Hard Pushed by Leah Hazard

Author:Leah Hazard
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473563537
Publisher: Random House

One of the most difficult things about Triage is that we seldom get to see the end of our patients’ stories. As the name of the unit suggests, they come in for assessment, get triaged to the appropriate department, have a baby or get sent home. Whatever happens, happens, while our phone keeps ringing and the waiting room keeps filling up. Over the next few weeks, I would use any spare moment to search for Tina’s lab results on our online system, curious about her outcome, wondering if she would ever remember the names of all her dogs, or even see them again, or stride through the woods with a flush in her cheeks as the pack yomped happily through the trees ahead. As days passed and the lab results rolled in one by one, the diagnosis was confirmed: influenza, complicated by pneumonia. A double dunter, as they say. So Raymond and I had both been right.

Some time later, as Triage began to bloom with early springtime babies, Tina returned to our desk. She looked radiant, powerful and strong as she breathed through wave after wave of contractions. I would barely have recognised her if I hadn’t seen her name on the front of her notes. As it was, she didn’t recognise me at all.

I took Tina’s arm and guided her gently towards bed five, a few steps from where she’d been during that terrifying time in December, and I smiled to myself as she made the unmistakeable sounds of a woman in the advanced stages of labour. A torrent of Polish expletives spilled from her mouth as a mighty surge rolled through her body; she was brimming with life in all of its brutal glory despite the spectre of death that had lingered at her back. As she raged and roared, I said a silent prayer in praise of whatever merciful force had kept Tina safe. I thanked the Oracle, I thanked Martha, and I even thanked Raymond.

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