The Dr Annabel Tilson Novels Box Set

by Barbara Ebel

  The two women wasted no time. Annabel trotted down the empty upstairs corridor into Dustin’s room. His curly hair was more kempt than before and he wore his uniform.

  “I apologize,” he said. “People have been coming and going and only now I was going to text you.”

  “They’re discharging you?! I wish I could have hitched a ride to your place and brought you back street clothes to change into.”

  “No problem. No one will mess with me on my way home.”

  “The uniform doesn’t seem to afford you any extra protection.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe so.” He closed the gap between them and wrapped his arms around her; she hugged him back and closed her eyes.

  “What did the cardiologist say?”

  “He said my heart checks out fine and there is no sequela except for the bruising and pain to my chest wall … for which he’s prescribed pain pills.”

  “So you better take it easy.”

  “He wrote an absentee prescription as if I’m a little kid who needs to present it to my teacher so I can take off from school. Actually, seriously, he did, but I spoke earlier with Chief Erickson about the doctor’s orders. I’m officially off for the whole weekend, not just Sunday.”

  Annabel smiled and wiggled her head. “Doesn’t mean you can do anything exertional.”

  “Oh, I get it. Shucks. But it does mean we are going to kick back on Sunday. Whatever time you can parcel out for me.”

  “Besides the work I have to do, which includes studying and working on a presentation, we can chill together. Don’t forget that my new dog is included in this plan too, and our two pet species are set for an introduction.” She put her hand on her hip and pursed her lips. “And by the way, how are you getting home?”

  Dustin pointed behind her. She turned to see a paunchy, middle-aged man wearing an officer’s uniform, the same as Dustin’s.

  “Annabel, meet my partner, Sean. Sean, meet Annabel.”

  Annabel had met Dustin’s last partner, Edgar Banks, but not Sean.

  Sean extended his hand to Annabel. “Nice to finally meet you. Now I’ll be able to visualize you when he speaks about you over diner dinner.”

  “Or breakfast, or lunch,” Dustin said.

  Annabel laughed and twisted her mouth. “You two have more interesting things to talk about than me.”

  Sean raised his bushy eyebrows. “You are …”

  “All right,” Dustin butted in. “Guy talk needs to stay in a safety deposit box shared between two guys.”

  Sean shrugged and hooked his thumb in his belt.

  A nurse came in, followed by an orderly with a wheelchair. The RN handed Dustin a stack of paper she went over with him in advance. The orderly motioned Dustin into the chair.

  Dustin looked up at his partner. “Don’t worry. I’m not that frail. It’s hospital policy to transport patients to the front door. They’re covering their asses in case I trip on a floor tile.”

  “My,” Annabel said, “you learned a lot while you were in here for one day.”

  They cluttered the corridor and the elevator and Annabel stepped out from the elevator on the OB floor.

  “Hey,” Dustin said before the door snapped shut, “we still haven’t finished watching Gone with the Wind.”

  “We can finish it on Sunday!”

  -----

  Kristin’s arm was extended on the table, her head bent as she fiddled with her right topaz earring. For the OB team, rounds were finished and the day as good as done. Annabel’s time with the anesthesia resident had proved fruitful and she extrapolated exactly what she would use for her “drug shortage” slides. Kristin was so helpful, however, that she continued talking even though they both could go home.

  “The FDA plays a big part in this,” the senior resident said. “They are the gatekeepers, protecting the public from potentially unsafe drugs products. They are the ones who discover a company’s noncompliance with current good manufacturing practices or cGMPs. The reason may be because the company in question owns manufacturing equipment that becomes antiquated, or a sudden loss of personnel overseeing compliance issues, or a host of other reasons. In other words, they may not be intentionally noncompliant.”

  Annabel nodded. The FDA was a superpower and important to the public.

  “Or, a manufacturing company may decide to close down a certain facility due to business reasons, or a subcontractor supplying products to the pharmaceutical manufacturer has a problem on their end. Think about it. What if the factory of the supplier of the local anesthetic bottle is hit by a hurricane? Even though the local anesthetic can still be produced, its availability will grind to a halt.”

  “Causing the cascade of problems we must deal with,” Annabel said.

  “At least my specialty has the American Society of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine and they keep us current on drug shortage problems and suggest other methods of pain relief.”

  Annabel sat up tall. “Thanks again. I’m going home soon.”

  “And what’s going on with your boyfriend?”

  “He’s home. We don’t live together. The cardiologist instructed him to take the weekend off.”

  “Living together can have its advantages. My husband and I did it for a year before we married.”

  Annabel admitted to herself … she liked her own independence. She was growing closer to the police officer. Living together was something she hadn’t considered, and with her hours, and with his shifts, that would probably be a certifiable psychotic idea.

  -----

  It was so perfectly quiet in the lounge that Annabel procrastinated and figured she would work a few more minutes. Kristin had left. Dr. Harvey and Dr. Gash were gone too.

  Pam came in and scribbled something on the board behind Annabel’s back.

  “Where are the night docs?” Annabel asked.

  “Down in the ER.” Pam cleared her hoarse vocal cords and went into the restroom.

