In Dr. Darling’s Care

‘And now’s not the time to take it to the equal opportunity commissioner?’ His eyes were smiling at her, and she thought suddenly, Great. It was great that he was here.

She didn’t need him. She shouldn’t.

But it was great.

‘Stand back and let me see,’ he told her, so she did just that while Harry bent over the little boy. To her indignation there wasn’t the slightest hesitation in the child agreeing to let Harry see.

‘You know, Dr Lizzie’s not really a girl,’ Harry told the little boy as he adjusted the child’s pyjamas. ‘She’s a doctor. For future reference, I think you and your parents need to figure out the difference. But for now I can look after you.’

Lizzie’s not really a girl…

‘Hey,’ Lizzie said indignantly from behind him. ‘I like being a girl.’

‘Stethoscope or pantyhose, take your pick.’ He gave her a grin over his shoulder. He was leaning heavily on the bed, and she moved to take his crutches before they toppled. ‘It seems in Terry’s terms you can’t have both.’

She hesitated. That grin had the power to deflect her but some things were important. The crutches were in her hands now. They should be in his. She glared. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she demanded. ‘You can’t stand up.’

‘I’m a one-legged wonder. It’s time you realised that. Now, Dr Darling, turn your face to the wall and let Terry and me get on with secret men’s business.’

Turn your face to the wall? She swallowed and glared some more, but he was no longer paying her attention. All his attention was on Terry. Lizzie and May were left to talk to themselves.

Even the parents had turned away. Some people took privacy to absurd levels, Lizzie thought. To raise a child with this level of paranoia about personal privacy was asking for trouble.

At least Harry was here. She could have managed this, she thought. She could.

But it was just as well Harry was here.

There was silence during the examination. Terry had stopped whimpering and the parents were shocked and speechless. Waiting for the worst.

Had they looked themselves? By the appearance of fear on their faces, they seemed to think it could be anything that Harry was finding down there. Good grief.

‘I wonder if they changed his nappies when he was a baby?’ May whispered behind her hand, and Lizzie shushed her but then had to choke back a giggle.

She was a doctor. Not a girl. She had to remember that.

‘There’s no sign of infection,’ Harry said at last. ‘But it’s really tender. I need to do a test for a urinary tract infection. Can we get a sample?’

‘I guess we can if you hold the bottle,’ Lizzie told him. ‘I bet that’s men’s business as well.’ May snorted, turned it into a cough and caught her eye, and suddenly the two women were grinning at each other like fools.

Or like…friends?

Where had that thought come from? Lizzie wondered, but it consolidated. Here in this little room with this rigid farming family, with the caring doctor with the gammy leg and the kindly smile, with the laughing nurse sharing a joke…

She could stay here.

Now, there was another crazy thought. She had no business thinking about long-term plans when she should be concentrating on the needs of an ill child. But there was little to concentrate on when it was Harry who had to cope with obtaining a urine sample.

‘I’ll fetch the bottle,’ May said, and Lizzie stepped out of the room as well so that she could do her grinning in private.

‘Collecting urine samples isn’t our Dr McKay’s favourite job, but serve him right,’ May muttered, once the bottle had been handed over. While this intensely personal operation was going on there was nothing they could do but wait. ‘Men. Do you think you and I should retire to the kitchen and do a little knitting, Dr Darling?’

‘Could you run the tests?’ Harry asked, and handed the bottle through the door. He looked from Lizzie to May and back again and added. ‘Please?’

‘See?’ May said darkly. ‘Running tests on little bottles of urine. That counts as cooking. Women’s work. Keep them barefoot and pregnant…’

‘And in the lab where they belong.’ Lizzie grinned and took the bottle from Harry. As she turned toward the lab she was aware of him watching her.

He watched her all the way down the corridor and May watched him.

Well, well, well.

‘There’s no sign of infection.’

Minutes later Lizzie had the results of the urine sample test. ‘Nothing,’ she told him.

Harry parked his crutches and sank into a chair in the nurses’ station. ‘The tenderness is getting worse.’

‘Torsion?’

‘It has to be.’

They stared at each other. The laughter of a few minutes ago had disappeared. Each knew what was happening.

In boys this age it could occur out of the blue-a twisting of the testes inside the scrotum. Left alone, the testis would lose all blood supply and would die.

The only way to manage the problem was to operate. Now.

‘You’re not up to operating,’ she told him.

‘The alternative is sending him to Melbourne, but by the time he reaches Melbourne the damage will have been done. He’s risking the loss of his testicle. There are implications for long-term fertility. We need to move.’

Lizzie swallowed. ‘He may already… The damage may already be irreversible.’

‘He’s only been in real pain for twenty minutes. If we move fast…’

‘You can’t.’

‘Of course I can. I’ll get a stool set up in Theatre. It’s a simple operation and I assume you can give an anaesthetic.’

‘For something like this? Of course I can.’

‘Then what are we waiting for?’

‘I’m a woman,’ she told him, making her voice meek. ‘You think I should be allowed in the operating suite?’

‘We’ll rig up a sheet,’ he told her, his eyes creasing again with the laughter she was starting to love. ‘We wouldn’t want to shock our Dr Darling, now, would we?’

It was a straightforward operation, for which Lizzie was profoundly grateful. Despite his protestations, Harry was starting to look distinctly grey around the edges. It had been a long trip back by ambulance, even if he had been able to lie down. He was six days post-trauma and his body was still not close to recovered.

‘I’m fine,’ he growled as he saw her watching him. ‘Concentrate on your anaesthetic.’

‘Yes, sir.’ She adjusted the mask on the little boy’s face and turned back to her monitors. He’d gone to sleep without any problem at all. There’d been no more hassle with either Terry himself or his parents-it seemed that once he was asleep Lizzie could be a doctor and not a female.

The anaesthetic was textbook simple. Terry was a healthy little eleven-year-old with no problems other that the one Harry was intent on fixing. She could afford to let her attention divide a little so that she could watch Harry.

The man was seriously skilled. His fingers were swift and nimble, not hesitating in the least. He swabbed the area, draped and made a neat incision, wincing as he saw what lay exposed.

‘Poor kid. No wonder he’s been complaining. If this happened to me I’d be climbing walls.’

‘Twisted?’

‘The testis has turned inside the scrotum. Hell. There’s no blood getting through at all.’

Silence. It was a tricky little procedure, manoeuvring it back.

Harry’s fingers were gently shifting, moving the testis into a more natural position, enabling the blood vessels