The Big Free by Martha B Boone

Author:Martha B Boone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Morgan James Fiction
Published: 2017-07-07T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

Gunshot Wound to the Chest

E lizabeth left the back door of the Veterans Administration Hospital and crossed the street to the back door of Charity Hospital New Orleans. When she accepted her internship in Surgery, she knew that meant she would have grueling twenty-four-hour shifts in the trauma emergency room, but she did not know that she would be working at clinics at Charity and the VA Medical Center and at private clinics at Tulane Medical Center on the mornings after her trauma shifts. She knew surgical training was harder than medical training, but she failed to take into account the staffing issues involved. If doctors who were scheduled to work the clinics were in the operating room doing emergency surgeries, then the doctors who were supposed to be sleeping had to fill in at the clinics.

Now it was five in the evening. She had worked twenty-four hours in the ER and eight hours at the VA urology clinic. She was exhausted, and she moved like a sleepwalker. The world around her was hazy and indistinct. Her stomach growled unremittingly, and she coveted her bed.

She hadn’t realized thirty-two-hour days would frequently be expected of her. She intended to retrieve her overnight bag and go home to sleep for a few hours before her next shift in the major trauma area at Charity.

As Elizabeth walked through the door, Aoife, the nurse at the triage desk, called out, “Hey, doc, did you teach those girl doctors to thump it?”

Elizabeth came out of her fog and laughed, again amazed by the gossip mill that was the hospital system. Before she could walk from one building to the other, word of her latest adventures was spreading. The escapades of new doctors and medical students were wildly entertaining to the permanent hospital staff.

As she approached the elevators, bone-crushing fatigue settled in. She had never been so weary. Miss Albertha was running the elevator today. “Hey, baby,” she greeted Elizabeth. “You look like The Big Free done took a bite out of you! You okay, girl? You are skinnier than you were just four days ago. What you been eating, honey?”

“I am fine, Miss Albertha. Let’s sing some gospel while you take me to the on-call room. I think I need a nap before I try to drive home,” said Elizabeth.

The old elevator doors clanged shut, and the car lurched upward. Elizabeth held the railing. Being with Miss Albertha gave Elizabeth a sense of peace and grounding in something sweet and pure and untainted. Elizabeth breathed deeply, smelled Miss Albertha’s lemon-and-sunshine smell, and relaxed.

“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,” sang Miss Albertha as the elevator doors closed. She and Elizabeth belted out the words together, singing “that saved a wretch like me, I once was lost, but now I’m found, was blind but now I see.” Being alone in the elevator with Miss Albertha was as comfortable as sitting on the front porch at the farm with Grandmother.

Elizabeth felt revived by singing and the soothing sound of Miss Albertha’s powerful voice.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.