Direct Red: A Surgeon's Story by Gabriel Weston

Author:Gabriel Weston [Weston, Gabriel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Medical, Ethics, Surgery
ISBN: 9781409075172
Google: o_vRSfdr1s8C
Amazon: 1409075176
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2009-02-05T00:00:00+00:00

EMERGENCIES

Perhaps the most exciting six months in any junior doctor's training are those spent in A&E. Nothing is gentle there. Catastrophes abound, the diseases are dire, the episodes of human dislocation momentous. But what struck me most about this department during my first few days working there was that all visitors to A&E seemed to be coming there to lose something. Some were losing a loved one, some their own life. There were suicide attempts by people who had lost faith. There were incidents that caused loss of limb. There were unforeseen events that caused loss of function or loss of beauty. There were illnesses that were severe enough to result in loss of personality. I came to see A&E as a sort of departure lounge in which every patient had come to say goodbye to someone or something, often with no warning, usually with no time or peace or preparation.

Within this pageant of loss, I remember the quiet case of Cheyenne. Her casualty card, picked from the top of a stack which never dwindled, said bleeding per vaginum, cubicle three. I found her looking forlorn in this six foot by four foot space, which was separated from the menagerie of the rest of the department only by some thin partitioning and a curtain. She wore a hospital gown, which had the name of the hospital written across it diagonally in a small font over and over again, alternately in yellow and brown, like punishment lines from school. She was wearing a lot of make-up and I thought how old I was compared to her. Her hair was a bad blonde and she had big hoop earrings in her ears, but she had obviously given up on her efforts at foot level, because they were grimy and her toenails uncut and grey.

I said a matey sort of 'Hi', hoping this would put me on her level. Then I collected some blood by putting a cannula in a vein in her arm, in case she needed a transfusion. I connected a drip to this same tube and started up some IV fluids. Finally, I settled down to hear her story.

My patient was sixteen years old and twelve weeks pregnant. The pregnancy had been unplanned but was not unwelcome, except for Cheyenne's mother who was so angry that she had thrown her daughter out of the house. Cheyenne had been staying with her boyfriend's parents for the past few weeks. The bleeding had started that afternoon during her shift at the supermarket. In the past hour she had changed her sanitary towel five times.

She was alone as she told me her story. She said her boyfriend was going to come when he finished work. She was calm to begin with, but soon became uncomfortable and then complained of severe pelvic pain. I told her I needed to have a look. I put on my gloves and tried to shield the tray of instruments I had brought in with me with my body. I unwrapped the gynae pack from the green sterile paper which made it looked like a merry present.

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