By My Side

by Wendy Lou Jones

  That evening she brought her overnight bag in from the car and carried it up to her old room. It was still there, just as it had ever been, as it always was whenever she needed it. And for once Kate took the time to look around at her old life. Her childhood books were still lined up along the shelf beside her bed. Cuddly toys lay against her pillow and, pulling open the bedside drawer, she found her drawing pad still lying there.

  She pulled it out and flipped through the drawings. Page after page of watery themes lay open before her with gradually increasing skill. Mermaids and seahorses occupied a lot of her earlier work and she was reminded of the day Adam first had first seen her room.

  As she had grown older, her mind had obviously turned more to the surface of the ocean and desert islands.

  A page fell out and dropped to the ground and Kate picked it up and unfolded it. It was a picture cut out of a magazine and strangely it seemed to be almost identical to the picture she now had on her wall at home, even down to the flip-flops. She tucked it back inside the book and placed it carefully back into the drawer. Further back she found her old worry dolls. She picked them out and looked at them. “I might have need of you tonight,” she said and placed them on the surface.

  Her old diaries were lurking in the next drawer down. She took one out and began to read it. It was mortifying. Kate cringed with embarrassment at her teenage self and popped it quickly back into the drawer.

  She looked around the walls. Some of her better drawings were still up there, faded a little now, but still visible and she realised how drawing had been her escape back then, when so much sadness had clung around.

  She reached further back into the drawer and felt around for what she knew should be there. Reverently, she pulled out a small silver picture frame holding Jacob’s happy smiling face and somehow her own troubles managed to take on perspective. He had had to endure so much in his little life and all Kate had was a bit of heartache. She smiled sadly and kissed him. Time to pull yourself together, she thought, and placed it on the surface next to her bed.

  The next day they were off to her brother’s to visit the clan. Kate left her things back at her mum’s house as she planned to drive home from there later that evening. They packed their presents and set off on their journey, with her parents in the front seats listening to Kenny Rogers and Kiki Dee, while in the back seat, settled down with her MP3 player, Kate found her escape with the voice of Rihanna.

  The moment they arrived a horde of squealing girls descended on them, full of Christmas excitement and sweeties. To Kate they were a breath of fresh air. She played with them all day long, dressing dolls and racing toy horses around the rooms. Pink and sparkles littered everywhere, all brought by Father Christmas. She was ‘favourite aunt’, who got to tuck the exhausted little princesses into bed at the end of the day and read them their bedtime story.

  When the story had ended Kate walked quietly back downstairs but as she approached the bottom, she overheard her mother talking to the others about her.

  “I’m worried, Jimmy. She’s not herself at the moment and she won’t tell me what’s wrong.”

  “Well, she’s hardly going to tell me. I’m her brother,” Jimmy’s voice piped up. “What do you think is up?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Have you asked her?”

  “Not in so many words, but I don’t normally have to.”

  Jimmy sighed and then her dad’s voice butted in. “I’m sure she’ll tell us when she’s good and ready.”

  Kate cleared her throat and rounded the corner as four guilty faces smiled back at her. “They’re ready for you now, Becca,” she said.

  Rebecca went hastily up the stairs, past Kate, to kiss her darlings goodnight and immediately Kate’s mum started searching for something to say.

  “I don’t think I’ll need to eat anything more for a month. What about you, love?”

  “No, not a bean,” her dad replied. “And I should think we’d better be making tracks soon. Kate’s got to get back home tonight, haven’t you, sweetheart?”

  “She could always kip over with us again. Would you like to do that?” her mum asked.

  Kate smiled. “No, I can’t, Mum. I need to get back tonight. I’ve got work tomorrow. Sorry.”

  “Right then.” Her dad gently patted his wife on the leg. “Come on, old girl, we’d better make a move.”

  The drive back home was quiet and it was late by the time they got back to her parents’ house.

