by Nina Kaye
I reach the meeting room and discover that my project team are already there.
‘Hi, everyone.’ I grin as I scan each face in the room. ‘Great timing, as ever. You really do like to make me look bad.’
There’s a collective chuckle in response.
‘How are we all?’ I half-glance at them as I haul my laptop and project documents out of my overfilled bag. As I do, my hand seems to slip, and my papers make a dramatic bid for escape, scattering across the carpeted floor.
‘Dammit,’ I curse, bending to pick them up. ‘Sorry guys. Let me sort these and we’ll get started.’ Two members of my project team rush forward to help me.
‘Afternoon, Alex.’ An affable female voice comes from behind me. ‘Good to see you in control as always.’
I stand up quickly, feeling the protest in my aching thigh muscles as I do, and turn to face my boss. ‘Laura, hi. Didn’t see you there. Are you joining us?’
‘Thought I would today.’ She smiles supportively at me. ‘Get a feel for how things are coming along. That OK with you?’
‘Of course.’ I gesture to the only empty seat round the table. ‘Make yourself comfortable. Some great progress we can share with you. The team have been at it hard, and the results are really showing.’
I beam round the room at my fifteen-strong project team, who are mirroring my gesture, appreciative of the good press in front of the big boss.
‘Well, just carry on as normal. Pretend I’m not here.’ Laura makes for the back of the room.
I kick off the meeting and start to run through the weekly actions, seeking input from the team on their various tasks. As I do, I become aware that my concentration is not as sharp as it usually is. I’m dealing with the short responses all right, but for some reason I’m struggling to follow the more in-depth explanations being offered.
‘Sorry… so you’re saying the system user testing is not covering all required areas?’ I ask John, our business analyst on the project.
‘That’s not exactly what I’m saying, Alex.’ John shakes his head. ‘In theory, it is covering all areas. But I’m concerned about the level to which the testing is being done: the lack of detail in the test scripts, particularly for the new accounting processes.’
‘Right.’ I pause, giving my head a shake as if to throw off whatever is causing my brain to feel like cotton wool. ‘So… what are we going to do about this?’ I’m intentionally stalling to try to get my jumbled thoughts together.
‘I was hoping you would tell me.’ John cocks his head quizzically. ‘As I said, I’ve exhausted all options. Perhaps this now needs to be escalated to the project board?’
‘Right… yes, of course.’ I surreptitiously pinch my leg under the desk to try to jolt myself out of this odd, fatigued state. ‘I’ll escalate it. OK, what’s next?’
As the team member next to John starts sharing their update, I find I’m unable to take in a word they’re saying. I am not just below par; my inability to function properly is starting to make me anxious. What’s going on? Is it because Laura’s here? No, it can’t be. Laura and I get on great. She’s joined meetings before. Then a thought hits me. Maybe it’s my cold. Or worse, the flu. Please, I so don’t have time for the flu.
‘Alex? Do you agree?’
I snap back to the conversation. ‘Oh… sorry. Eh… yes. Definitely, Sandra.’
‘Really?’ Laura suddenly pipes up from the back of the room, making it clear my fifty-fifty gamble hasn’t paid off. ‘I’m not sure I agree with that, Alex. And I’m surprised you do.’ She’s eyeing me curiously.
‘I… eh… gosh, no, you’re right, what am I thinking?’ I grab the project update in front of me, desperate for a clue as to what this conversation is about, but the words are blurred, and I realise I’m seeing double.
‘Alex, is everything OK?’ Laura asks. ‘You look a bit… hot and bothered. Maybe get some water from the cooler?’
I realise that must be it. I’m dehydrated from my run. And starving too. That on top of a cold isn’t going to help me at all.
‘Good idea. Just give me a moment.’
I get up and move quickly towards the meeting room door. As I do, the room swims in front of me, making it difficult to keep my balance. In an attempt to steady myself, I try to grab the door handle, but instead make contact with nothing but fresh air. This proves too much for my already struggling body and before I realise what’s happening, I’ve slipped on something and I’m falling sideways. The last thing I’m aware of as I claw at the air, trying frantically to rescue myself, is a collective gasp from behind me, followed by a sudden sharp, shooting burst of pain in my head.
