost our minds.
‘I’m always trying to get my daughter to watch it,’ Mary said. ‘My grandchildren are crying out forSupernanny. They’re like Tasmanian devils.’
‘You two don’t even have children,’ Ash said to me and Lisa.
‘That makes it even better,’ I told him. ‘You can judge the parents and reassure yourself that you would never let things get that out of hand. If you have uncontrollable kids already you can’t be nearly so smug.’ Ash burst out laughing, followed by Lisa and Mary. I was smiling at them when I felt my skin tingle, and I whipped round to see Tom striding onto the ward.
I had noticed that whenever he saw me having fun with the ward staff or Ash, or anyone for that matter, it put him in a bad mood for some reason. His mouth was tight and a muscle was ticking in his jaw as he approached us, and my smile died.
‘Hey, boss,’ Ash said, jumping off the stool he was perched on.
‘Hi,’ I said to Tom’s throat, then looked away to grab the list.
‘I hope you’ve managed to prepare for the ward round, Frankie,’ he said tightly. ‘In amongst all the hilarity.’ I saw Mary’s eyes snap to Tom and noticed her body go solid, as if preparing to pounce. I had seen Mary pounce before and it was scary. Luckily Ash got there first.
‘Boss,’ he said impatiently – and I was surprised: Ash was a patient guy – ‘she is always beyond prepared for the ward rounds and you know it. Frankie armed with her glitter pen is a force to be reckoned with.’ Tom shifted uncomfortably under the double glares of Mary and Ash.
‘Okay, sorry, Frankie,’ he mumbled. ‘Let’s just get on shall we.’
‘ “If patience is bitter, then its result is sweet,” ’ I heard Ash telling him quietly as we moved away. I knew he would manage to get a proverb in there somewhere, but I had no clue what he might mean by this one.
Moving on.
Mary led us to the first patient, who happened by chance to be my favourite. Bill was the eighty-two-year-old who I had cannulated on my first day. He was still gamely flirting with me, despite his deteriorating heart failure and numerous stints on CCU. He smiled under his oxygen mask as we approached. I gave him a small wave as I was giving Tom the rundown.
‘Sats eighty-eight percent on room air, renal function deteriorating, systolic of eighty to ninety,’ I reeled off to his shirt collar.
‘Not much room for manoeuvre,’ he muttered, eyeing the latest blood results that I had thrust under his nose. Looking up at Bill, he smiled.
‘Mr Gethin, is the food really that good here that you can’t stay away?’
