Comeback

~ Chapter 2 ~

Chapter 2
Wednesday August 3rd 2018
Lennon's POV

I love my job, but I'd be lying if I said I was excited to go to work today.

Going to the hospital doesn't bring back any fond memories, and when I first came back to work after it all happened, every step felt like a knife was stabbing me straight into my heart. It's just a reminder of the chances he didn't have.

It's my last shift for the week, and even though many of my coworkers also stack their shifts back to back, majority of them are my age without a bunch of children and definitely get a tiny bit more time of relaxation than I do. To keep my sanity, I drop all 3 kids off at daycare on Thursdays even when I'm home for the day.

Mentally, I need to be able to go back to sleep after I drop them off, and then have the few hours after I caught up on sleep to get my life together. Whether it's cleaning the house, running errands and grocery shopping, or just have a day where I'm able to do something for myself, it's very important I get at least one day to myself. Then, on Friday's the twins stay home with me all day now that Theo has started a 5 day prek and daycare program.

The kids need me to be strong for them, and this helps me do that.

"Mrs. Henderson, what's going on today?" I greeted a familiar patient of ours. I work in the ER, so my cases are normally random visits or some sort of trauma case, but there's always a select few people who come to the ER for every little thing. I love her, but Mrs. Henderson is one of them.

She's a very sweet old lady, maybe in her late 70's, and she lost her husband a little over a year ago due to illness. Ever since then, she's convinced that every small symptom she notices is requiring a trip to visit the ER. I really feel for her, a lot of the staff here get annoyed and find patients like this dramatic, but the woman is scared so I always try my best to be overly empathetic to her in times when the ER is calm and I have a second.

Plus, she's sort of been someone I've leaned on in the last 6 months and she doesn't even know it.

"Lennon! Hi dear" Her face instantly lit up at the sight of someone recognizable to her, and I gently hugged her not wanting to cause her any pain without knowing yet why she came in today. "How are you holding up? How are the little ones?"

"We're doing okay" I answered honestly. The days were extremely long, and being a single mom to 3 small children is something I never pictured myself doing, but I'm doing it. Very quickly I pulled out my phone and scrolled through a few recent photos that I've taken of the kids to show to her. The smile she had on her face was so pure, and I knew it reminded her of her own grandchildren that lived across the country.

After a quick catch up on all the babies, I listened to her concerns and symptoms. She came in today because her vision has been blurry for the last few days out of nowhere, and it was stressing her out. I did my own thorough exam, and everything appeared normal, which seemed to calm her nerves down just enough.

The rest of my shift wasn't terrible. I was able to check on the kids for a moment after their babysitter picked them up from school, I was able to sit and eat for about 7 minutes without any interruptions, and the ER was pretty quiet until one of the new nurses made the mistake of pointing out how empty the ER was today.

Then, of course we were flooded with chaos. Thankfully, there weren't many major accidents or life threatening injuries. We just got bombarded with people going to the ER for minor traumas and kids with stomach bugs. Manageable chaos, but nevertheless chaos.

I managed to skate out of the ER just 15 minutes after my shift ended, as the abundance of people had all came in earlier in the afternoon and we were able to catch up after the rush happened. Obviously, that was good news to hear.