Chapter 3
‘Alex? Lex, hon. Can you hear me?’ Sasha’s voice sounds distant, like it’s emanating from another world.
‘She’s starting to come round.’ Another faint voice enters my consciousness. ‘Alex? Alex, can you hear me, sweetheart?’
I open my eyes slowly, unable to communicate as my disoriented senses attempt to comprehend my environment: intermittent beeping, flashing lights in front of my eyes, blurry heads bobbing above me with muddled voices, the smell of well-worn carpet. Then throbbing pain.
‘Oh… oww…’ I whimper. ‘What’s… my head… so sore…’
I’m so groggy and dizzy, I can barely get the words out. I try instead to sit up but feel an immediate resistance on my shoulder.
‘Stay where you are, sweetheart,’ a caring but commanding female voice – the owner of the hand gently pressing against my body – instructs me. ‘Don’t try and get up. You’ve hit your head and we’re concerned about your neck because of the way you fell. You need to stay completely still until we put a neck brace on you and get you onto a spinal board. Just answer yes or no – do you understand what I’m telling you?’
‘I… yes… am I… hospital? Smells… hospital.’
‘You’re still in your office, Alex,’ the woman, who smells clinical, reassures me. ‘I’m Jill. I’m a paramedic and I’m here to look after you.’
‘Office… paramedic…’ I repeat, confusion clouding my mind until it all starts to come back to me, and I begin to panic. ‘Wait… oh, no… my team… the meeting… are they…’
‘Sshhh… they’re not here, Alex,’ Jill soothes me. ‘Forget about all that. It’s just you, me, my colleague, Dennis, and your friend, Sasha, who’s going to talk to you in just a second, OK?’
‘OK.’ Tears begin to track their way down my face, just below my temples: partly from the pain and shock, but also from a rising sense of humiliation that this has happened in my place of work.
‘Alex, we’re going to take you to hospital,’ says Jill. ‘Sasha’s going to come with you and your fiancé’s going to meet us there. Now, I just need to do some basic checks with you. Can you tell me what day it is?’
‘Eh… Monday.’ I blink at Jill, trying to take her in properly, but my brain doesn’t seem to be able to connect the different parts of her. She’s still more of a blur.
‘That’s great, Alex. And what city are you in?’
‘Glasgow.’
‘You’re doing really well,’ Jill continues to encourage me. ‘Now, can you tell me how many fingers I’m holding up?’
Jill’s hand appears in my sphere of vision. I try my best to focus on it, but my eyes refuse to cooperate; fingers seem to be swimming everywhere.
‘Five?’ I try.
‘How about now?’
‘Three?’ My trickle of tears turns into a sob from being unable to do anything but guess.
‘OK, sweetheart. That’s enough for now.’ Jill gives my hand a gentle squeeze. ‘We’re going to get you onto the spinal board in a moment. Sasha’s going to keep you company while we get it sorted. Meantime – really important – I need you to tell me straight away if you start to feel sick, and I need you to keep talking to us, even if you feel sleepy. Can you do that?’
‘Uh-huh,’ I whisper through my tears.
‘Good girl.’
Jill strokes my hand before moving away towards her colleague. Then I hear her say, ‘There’s visual disturbance. We need to get her to the hospital asap.’
Before I have a chance to process this and react, I hear Sasha’s voice, and a warm hand grasps mine.
‘Lex, hon. Oh, I knew something wasn’t right. I shouldn’t have let you get back to work without having something to eat and drink.’
‘No… Sash… not your fault.’ I cling to her hand, trying to make out her fuzzy features. ‘My stupid fault… should have listened. Did they see? My team. So… humiliated.’
She dabs at my teary face with a tissue. ‘Don’t worry about that. Everyone’s just concerned. I was so worried when you didn’t wake up at first. I’m still worried…’ She tails off, realising that she’s not helping to keep me calm.
‘I’ll be fine.’ I smile weakly at her blurry profile. ‘Just a silly fall, right? Serves me right… total bridezilla.’
‘Aww, you’re not. You’ve been great.’ Sasha squeezes my hand, but her voice is choked with emotion.
