Page 3 of Broken Heart Syndrome
‘Well, you’re just as much of a dweeb for getting it,’ she retorted, looking relieved that I was smiling again. Takotsubo cardiomyopathy is otherwise known as Broken Heart Syndrome, and is the name for sudden heart failure after emotional trauma, when the stress hormones actually cause a weakening of the heart muscle. The trauma can be anything from grief, to a relationship break-up. And its existence proves that you can, in fact, die from a broken heart.
Well, I survived, and the one good thing to come out of that night was that it absolutely and thoroughly cured me of my crush. The few times that I saw Tom again (he had been demoted from the Reverend Thomas G. Longley), he studiously ignored me, and I began to wonder if he even remembered what happened. He qualified as a doctor a few months later, and that was that.
Unfortunately the name Frigid Frankie was bandied around campus and seemed to stick. Nobody actually said it to my face, but I could hear it muttered behind my back all the time. This meant that either guys were put off by what the name implied, or, worse, they considered me a challenge. Therefore, after a few regrettable incidents, my love life was pretty much put on hold for the rest of uni. This was not fun, seeing as I still had four years left.
So it was safe to say that Thomas G. Longley, a.k.a. Weasel Gankface, was not one of my favourite people. I sincerely hoped I never saw his stupid, gorgeous face ever again.
Chapter 2
Cats in a bag
2013
‘Louey please, please, please get your lazy tush out of bed,’ I begged for the hundredth time.
‘Bugger off,’ she muttered into her pillow.
‘But you promised, remember? Please, Lou-Lou, it’s my first day. Come on.’ I made a grab for the duvet, and she was too late to stop me whipping it off. The impact of the furious glare she levelled at me was slightly diminished by her puffy eyes and bed-head.
‘Ugh, fine,’ she sighed, crawling to the edge of the bed to look at her alarm clock. ‘Bloody hell, Frankie, it’s only just gone seven.’ She flopped back down and squinted up at me, taking in the fact that I was fully dressed and ready to go, with my bag firmly on my shoulder.
‘You’re a maniac,’ she groaned, heaving herself up again. ‘How long have you been ready for?’
‘Um … a while,’ I admitted.
Truth was, I hadn’t really slept at all last night and finally gave up around five, when I began choosing my outfit in a fit of OCD panic. I settled on very standard junior doctor uniform: black trousers, pink fitted shirt and black ballet pumps, with my hair in its usual ponytail. I was hoping to blend into the background (as was my wont).
I hated the first day somewhere new. It was bad enough moving to a different department in a hospital you were familiar with, but to be going to a completely new hospital and new specialty was especially hard. This was the last six months of my core training, and I couldn’t wait for it to be over. It would be nice to be concentrating instead on the only specialty in medicine I was actually good at, and staying in one place for a change; but first I had to endure the next six months working in cardiology, at a massive teaching hospital I had never set foot in before.
I’d just transferred to Cardiff from Bristol. Although I was relieved that the deanery had approved the transfer, and that I could move in with Lou, who was working at the same hospital, that didn’t make the prospect of my first day any less daunting.
‘Lou, the echo meeting starts at eight, and it was hammered into us at induction yesterday that you were late on pain of death. You promised you’d show me the way there.’ My voice was rising in panic, and Lou grabbed both my hands in hers.
‘Deep breath,’ she said. ‘Pull it together, Rossetti. Repeat after me: I am an awesome medical genius and I won’t be intimidated.’
‘I am an awesome medical genius and I won’t be intimidated,’ I mumbled.
‘That’s the spirit, my humble friend. Right, we better get a wriggle on. Why didn’t you wake me sooner?’ I rolled my eyes in frustration at her convenient amnesia about the last half hour’s duvet tussle. ‘Be a doll and dig me out something to wear from the chaos? I’ll just nip into the shower.’ I began rooting through her wardrobe, the vast majority of her clothes lying in a heap at the bottom.
‘Find me one of my slutty drug-rep-on-heat dresses and heels, would you,’ she shouted from the bathroom. ‘I want my sexy new consultant to get a load of my legs today.’ How she walked around all day in four-inch Louboutins like they were slippers, I would never know.
*****
As we walked down yet another corridor I glanced nervously around. I was trying to keep track of the route we’d taken, but it seemed impossible. This place was huge. I didn’t know how on earth I was going to negotiate leading a ward round through this rabbit warren when the time came. Lou was taking her long strides, with me jogging in her wake. She cast a glance in my direction and cleared her throat in a nervous gesture, which was at odds with her usual confidence.
‘Um, Frankie, there’s something I might have forgotten to mention about cardiology,’ she said.
‘Spill it, Lou,’ I replied. ‘I’m in no mood for mysteries this morning.’
‘Well, I –’
We came to a stop outside a set of double doors labelled ‘Cardiology Conference Room’. I looked down at my watch and groaned: 8.05 a.m. Crap.
‘Look, I don’t have time for this now, Lou.’ She could tell me her gossip later; I was late enough as it was. ‘Thanks for driving me and showing me the way.’ She was shifting nervously in front of me, blocking my way to the door.
‘Oh, ballbags to it,’ she muttered, continuing to look nervous. ‘I’ll come in with you. I don’t have to start my ward round till nine anyway.’ With that she pushed through the double doors.
The conference room had a large table in the centre. At one end was a big screen with a projector trained on it. Around the table sat what could only have been the consultants, as they were all smartly dressed in suits. The vast majority of them were men, with only one woman among them. I guessed that the few men in shirts but not jackets must be the senior registrars.
