Here and Again by Nicole R Dickson

Author:Nicole R Dickson [Dickson, Nicole R]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2014-06-03T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

Peas in a Pod

Ginger walked into a full ER.

There were six people seated in the waiting area. A man of indeterminate age leaned forward, holding his stomach as a woman about Ginger’s age rubbed his back. There was a young girl around fifteen years old with hives sitting with a woman who looked to be her mother. Both the girl and her mother were texting and didn’t look up. Seated very near the door was a middle-aged man staring at the TV on the far wall. Finally, Ginger spotted the young man who had come in with the two-year-old bronchitis two nights before. He coughed miserably, forcing a smile as Ginger stepped around the triage desk.

There she found Margery T., RN, pulling a cuff from the arm of an old woman who was seated in one of the hospital’s wheelchairs with a rag held to her eye by her frail, shaking hand. The old woman grinned up at Ginger. Nurse Margery did not. Peering toward the back rooms, Ginger could see both Janet and Debbie, the acute care LVNs, buzzing around the hall.

“Okay, Mrs. Kimber,” Nurse Margery said. “All done. Janet?”

Janet walked briskly to triage.

“Please take Mrs. Kimber into room two.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Janet replied and grabbed the handles of the wheelchair.

“AGA,” Margery said. “Acute Gravity Attack.”

“Ah.”

“Her Yorkie got under her feet,” Nurse Margery added. “Her son out there brought the dog in against his will because his mother was quite agitated. She was more worried about it than herself.”

“The dog okay?”

“Don’t know. Looked chipper so I touched its paws and ribs and nodded to Mrs. Kimber. She seemed satisfied.” Margery stood. “The choly is next,” she said.

Dropping her purse in the drawer, Ginger looked at the list of names on the entrance sheet. Mr. Russell, cholecystitis, an inflamed gallbladder, was next. Ginger poked her head around the wall of the triage desk.

“Mr. Russell?”

The man holding his gut lifted his bottom from the seat but could not straighten up beyond ninety degrees. As he shuffled slowly over, he was held across the back by the woman who was with him.

“He’s in terrible pain,” she said. “It happens every time he eats pizza.”

“Yes. Have a seat, Mr. Russell.”

For two hours, Ginger sat at triage as Nurse Margery aided Dr. Patterson in the back. Mrs. Kimber was sent home with her son, who turned the TV off as he left. Lauren O’Brian, who had the hives, was given a shot of prednisone and released with a prescription for the same. Todd Parker had bronchitis. After receiving antibiotics, he walked out as a twenty-five-year-old expectant mother, Ruth Agee, and her husband walked in with breakthrough bleeding.

So it went, one after another—a true full-moon night in Franklin District Community Hospital. At six thirty-two a.m., an hour after Nurse Margery finally left, Ginger stood at triage completing the discharge of Mr. Russell and his wife.

“No more pizza,” she said.

Mrs. Russell shook her head and as Mr. Russell signed the release Ginger heard the ER doors open.

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