“You’re a tough one,” Dana cooed. “You didn’t even flinch.” She gave me a wink that, due to her age, seemed practically obscene. She pushed the IV needle into a third spot and missed.
“Don’t be offended,” I said. “But you’re done here.”
She looked at me to see if I was serious.
I was.
Her eyes welled up with tears and she packed up her needles and bloody gauze pads and ran from the room.
Before Dana had time to tell her tale to the other candystripers, a disheveled young man in a wrinkled lab coat came in. He appeared to be exhausted. Dana was practically a child, but this guy could have been her kid brother.
“Mr. Creed, I’m Dr. Hedgepeth.”
“Your parents know you stole that lab coat?”
He sighed. “Don’t start with me. I’m a fully-qualified, first-year resident in Internal Medicine.”
“Of course you are,” I said, thinking,
Dr. Hedgepeth looked at my arm. “Sorry about that,” he said. “Dana’s new on the job.”
“What happened to the old nurse?”
“Mary? She was great. Best needle nurse I ever had. It broke my heart to let her go.”
I shook my head at the absurdity of his comment. This so-called doctor couldn’t possibly be in charge of hiring and firing staff . He couldn’t possibly be out of junior high school, for that matter. But I was committed to the conversation, so I forged ahead.
“If Mary was your best needle nurse, why’d you fire her?” I said.
“The patients kept complaining she was too young.”
“Of course they did.” I locked my eyes on his face. This had to be a joke. I can usually break a man’s resolve just by staring at him. This kid was about to crack. I could feel it.
“So what made you choose Dana?” I said.
“Dana’s the oldest nurse on the ward.”
“Is she,” I said, thinking,
“Dana will be just fine,” Dr. Hedgepeth said, “but there’s a learning curve, you see.”
I decided to move things along.
“Are you doing the heart cath or shall I look forward to meeting your grandson, the Chief of Surgery?”
“No need to be contentious,” he said.
“Contentious,” I said, wondering if that had been one of his spelling bee words.
“Performing a heart catheterization would be premature at this point,” he said. “You’re relatively young, you’re in great physical shape, your blood pressure’s excellent, your EKG is perfect, and the tests we’ve done showed none of the classic heart attack symptoms.”
“So what happens now?”
“We do a Cardiolite stress test. If that comes back normal, I’d advise you to get the hell out of here as soon as possible.”
“Why’s that?”
“You can get sick faster in a hospital than almost anyplace on earth.”
