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Ellie is a bright and bubbly, yet dedicated new nurse in the Emergency Department at Chicago Medical Institute. Dr. Harry Styles, meticulous, hardworking, and driven, is the head of the department. Ellie's little q...
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Okay, be prepared - I've crammed a lot of reader patients into the next two chapters, lol!
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With the holidays now in the rear-view mirror, I was eager to get back to normal life , our life, as Harry and I worked together to continue building our relationship.
Back at work, we functioned well together, along with rest of the Emergency Department team. I was proud of who we were and the quality of care we were able to give. Although the holiday rush had died down, we still had our share of interesting patients.
I went to greet my first patient of the day and found her curled up on the exam bad, clearly in some pretty heavy pain. According to her intake information, she had Crohn's Disease, and this looked like an obvious and painful flare up. "Hey, Diana," I said, glancing at my chart. "What's going on, sweetie? You look like you're having a rough time."
She nodded, not even glancing up at me. I looked to the man in the room with her. "Hi, I'm Ellie. And you are...?"
He stood up nervously. "Uh, Chris. Her brother. I...I've never seen her this bad before."
"Don't worry, Chris, we're going to figure out what's going on. It's likely she will have to be admitted for us to help her as much as we can. Besides the pain, is there anything else that made you decide to bring her in?"
"No, just that. It seemed to hit kind of fast this time, and she has a fever of 103."
That last bit alarmed me so I pulled on my exam gloves and went for the thermometer. "How long has the fever been going on?" I pressed the thermometer to Diana's forehead.
"Since last night," he answered.
"So, would you say about twelve hours?" I asked, trying to clarify.
"No, maybe since about midnight, so like seven hours," he replied.
I did all the vitals and then I told Chris, "I'll talk to the doctor about pain medication right away, and then we'll work on the best treatment for her."
"Thank you so much," he said, stroking his sister's hair as he stood by her.
"Warm blankets for both of you?" I asked.
"Yes, please," he said, trying to force a smile, but I could see that he was terribly worried.
I walked out thinking how hard it would be for me to see a loved one in that situation. Sure, there was Thomas, but his illness wasn't an emergency; it just slowly ate away at him. I couldn't imagine seeing them in such pain and worrying about whether or not they would be okay. Often it was the loved ones, the significant others, who were in worse emotional shape than the actual patients.
In the next room, I found a girl named Haley. Her chart said she had passed out, but not much more information was given. She was surrounded by three people. "Hi, I'm Ellie," I said, introducing myself to Haley. And then I asked, "Who's here with you?"