  That wraps it up, Annabel thought. Kristin had been so helpful that all she had to do was make some fancy slides at home with pictures, type in the bullet points, and her lecture would be almost ready. By tomorrow, it would be, she promised herself, and then she would have a few days to review it and be armed for any questions. Or at least some questions. She counted on Dr. Harvey bailing her out if someone stumped her with an impossible query.

  She closed her binder and packed her bag. At the round table where she’d been sitting, she ditched her iced tea cup and napkin, and brushed off cookie crumbs. Looking down at her scrubs, she decided to wear them home and not change. It was easy to make a habit of that. If the driver tonight asked her a sexist question, she would change the subject. Inside the locker room, she folded her blouse and pants, and overstuffed her backpack, ready to go home.

  Since she had off on Sunday, tomorrow, Saturday, would be the last day of her first week. She sighed with uneasiness because then there was only one week of obstetrics left before veering off into gynecology. At this point, was she as prepared as she should be as far as her test-taking?

  She glanced at the board and saw Emmett’s name down in the corner where the RNs usually noted which orderly was helping out. Pam had not written in the night orderly, but maybe he was running late.

  At the nurses’ desk outside the room, Annabel paused with her back pack clinging to her shoulders. She tore open a peppermint from the candy dish on the counter and popped it in her mouth as she contemplated. The day had turned out not to be as exciting as it had started. There just wasn’t much obstetric volume and, for the only afternoon delivery, one of the RNs had chased her out of a room in favor of a “real obstetrician.” Dr. Gash stayed oblivious to her absence, so she left it at that.

  She dragged herself down the hallway, her eyes glued on the lobby, when a door flew open and Emmett tripped over an IV pole he was pushing. He righted himself and his bulging eyes fell on Annabel.

  “She needs help! Come on!”

  Annabe
l’s anxiety rose in her throat and her pulse quickened. She didn’t need board certification in obstetrics to figure out that her skills, or lack thereof, were needed. A young woman swayed back and forth on the bed inside like waves were rocking her in a boat. Her eyes were fastened on the skull of a head trying to exit her genital canal.

  Annabel’s legs were frozen to the floor.

  “She needs you!” Emmett exclaimed.

  “Me?”

  Annabel and Emmett jerked their heads up and down the barren corridor, and then their eyes met. Yup, it was up to her.

  CHAPTER 28

  Annabel and Emmett sprang into the room. Annabel grabbed an OB delivery kit from the cabinet above the sink. Emmett scooted the rolling tray table near the end of the bed.

  She ripped open the package on the table, exposing the drapes and shiny instruments. Emmett pulled the adhesive off another packet and Annabel rushed her arms into the blue gown and then gloved. The orderly tied her up in the back.

  “I’m Annabel,” she said, remembering an important point previous attending doctors had told her: “See one, do one.” Besides the shoulder dystocia delivery, she had witnessed one full vaginal delivery from the beginning to the end. She better recall every last detail.

  The woman gripped the side of the bed like she held the bow rail of the sinking Titanic. Her face grimaced with pain and she gritted her teeth. Perspiration matted her hair around her forehead and, for a second, she locked her imploring stare on Annabel.

  Spared of dealing with the amniotic sac, Annabel saw that Mother Nature had ruptured it already. She put her hand over the crowning baby’s head and it delivered nicely. Fumbling with inexperience, she lightly suctioned the baby’s nose and scanned all around the infant’s neck. She would stroke if the cord was wrapped around and between the head and shoulders, but the neck was clear.

  Then her heart banged against her chest and her hand trembled. What if … what if … the baby had shoulder dystocia? She would be at a loss, or Emmett would need to assist her with the McRoberts maneuvers, which her team members had performed. However, she remembered a big risk factor for shoulder dystocia from her studies. Her patient was not obese, so, most likely, she need not worry about it.

  In a flash, a shoulder went down and a shoulder went up, and a whole new human being slithered out.

  Annabel placed the newborn baby girl with her mother and a smile of sheer joy replaced the woman’s pained expression.

  For Annabel, her dread was replaced with a pure magical moment. She clamped the cord.

  “Emmett, how about cutting the cord?”

  The imposing man widened his smile. His adventure with Annabel just kept getting better. He did as she asked.

  “Can you please hunt down Pam, the RN?”

  Emmett took off.

  “I’m Linda,” the woman said. A tear hung on the inside of her eye and she left it there with pride.

  The baby’s color looked rosy and she wiggled her little fists around in the air. No worries there, Annabel thought. “What’s her name?”

  “Wilma.”

  “Welcome, Wilma.”

  “What on earth?” Pam said as she rushed in with Emmett at her heels. “I’ll page the senior resident.”

  “Can you first draw cord blood?”

  Pam nodded.

  With a curved clamp, Annabel held the umbilical cord, and ever so gently, gave a bit of traction. The placenta slithered out into a round pan.

  She felt drained but nearly tearful like Linda.

  After being summoned, the night resident came in to take over the minor remaining details and was impressed with Annabel’s accomplishment. Before Annabel could leave, however, she needed to document the delivery. She felt like a senior resident performing such a chore, one she never imagined doing as a student.

