Doctor's Orders

11. Time of Death

The cocktail party was a week away, so when I had to work side by side with Dr. Styles before that, I wasn't sure how to act around him. Technically, nothing had changed. We were simply planning on attending a work function together. But still, inside I was acting like a squirrelly high schooler waiting for the big dance.

He was an expert at acting like nothing was different, even though he'd been in my apartment and he'd had his arms around me. Again, I knew things weren't really different, but at the same time, they were. I was driving myself crazy until he snapped me out of it. 

"Jansen! I ordered the Versed for that endoscopy almost an hour ago. Why haven't you started it yet?!"

I shook the fog out of my head and answered, "I apologize, Dr. Styles. I'm on it."

He stopped and stared down at me, speaking harshly, "Apologize to your patient, too. She's freaking out in there, and they're coming to get her for the procedure right now."

"Yes, sir," I nodded humbly. I deserved that correction, but why did he always have to be so severe with me in particular? 

Instead of snapping myself out of my delirium, I ended up making a few more mistakes that were noticed not only by the doctor, but by my co-workers, and one by Ms. Baxter, the director of nursing who had interviewed me. 

To make matters worse, I'd had an incredible lucky streak since I started working at CMI, a lucky streak that ended during this shift. Of all the patients I'd cared for, not one of them had died while under my direct care.

Until today.

A young Asian couple rushed in to the Emergency Department with a small child who was clearly in respiratory distress. They were frantically trying to communicate in broken English that the child had been coughing and wheezing as Dr. Styles and I, along with other team members whisked her away to begin treatment.

The tiny black-hair girl had terror in her eyes, struggling to scream and fight against us, but hardly able to make an effort. The area around her lips was blue, as were here fingers and pretty painted toe nails. The doctor had already cut away her shirt, and her chest was caving in with every breath she struggled to draw breath.

I was moving as fast as I could, but the she stopped breathing all together before I could even poke the needle into her vein for the IV. The doctor did emergency CPR while I froze for a moment in horror. "Ellie!" He yelled. "The IV now!" I did as I was told, but he stopped the CPR within a minute of barking out that harsh command.

She was gone. I still worked furiously at the IV, refusing to believe that she was dead, but when Dr. Styles' tired voice called out, "Time of death, 3:07 AM," my fingers slowly stopped fumbling with the needle. I stared up at the doctor him with wide eyes, wishing he was wrong. But I knew he wasn't.

He paged an intern who spoke Vietnamese to come with him to talk to the parents. He wanted to be sure that they understood what had happened, and that he would be able to answer any questions. Before he left to talk to them, he said something dreadful. "Ms. Jansen, I'd like you to come with me as well."