  “You could have asked me, Mum,” Kate said as they were getting her things together ready to go. Her mum looked up. “I thought I had found someone. The man I told you about.”

  “You managed to talk to him?”

  “I even told him about Jacob.”

  “But he wasn’t the right one?” her mum asked.

  “It seems not.”

  Kate’s mum squeezed her hand and finding nothing that ought to be said, she just pulled her against her in an embrace.

  The following morning Kate was back at work. She rang the switchboard to ask which consultant was on duty for orthopaedics that day and was informed it was Mr Barker. She let out a sigh of relief. At least now she could be pretty sure that unless he was deliberately going out of his way to create another scene in A&E, Adam was unlikely to bother her that day.

  Work was busy. Cloud had settled low on the roads, keeping a frostiness in the air that crept all around. Patients were coming in with their wrists and ankles broken from falling on the slippery ground. Asthmatics were wheezing and the overindulgent of Christmas were suffering too.

  Kate spotted Adam at the top of A&E at one point in the evening. He looked at her with eyes quiet and dulled, but Mr Cobham was soon on hand escorting him carefully away. He returned not long after and Kate was sure she caught him sighing at her, but then he too was gone.

  Mr Cobham sent a message that he wanted to speak to Kate after her shift, but Kate was in no mood for a lecture, so she pretended to forget and escaped from the hospital as fast as she could.

  Kate knew then that she had to speak to Anna. She rang her from a layby a short distance away from town and fortunately she was in.

  “Anna, it’s Kate. I know it’s late and it will be even more so by the time I get to you,” she said, “but I really need to talk. Can I come over?”

  Anna seemed a little alarmed by Kate’s request. “Er… yes, of course. I’ll be here. Are you going to stay?”

  “No. I can’t. I’m on an early in the morning. It’ll only be a quick visit, but there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

  “Okay. I’ll be waiting. I’ll get the kettle on. Drive carefully.”

  Kate put the car back into gear and turned around, heading west, in the direction of Brisely.

  As she left the lights of the city behind her, mists were closing in and she flicked on her fog lamp and peered at the road ahead, determined that she would soon be seeing things more clearly.

  Winding country roads spread out before her and the radio chatted away in the background as the miles ticked steadily by.

  ~

  Back in A&E Mark Cobham had been wandering around the department, frustrated by Kate’s disappearance. He checked that everyone was happy for him to head off for the night and told the registrar to call him if he was needed. Gloria was last to finish that evening and before she left the department she handed over to the night shift and they settled in.

  About twenty minutes into the shift there was a call from ambulance control that a crew was on its way in. Their passenger was a young man, he had been a driver involved in a collision with another car. There was a second ambulance following soon after with the driver of the other vehicle and they would be arriving in A&E in less than fifteen minutes. Both were in a serious condition.

  Angela, the senior nurse on duty that night, put out the call for the trauma team and before long, Mr Barker, Mr Cobham and Clare Nightingale, the anaesthetist, were all arriving. Their teams hurried in an
d they got ready to receive the casualties.

  The first ambulance arrived and the team sprang into action, stripping away the clothing, assessing for injuries and organising lines up and fluids run in. It was a young lad, possibly in his late teens and he was shouting and thrashing around; very difficult to handle. Mark took the details from the paramedics about how the crash had happened and in what condition the casualty had been found. Orders were called out for bloods and X-rays and then the consultants stood back, making sure everything was being done.

  The police walked in and approached Mark. They told him about the conditions of both vehicles and then they were directed to go and get a cup of coffee as the patient was still too unstable to be seen.

  The second ambulance arrived, with a female thought to be in her twenties. Unlike the first casualty, although semi-conscious at the scene, this woman was now unrousable. They brought her swiftly into the other bed of Resus One and Mark, happy with the management of the lad, moved over to work on the young woman instead.