‘Is that a sense of humour sneaking through?’ Jill the paramedic appears above me again, only recognisable by her voice. ‘That’s a good sign. Let’s get you sorted and across to the hospital.’
* * *
Several hours later, I’m lying propped up on a trolley in a dreary cubicle within Glasgow Royal Infirmary’s Accident and Emergency department. It’s clinical in every way: the smell of disinfectant, lights that are uncomfortably bright, just a mobile monitor keeping an eye on my vitals and two black plastic chairs for company. The curtain protecting my privacy on three sides is a cold uninviting shade of arctic blue.
I’ve been poked and prodded, stuffed into machines and asked to repeat what happened several times over to different medical professionals. I’m exhausted and sore, with seriously wounded pride. I want nothing more than to go home to my meteor-sized sofa and cuddle up with Dom.
As I’m pondering my chances of getting home, wincing from the razor-sharp pain that intermittently shoots through the omnipresent ache in my head, the curtain to my cubicle is whisked open and Dom appears with an armful of goodies, looking mighty pleased with the bounty from his hunt.
‘Got a couple of sandwiches from WHSmith.’ He plonks his broad, masculine frame down onto one of the plastic chairs, which seems to sigh a little under his weight. ‘Bought your two favourites: free-range egg and watercress, and chicken and avocado mayo. Also got some crisps – those pea sticks you like. Thought you might want some chocolate to cheer you up as well.’
I eye the assortment of confectionery bars on his lap. ‘Thanks, lover. I’ll take the chicken and avocado. And the pea sticks. No chocolate. Behaving like a lunatic bride-to-be and landing myself in hospital is no reason to abandon my pre-wedding diet altogether. Or to indulge in self-sympathy.’
‘Don’t you think you’re being a little hard on yourself?’ Dom dumps his offerings on the chair next to him, then hands me my chosen items. ‘No one thinks you’re a lunatic. But you said yourself you thought this happened because you did go too far with your diet. You need to eat to help yourself recover quickly – and you also need a little TLC.’
‘I am eating.’ I tear open the sandwich pack and take a bite as if to prove it. ‘I just don’t want to ruin my efforts unnecessarily. Especially as I’ve been told I won’t be doing any running for a couple of weeks – at least.’
As the creaminess of the mayo hits my taste buds and the soft avocado squirms around my mouth, I feel a sudden gagging reflex in my gullet, followed by a wave of nausea. I fake a small cough to cover this up, all too aware that Dom noticing will lead him to the view that I need to stay in hospital overnight.
‘OK, sure.’ Dom regards me with some doubt. ‘You know I love you for you. Right? Not for how you look.’
‘Oh, stop it. I know that. I’m doing this for me, not you. I had you trapped a long time ago. You’re not getting away.’ I give him a mischievous wink, ignoring the unpleasant swirling feeling in my stomach.
‘It’s so good to see you smiling, kitten.’ He hovers over me closely, giving me a waft of his delicious eau de toilette, and plants a firm, affectionate kiss on my lips. ‘You worried us all there.’
‘I’ll be fine.’ I continue to chew reluctantly. ‘You must be hungry too. Eat the other sandwich. I’ll be getting out of here later, so I won’t need both.’
‘Did they tell you that while I was away?’
‘Nope. But there’s no way I’m spending the night here.’
‘Lex.’ Dom takes my hand in his. ‘I’m not sure it’s a good idea for you to be coming home. And I’m not sure you should have unrealistic expectations. Only hours ago, you were lying unconscious on your office floor.’
‘And I’m fine now. I can see properly again and everything.’ As I offer him my most confident smile, my mouth unexpectedly begins to water and there’s a sudden lurch in my abdomen. ‘Oh, man… I’m going to— sick bowl.’
Dom demonstrates Olympic medal-winning reflexes as he grabs the bowler-hat-shaped sick bowl from the end of my trolley and whips it in front of me, just as my undigested sandwich makes a sudden and unpleasant reappearance. Holding my hair out of the way with his other hand, Dom tries to soothe me as I battle between trying to control the spasms in my oesophagus and coping with the searing pain in my head that explodes like fireworks with every fresh round of retching.