  She left the room different from when she went in: revitalized yet fatigued; ecstatic yet blue. She had done it. If she decided not to go into obstetrics, that might be the only baby she ever delivered.

  She grabbed the patient’s chart from the desk, but on second thought, placed it on the counter top for the time being. There was someone she really needed to see before leaving.

  Annabel waited patiently for a few minutes and then Emmett strolled out of the male locker room.

  “I’m sorry I dragged you into that delivery,” he said, looking down at his shoes. “It’s just that nobody else was around.”

  “Emmett, you had no choice. Thank you for grabbing someone … I happened to be handy. I am so glad you yanked me in there. We made a great team. Can you believe it? We delivered a baby!”

  He smiled wide enough to expose his chipped tooth. “I guess we did a decent job, Dr. Annabel.”

  “Not too shabby, Emmett. And we stayed over beyond our hours of duty. We both could have been out of here a long time ago.”

  “No gym for me tonight. This evening was enough excitement for one night.”

  “Me too. Good night, Emmett.”

  She burst with excitement as she rode home in a bright yellow Uber car in back of a woman with a ponytail sticking out of the hole of her cap, but all she really wanted was to call Bob and spill out the details. That would freak out her driver, she thought, so she stayed clammed shut.

  -----

  Annabel shoved everything on the kitchen counter after running up the stairs as fast as she could. She whipped out her iPhone and called Bob.

  “Hey,” he said.

  She had a difficult time composing herself, so she grabbed a deep breath and then puffed out quickly. “You are not going to believe it.” The words raced out of her mouth.

  Bob’s interest piqued. “Did something happen while you were running?” He took a short cut through the apartment’s pool area after Oliver’s last walk, but stopped short, dropped down on a lounge chair, and held the phone with his free hand.

  “Nope. I just got home late. It was like a female seal slipping out of the ocean and squirming onto a rock and I caught her! A baby!”

  “What? Are you telling me you delivered a baby? The resident actually let you do that?”

  “No. I mean yes. I mean nobody, nurses or the night team, was around.

  One minute I walk into this lady’s room where she’s in a pain score of eleven out of ten and her abdomen has this wave moving on top like a basketball is moving to her vagina. I went in there to clean white sheets on her bed and left behind the dirtiest linen imaginable.”

  “Wow. That is crazy. So what was it like? What did you do … exactly? Was the baby okay?”

  “There were no complications. Mother Nature took care of most of it.”

  “Still. Don’t be so humble. You knew what you were doing. What about the afterbirth and all that? Details, please. What if I have to do the same thing before I even start OB? What if I have lousy residents like what happened to you the first few days?”

  Bob leaned back and Oliver sat politely next to him, so he put the leash loop on the end of the chair. He listened attentively while she told him the whole story of her emergency obstetric care.

  “I may not do that again,” she said, “ever.”

  “Wow. In a way, you took a big risk. People are so litigious these days, but you had no choice. You may need to have an attorney write a new law for us - a ‘Good Samaritan medical student law’ protecting us from liability if unintended consequences befall us from rendering our assistance.” He laughed at his legal jargon.

  Annabel chuckled as well. “My poor dad. Maybe I should ask him for more money for legal counsel.”

  “I know. While you’re at it, why don’t you ask him if he wants to be a behind-the-scenes dog owner of Oliver and support his expenses?”

  “Ha. I’d better not and I’d better get off the phone. My whole night is shot and I’m due on the wards tomorrow morning. One more day doing OB before I pop by your place and pick up Oliver.”

  “See you Sunday, but let me know tomorrow what your attending thinks about what you did.�
�

  “Okay, later.”

  -----

  Saturday morning, Dustin woke up with a loud grumble and made the analogy of what he perceived in his chest to a hangover. The physical discomfort on his chest wall was not from drinking alcohol and suffering a day-after effect to his head, but a steering wheel’s day-after insult to his sternum. He grimaced as he swung his feet to the side and pushed off from his bed.

  He contemplated his weekend off … the only secondary gain of his stationary car accident. Not that he minded his job, but the weekend would serve a useful purpose. He would rest like they told him, however, he was going to implement his plan - his idea to ask Annabel to marry him. With no uncertainty, he cared for her more than any female in his life before. He must be in love with her; otherwise, he did not know what love was.

  He washed and dressed and went downstairs gingerly. “Good morning, Solar.”

  The bird bobbed his head when Dustin entered the kitchen. “What’s your problem?” he chattered.

  “I’m hurting, Solar, which is my problem. Be a good bird, be polite, and put up with me today. And for your information, I’m making an important purchase this morning.”

  Dustin spooned instant coffee into a cup, added water, and slipped it into the microwave. He popped a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory pill into his mouth and chased it down with water. As much as he could, he was going to avoid the narcotic prescription sitting next to the fruit bowl. Every once in a while, however, he needed to pull a deep breath, and that was no fun. No fun at all.

  He looked out the kitchen window to his small front yard. The sky was partly cloudy and the trees gently swayed. It would be a nice morning for his one and only excursion; a trip to the mall. He hated shopping, but this would be different. He would buy an engagement ring as fine and polished as Annabel.

  “Alexa,” he said, “what’s the temperature?”