The Reluctant Mafia Boss

Chapter 5

"Knock Knock. Lorraine, you up?"

I blinked a few times before looking up from my desk as Nicole peeped her head into my office.

"Hey," I gave her a lazy smile, the result of recently waking up from my nap.

"Wow, you look exhausted." Nicole slowly made her way into my office before going over to sit on the couch.

"Oh do I?" I asked covering my mouth with one hand as a yawn escaped me, then stretching my stiff arms and muscles.

"Yeah, you do." Nicole nodded. "You look like you haven't had a decent sleep in days. Now you're here sleeping at your desk? You're going to develop serious back issues. Didn't your shift end hours ago? I thought you were home."

Nicole was one of the nurses here at the hospital, and also my best friend.

"I performed three surgeries today, consulted and checked up with my other patients and then my most recent and regular patient. I was too exhausted to drive home, I decided to take a nap here instead."

"I totally get it. My shift just ended as well and I'm not feeling particularly energized enough to drive all the way home at twelve-fifteen I'm the morning." Nicole said looking at her watch.

"What? It's that time already?" I had no idea that I was sleeping for that long. "It's been almost four hours, I must've been extremely exhausted."

"Now that is expected. " Nicole gave me a look of concern.

"Everyone here knows that you are one of the hardest working doctors at this hospital, but lately you've been outdoing yourself."

"I know Nic, I've always sort of had the habit of biting off more than I can chew, but this time, I don't feel like I had much of a choice."

"Ah, the eight years old case," Nicole says in understanding. "The whole hospital is aware of it and how the father threatened us all. And requested you being the only doctor to attend to his son."

"Mr. Romano is going through a lot of stress right now. Most parents in a situation like this would be, I totally get where he's coming from. He's upset, frustrated, scared, worried, frankly, he is going through a lot of emotions. We have to understand that in lights of what happened- losing a friend, his son getting shot- at a stage like this, he's looking for any and everyone to lash out at."

"Yeah, I get that, but the last person who he should be lashing out at are the people trying to help his son. " Nicole said to me.

"Well he apparently doesn't see it that way, and we're not in his position so we can't exactly judge him on his feelings and how he handles his problems," I said to her. "We haven't the slightest clue what he's going through and what's going through his mind right now, we just have to try to be understanding even when it's difficult."

"You're right, I mean if it were any of my children in a similar situation, I'd probably go crazy. Anyway, how is the young patient coming along?"

"Well, he seems to be doing well considering. He's twitching his eyes, moving his fingers, he's being more responsive now. I've reduced the amount of morphine and fentanyl we've been administering. I think that they are the ones delaying the waking up process."

"I know that those painkillers have sedative effects, but with the level of pain that the kid would be undergoing, is reducing the meds now that wise?" Nicole asked me.

"Mr. Romano is getting really concerned with his son prolonged comatose state. I've explained everything to him." I said to Nicole. " I told him about how the short-acting sedative Propofol (Diprivan) that we used- with short term induced comas- usually stops working quickly when taken away and the patient usually wakes up within hours, but at times it can take longer. I've informed him that illnesses or injuries treated in Intensive care often come with a lot of pain due to the injuries sustained or the treatment attached to it. I made sure to tell him that adequate pain control is more important than anything else and it sometimes has undesired side effects such as the delayed 'waking up' because of their sedative effects. The reason why his son is still like that."