  There was blood all over her face and her injuries were most obvious down her right-hand side. The receptionist hurried down to take the second lot of details from the crew, but so far no-one had found any means of ID and so she asked the policemen to see if they could be of any help.

  The nurses cut away the clothing on the injured woman so the doctors could locate her injuries and then cleaned the blood from her face to see where it was coming from. Mark approached and looked at the patient.

  “This is a nurse’s uniform,” one of the nurses suddenly noticed.

  Mark looked at her. “It’s Kate!”

  In that moment, the whole of A&E seemed to forget how to breathe and an instant later they were running around frantically, doing whatever they thought they needed to do. Mark called everyone to a stop. “Listen,” he said. “I need everyone to calm down. Right now Kate is just another patient. We need to give her our best efforts, just like we do for everyone else. Now I want you all to take a deep breath and concentrate. I don’t want to miss anything.”

  The department kicked back into action and a minute or two later he retreated into the office to make a call.

  Chapter 10

  Kate’s body was bleeding from somewhere inside. Her scalp wound had been found and bandaged but her breathing was still less secure. Keith Hammond, the surgeon, came hurrying in and Mr Cobham brought him quickly up to speed. Clare, the anaesthetist, voiced her concerns. She wanted Kate intubated to try and correct her oxygen level and protect her airway. Her blood pressure was still dropping. Bags of fluids and blood were put up and the surgeons were anxious to get her into Theatre as soon as possible.

  Adam charged into A&E rolling up his sleeves but Mr Barker headed him off.

  “Adam, what the hell are you doing here? I’m on-call tonight.”

  “I don’t care,” Adam said. “This one has to be mine.”

  John Barker tried to block his way, standing between Adam and the patient he needed to see.

  “Don’t get in my way, John,” Adam warned, straining to see what was going on over John’s shoulder. “She needs me. I’ve got to get in there. You’re wasting precious time.”

  Mark walked over, leaving the surgeon and anaesthetist to look after Kate. “I called him, John,” he said.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” John snapped back.

  “He had a right to know.”

  “It’s unethical. He’s too close to her to be any use.”

  Adam was getting angry.

  Mark put a hand on John’s shoulder. “If it was your wife in there, John,” he said calmly, “who would you trust more than yourself to save her?”

  From behind the huddle of arguing consultants the anaesthetist called out. “We’re losing her.”

  Adam charged in and got to work, calling out for immediate answers to all of his questions. Major injuries: Chest wound, right arm fractures - many, all pulses intact - open wounds to legs, suspected internal bleeding in the abdomen. Spine? Nothing obvious, but still waiting on films.

  “There’s no breath sounds on the right. We’ve got tracheal shift,” she told him. “She’s got a tension.”

  “Someone get me a cannula,” Adam called out in a voice that belied his tension. “Biggest one you’ve got. Now!”

  “Her pressure’s still dropping,” Clare said.

  Adam plunged the needle straight through the chest wall and a rush of air hissed out allowing the chest to sink back into a symmetrical rhythm. “I need a chest drain.”

  Within seconds a drain pack appeared on a trolley and Adam pulled on some fresh gloves and got stuck in.

  “How are her sats?” he asked as he worked at the chest wall to gain entrance.

  “Up to 75 per cent and rising,” she told him.

  Adam’s concentration never flickered. “Blood pressure?”

  “Not good.”

  Before long he had a drain in position and had stitched it in securely.

  The phone rang and Mark answered it. “Theatre’s ready for you,” he called.

  The X-rays came through and Mark checked them. “Spines clear,” he said. “Adam, you need to see these.”

  Adam nodded over. “Okay everyone, we need to get her up there fast. Clare. Happy?”

  Clare nodded.

  “Keith, you get in there and open her up and I’ll join you as soon as I can. I need to have a look at her X-rays first. Come on everyone, let’s move.”

  Adam studied the X-rays and made a plan for all the work he had to do. Focus and determination were controlling the panic as he tried hard to forget who was lying on the table in front of him. Staff swapped meaningful glances as Adam turned the department upside down in an effort to give her the best chance possible of pulling through.