As I’m starting to regain some composure, the curtain is pulled back and the first doctor I saw when I arrived in A&E, Dr Amani, enters with a nurse. The nurse takes the sick bowl from Dom and leaves, while the doctor swooshes the curtain back over again to safeguard my privacy.
‘How are you doing?’ Dr Amani offers me an empathetic smile. ‘Not so good, it seems.’
‘I’m fine. I really am.’ I try for upbeat, but the tremor in my voice and the spatters of puke down my hospital gown tell a different story.
‘Alex, you have a moderate concussion.’ He cocks his head slightly. ‘You are a good way away from fine. And I am afraid that means you will need to stay in overnight, maybe even for a couple of nights.’
‘But…’ I look up at him helplessly.
‘We need to monitor you. There is no spinal injury, but you do have some swelling on your brain and it is our responsibility to make sure you are totally fit to leave. The fact that you have just been sick tells me you most certainly are not.’
‘Right.’
I feel Dom’s hand clasp mine reassuringly.
‘We are going to admit you to the neurology ward,’ says Dr Amani. ‘The consultant there will see you tomorrow morning. She is going to review your scan results, first thing.’
‘And then I might get out tomorrow?’
‘Why don’t we take it one step at a time?’ He picks up the chart at the end of my trolley and scribbles something down. ‘We need to check on some possible anomalies in your scan. The additional MRI scan we did.’
‘Anomalies?’ Dom looks alarmed. ‘What do you mean by anomalies?’
‘There is nothing to be overly concerned about at this stage.’ Dr Amani expertly placates him. ‘It is due process to have an expert review the results. We just need to rule things out.’
‘What do you need to rule out?’ I’m mildly irritated by this unexpected diversion.
‘As I said, one step at a time.’ Dr Amani smiles kindly at me. ‘Now try to rest and let that head of yours recover.’
He disappears from the cubicle with the swiftness of a magician, leaving Dom and me looking at each other blankly.
Chapter 4
I wake early the next morning from a fractured sleep: a combination of endless disturbance through the night from the desperately unwell patients in my shared room, the lack of familiarity of my surroundings, and the unrelenting thudding pain in my head, despite being dosed up with strong painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs. The ward smells the same as the A&E department – cleaning products mixed with medical disin
fectant and cotton wool. Although it doesn’t feel like the best environment for rest and recovery – which seems ironic given that’s part of the reason I’m here – I do now at least have a proper bed with crisp white linen and a more robust curtain to shut out the rest of the ward (though not the noise). There’s also a wooden locker built into my bedside unit, housing my personal possessions. Thankfully this means I now have my precious iPad to distract myself.
Bleary-eyed, I thank the man who delivers my breakfast from his trolley, pulling across my tray table so that I can eat from my propped-up position. Having been admitted too late the previous evening to choose my own breakfast, I’ve ended up with the menu selection made by one of the ward’s previous tenants. Someone lucky enough to have escaped this pseudo prison – although I sincerely hope it wasn’t via the morgue.
I survey the contents of my tray: a glass of fresh orange juice, a bowl of cornflakes, two slices of white toast accompanied by individual portions of butter and jam, and a plate with a metal cover over it. I tentatively lift it and immediately regret doing so as I’m engulfed by the smell of cooked egg. This sends a fresh wave of nausea sweeping through my hypersensitised body. I slam the cover back down, pluck the orange juice from the tray and push the tray table as far away as I can.
At least there’s one advantage to having a head that feels like an overworked church bell: if it lasts much longer, I’ll meet my goal wedding weight well in advance of my self-imposed deadline. As this thought cheers me slightly, another moves across my consciousness, blocking out my little ray of sunshine. Dr Amani’s words from the evening before: ‘some possible anomalies in your scan’. What did he mean by that? It seemed to unsettle Dom, although a lot of things unsettle Dom. That probably means it isn’t anything to concern me. It would be useful to know when I’ll be seeing the consultant though, not least so that I can find out how much longer I’ll have to endure these breakfasts.
‘Excuse me?’ I call to a passing nurse. ‘Do you have any idea what time the doctor will be seeing me today?’
