Sue MacKay - Second Chance With Her Island Doc / Taking A Chance On The Single Dad

Anna’s lips twitched, and for the first time in what seemed weeks she found room to smile. In the enormity of what she’d been landed with, this seemed tiny, but the lovely thing about it was that it was something she could do right now.

Carla was looking hopeful, her head cocked to one side. Wondering if she was up to the challenge?

Maybe she was. Fun. The word was suddenly right before her. This was a baby step in how her life could continue from now on, but…could she have fun with this? Could she be of use?

‘You know,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘These sheets are scratchy. My welfare decrees I should order non-scratchy sheets, just in case I’m ever admitted again. Could you put in a requisition? Linen can’t be kept apart in the hospital laundry so maybe enough for the whole hospital?’

‘Yes!’ Carla said, chuckling with delight. ‘I knew you couldn’t be as bad as your cousin. And what about coffee? You surely can’t be expected to drink…’ But then she paused. She put a hand to her head in a gesture Anna understood. Her own head hurt.

But this was suddenly more than that. Carla’s pain seemed to intensify. Her eyes widened and she grabbed for the foot of the bed, as if to steady herself.

And swayed.

And Anna moved as she’d never moved before. She reached her and hugged her under her arms, taking her weight as she sagged against her.

As Carla’s eyes became sightless. As her knees buckled.

As she crumpled to the floor.

Leo was in the nursery, checking the tiny baby who’d been born the night before. It was a good moment in what promised to be a frantic day. He gazed down at the newborn bundle and thought, This is what it’s all about. Forget Anna. Forget the Castlavarans. Focus on what’s important.

And then his buzzer…

Code blue.

He was out the nursery before he realised.

Room Twelve. Anna’s room.

Code blue meant cardiac or respiratory arrest, or similar medical emergency.

Anna?

What had he missed? Internal bleed? What?

He didn’t run—he didn’t need to. He’d pretty much perfected his hospital stride, so running would make him no faster.

He turned the corner to Room Twelve and Maria was in front of him, pushing the crash cart.

‘Anna…’ he said, and he couldn’t keep the fear from his voice.

‘Worse,’ Maria managed. ‘It’s Carla.’

She’d hit the call button and then she’d yelled. The junior nurse who’d helped shower her had arrived in seconds, taken one look and bolted for help.

Carla vomited as she reached the floor. The first couple of moments were frantic, clearing Carla’s airway, getting her into the recovery position, trying to assess her breathing. Anna was crouched on the floor, willing help to arrive. Trying to see what she was coping with. Cardiac arrest? No? Headache, pain, collapse…

And then blessedly Leo was kneeling beside her. The crash cart was being wheeled in behind him.

‘Carla…’ Leo said, and she heard his voice break.

Carla’s eyes were open but she wasn’t seeing.

‘I don’t think it’s her heart.’ Anna said it intentionally loudly, making her voice clipped and professional. Leo and this woman must be friends. She’d heard Leo’s instinctive distress, but she needed a doctor here, not someone emotionally involved.

And he got it. She felt the moment he hauled himself together. The moment he became one of a medical team.

‘Fall?’

‘Collapse,’ she told him. She glanced up at Maria, and Maria anticipated her needs by handing down a towel. Two. She used one to sweep the mess away from Carla’s head, the other to help clear her face. ‘She looked like her head hurt. She put her hand to her head like there was intense pain and then she passed out.’

‘The headache… Hell…’ He had his hand on her wrist.

‘It’s still strong,’ Anna told him.

They were squashed together. Maria started working around them, shoving the bed back, heaving the bedside table onto the bed to give them more room.

‘Defibrillator?’ Maria asked.

‘No.’ Leo was moving to the next stage. He checked her eyes, and Anna saw the slight sag of his shoulders, relief that he’d seen a corneal reflex. He’d seen her clear Carla’s mouth. He’d seen the gag reflex as well.

She wasn’t comatose, then, but the speed of the drop from alert to where she was now implied she soon would be.

‘It’s okay, Carla, we’ve got you,’ Leo said, loudly and firmly. ‘Relax, love, don’t fight it.’

That made Anna blink. He was assuming Carla could hear. It was good medicine, the assumption, unlikely as it was, that Carla would comprehend what was going on. But not all doctors did it, especially under the stress of an emergency like this one.

‘We need to stabilise your airway and get a scan,’ Leo said. ‘Carla, have you had a head injury? Banged your head?’ She didn’t respond—how could she?—but once again Anna knew the words had been said to reassure Carla that she was included in this conversation. ‘Carla didn’t say anything about an injury, Anna? Maria?’

‘Nothing,’ Maria said, and Anna heard her distress, too.

‘Just a headache,’ Anna said. ‘Leo, this looks like an internal bleed.’

‘You must have had a bump.’ Leo was back to speaking to Carla. ‘You told me you took aspirin last night.’

‘She has been taking aspirin,’ Maria ventured. ‘She’s been getting it from the hospital pharmacy. I saw her take a couple of boxes last week. She said she has a bit of arthritis. We were busy and I didn’t follow it up.’

‘Aspirin won’t have done this, though it might have made it worse,’ Leo said. ‘But if there’s a bleed it won’t help now. Carla, we’re going to have to have a look-see. Get a trolley, Maria. We’ll take her through for scans. Now.’

‘What can I do?’ Anna asked.

‘You’re a patient,’ Leo said roughly. ‘Thanks for your help, Anna. You should be right to go.’

The scan showed a bleed.

A big one.

The hairline skull fracture was bad enough. What was worse was the dark shadow underneath the fracture. A subdural haemorrhage. Blood vessels near the surface of the brain had obviously ruptured.

How the hell…?

But the cause of the injury was the least of his concerns. What was crucial was time. Blood had collected immediately beneath the three-layer protective covering of the brain. The brain was being compressed.

In young people a bleed like this was usually triggered by a significant impact. Older people could bleed after only a minor trauma.

Carla was hardly elderly but she’d been taking aspirin. The aspirin would have been thinning the blood.

The greater the pressure on the brain, the worse the bleeding would become. For her to lose consciousness so quickly…

‘I’m going in.’ He was talking to Carla, and to the nurse beside him. Maria was looking as terrified as he felt. ‘Carla, there’s a bleed under the surface. We need to get the pressure off.’ He needed to say no more. If Carla was aware enough to take it in then she’d know, and Maria had been a nurse long enough to realise the ramifications of a cranial bleed. Pressure on the brain caused brain damage, and it caused it fast. They had to get the pressure off now.

‘Leo, I’m asking again. What can I do?’