  When he was satisfied he knew what needed to be done, Adam grabbed his jacket and marched down the corridor, out of A&E and up to Theatre. He scrubbed up, almost shredding the skin from his fingers in his hurry to get in.

  At the doorway he paused and closed his eyes. “Just let her pull through,” he silently whispered. “Let this one live and I’ll never ask for anything ever again.”

  A nurse met him inside and tied his gown. He went over to Clare. “How’s she holding up?”

  “She’s hanging in there, just about, but they still haven’t got a handle on the bleeding. We’ve got some more blood on its way up, but she’s certainly not out of the woods yet.”

  He appeared at the surgeon’s side. “Keith. What’s happening? Why haven’t you managed to stop the bleeding yet?”

  “Give us a chance. We’ve only had her open a few minutes and there’s blood everywhere in here. I’m doing my best. Now give me some space and let me do my job.”

  Adam took a step back, pacing around like a caged tiger, watching the minutes and seconds tick by on a clock on the bare white walls. The porter arrived with more blood from Blood Bank and Clare was happier for a while.

  “Got you!” the surgeon said after what seemed to Adam like an age. He asked his registrar to use the sucker in a particular place and called for a second clamp. Swabs were packed inside the abdomen and he looked up at Clare with relief. “I think we’ve got it.”

  A short while later a kidney was delivered up into a silver dish and taken away from Theatre. The surgeon called across to Adam. “Had to take out the kidney, I’m afraid. It was too badly damaged. But fingers crossed we’ve got control of the bleeding now.”

  Adam remembered how to breathe and he slowed his pace just a little.

  The packs were removed and the abdomen was closed. The surgeons finished up and handed over, and Adam approached the table, with John’s registrar standing by.

  There was a lot to be done and it was already past midnight. Plates and screws were fixed to all the major bones in Kate’s right arm and a nail was sunk into her femur down her right thigh, found to be cracked on the X-rays. All the many wounds down her right side and scalp were painstakingly cleaned, explore
d and closed, as the noise from the ventilator hushed rhythmically beside them and the chest drain bubbled steadily away.

  It was well past four in the morning by the time they were finished. Adam sent the registrar to bed to try and get some rest before the ward round. The nurses bandaged the wounds and cleaned up the blood spilled by the operation and when he was done, Adam binned his mask, hat and gloves and dropped his dirty gown in the laundry.

  He picked up his things and met the others in recovery. Clare was busy writing in the notes, so Adam gingerly approached the trolley and looked into the barely recognisable face of the woman he loved. He touched Kate’s left hand and squeezed it in his own, unable to take his eyes off the pale skin and matted hair before him.

  Shortly after, Clare walked over and handed Adam the notes and he thanked her for her help.

  “Is ITU ready for her?” he asked a nurse.

  “Yes. They phoned through earlier, while you were in there. Which one of you is she coming in under?”

  Adam thought for a moment. “You’d better put her under Keith, I think.”

  “Right you are. I’ll make sure ITU is up to speed by the time you get out of CT.”

  “Thank you.” He sat down beside the trolley and started to write in the notes. He completed his operation notes and then made detailed plans for her treatment and recovery.

  When he’d finished, Adam rubbed his face with his hands and looked at his watch. A hot mug of coffee was handed to him and he took it gratefully.

  When Clare was happy with all Kate’s observations, she gave them the nod and Adam accompanied them down to the scanner to check for any signs of brain injury. Clare stayed with her inside the room, while next door, behind the glass, Adam held his breath. “Come on; come on,” he muttered, willing the pictures into existence.

  He looked through the partition and saw her lying there, pale and almost unrecognisable, surrounded by wires and tubing, half-obscured by bandages and only the ends of her strawberry blonde hair giving any clue to the girl who was lying beneath.