Precaution

It took no more than fifteen minutes for me to walk from the restaurant to the hospital, four-inch heels, tight black dress and all. I arrived in the pit and Lexie looked me over as I grabbed a surgical apron and started to scrub in.

“What do we have?” I asked, grabbing a package of soap.

“21 year old male, GSW wound to the head, abdomen and chest. ICP levels are in the forties, blood pressure 140 over 90 and rising, pulse ox level is 76, dropping quickly. Coded twice and was given two rounds of Epi as well as a unit of blood.” Lexie shouted over the noise. Mark came around and tied my apron and I put on the gloves and ran closer, the sound of my heels clicking against the tile.

“Did anybody page Christensen or Savard?” Novikova said, rushing to the patient. Lexie nodded

“Shit. He’s coding. Code blue!” I yelled and Lexie ran to press the button, with the code cart rushing through. “Push one milligram of epi.” I yelled and Mark did as instructed while the nurses came over with the cart. I grabbed the defibrillator. “Clear!” I yelled and shocked him, everybody’s eyes trained to the heart monitor. “No change. Charge to 200.” The nurse changed the voltage and gave me the okay. “ Clear!” I shocked him again and a distinct beep.

“Anderson, you need to intibate before that pulse ox level drops anymore and Scott, book an OR and someone page Savard, Hollary and Christensen. “ Novikova shouted over her shoulder as she was scrubbing in. I grabbed a 6 mm tracheal tube and shone a light down the throat to find the trachea. “I got it” I said and Lexie grabbed the pump to help his breathing just as Savard rushed through. Lexie rattled off his chart for him and Savard began to roll him into OR 1. “Lauder, Anderson scrub in. Scott, I need you to go check my post-ops.”

The patient didn’t make it.

Savard had to perform a thoracotomy and defibrillate the heart with paddles but he wouldn’t stay stable long enough and eventually his aorta bled out. We tried to clamp him to stop the bleeding, but there was just no way he could have survived. The damage to his body was too severe.
I scrubbed out and met up with Kat in the surgical hallway. “Did your GSW make it?” She asked, pulling her hair up. I shook my head. “No. What about your brain aneurysm?” I asked in response. Katarina nodded. “Yeah, he’s stable. Sucks about your bullet guy.” I nodded. “Yeah. It does.”

The two of us both grabbed a handful of charts from the nurses station and went our separate ways to do checks on all the post-op patients. Being on call during the night was one of the worst experiences ever because of the amount of post-op checks the interns had to do. It was all scut and trauma past midnight and only those who finish their checks early had the chance to assist on the great traumas that rolled through. That’s why it was Kat’s favorite part of the day and she frequently stayed in the hospital past her shift. She had an intensity and work ethic that was far superior than the rest of our group, though her sleeping with an attending probably didn’t hurt either.

It was six in the morning when we all finished, after another excruciating night of being on call.

Katarina and I entered the locker room, followed by the rest of the interns. We were all exhausted, ready for our shifts to be over. I opened my locker and took out my dress and heels from the locker and shoved it in my bag before changing into my jeans and T-shirt. None of us said anything and there were no jokes or heavy looks being exchanged. We were too tired to think, too tired to do anything but get to our beds as soon as we could.

There was a game at seven and I figured I could regain some of the sleep I lost before then and as soon as I stumbled through the apartment door, I went right to bed. There was no effort put into changing or washing my face or getting food—it was just sleep.

I woke up to my cellphone ringing and immediately launched out of bed, grabbing my phone to answer. “Hello?” I answered, hopping out of bed to look for my alarm clock underneath the piles of dirty clothes that were spread around my floor.

“Violet? It’s me.” I heard Lucy’s voice on the other end as I lifted up a t-shirt and found my clock. It was only six, which meant I had plenty of time to get ready and go to the Consol for the game. “Hey Luce, where are you? We’re going to be late if you don’t hurry up and get back home.” I said, walking over to my closet to find something decent to wear.

“It’s about that. I can’t go to the game, my dentist is doing me a huge favor and staying late to take care of my ..cavity situation.” Lucy said, and I could tell she was still in the office from the sound of keys typing. “I’m leaving now but I’ll make it for post-game drinks at Moose and you can tell me all about it. “ I yanked out a shirt from the hanger and threw it on my bed. “Okay, have fun at the dentists. Tell Dr. R I said hi and that I’ll be in for a checkup soon.”

“I’m not lying to our dentist, Violet.” Lucy said and I sighed. I hated the dentist. “Fine, you’re right. I’ll see you tonight. Bye.”

I wandered in the bathroom and hopped in the shower, quickly washing my hair and myself. I smelled like a hospital and looked like a dying patient, and that was most definitely not what I wanted to go to the game as. I stepped out and went into my room to change into my clothes, my hair bunched up in the towel on top of my head. It was still cold outside and I still had refused to buy any cold weather clothes. Spring was almost here and I told myself that I would just have to toughen it out.

I pulled on a pair of dark wash skinny jeans and a white, sleeveless shirt that’s back was cut 1/3rd of the way and covered with lace. It was completely inappropriate but I didn’t care. It made me look good, seeing as I still had my California tan and I would wear a jacket in the rink. It was however, unbearably hot in the locker room where we all met up after the game. I took out a black, fitted and cropped leather jacket and put it on, followed by over-the-knee black suede boots. My wardrobe rush was then followed by blow drying and straightening my hair before applying a light wash of makeup.

I didn’t want to look overdone, but there was no denying that I needed some help after spending that much time in surgery. I applied foundation, concealer and bronzer to help out my tired looking skin, followed by brown eyeliner, mascara and a nude lipgloss. When I was all set and done, it was the perfect time to go.

There were no pre-game locker room meet-ups tonight and instead, I just took my seat right on the ice. We were playing the Canucks, a team from Vancouver that Lucy had hated.

It was a good game, even though I felt a little lost without Lucy there telling me who everybody was and why she hated them. We lost and I could feel the tension radiating off of the bench. Every now and then, Sidney or Jordan would look over to me from the bench, but the atmosphere wasn’t the same. It felt tense and frustrating, and nothing seemed to be going their way. The final score was 5-3, Vancouver and I left my seat early to head to the locker room.

There weren’t many people in the room when I got there, just me, Pascal’s wife, Nathlaie Lemiuex and an unfamiliar blond woman. She looked amazing and I wondered who she was there with, because I hadn’t seen her before. She looked a bit like Evgeni’s girlfriend, Oksana, but more American with long blond hair, large brown eyes and the largest diamond I had ever seen on her finger. She saw me looking at her and smiled towards me, deciding to approach before the boys made their way back.

“Hi.” She said with a friendly smile and extended her hand. “I haven’t seen you around here before.”

I shook her hand and returned her smile, but was unsure of what to say. I didn’t want to say anything about Sidney because I didn’t know what to classify ourselves as. This relationship had gone further than I had expected, had become more fast and wild than I had ever anticipated.

“I’m Violet Anderson.” I said finally, shifting my purse in my hands. “I’m a friend of Jordan Staal’s.” I added, which was true. Jordan was really the person who started this all and I still had the strongest friendship with him out of all the boys. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around here, either.” I said with a friendly laugh and she smiled.

“Well I just came back from Toronto.” She said politely before introducing herself.

“I’m Chloe Robertson. I’m Sidney’s fiancé.”