‘Professor Farnham wants you to check on all the youngsters, and make yourself familiar with their conditions, and their treatment, medications and so on. When you’ve done that, he’d like you to take a look at the baby in here,’ he said, taking her over to the neighbouring bay. ‘See what you make of him. He’s ten months old.’
‘Do I get to look at his notes?’
He smiled. ‘Later. I think the professor wants to see what you come up with first.’
Lucy drew in a deep breath. ‘Okay. I’ll do my best.’
‘Good. I’ll leave you to it, if you don’t mind. I have to go and see to a patient who’s being admitted. The professor should be along in around an hour’s time—he’s been liaising with A and E over a ten-year-old who was injured in a traffic accident on the bypass this morning. We’ll be looking after him. The boy has a splenic injury, but he may not need surgery if we can keep him on supportive treatment for a while.’
Lucy frowned. ‘That must have been the accident I came across when I was on my way home from my parents’ house, first thing. Do you know if anyone else was injured?’
‘His parents escaped with minor injuries, and the driver of the other car has a broken arm. It seems they were lucky, all things considered. The boy was hurt when the side of the car was pushed inwards.’
‘Well, I’m glad I found out what happened to them, anyway.’
He moved away from her and Lucy went to introduce herself to the children on the ward. Some of them were very poorly, whilst others were on the way to recovery and greeted her cheerfully.
When she had finished getting to know them, she went back to the bay where her special patient, the ten-month-old baby, was sleeping. She walked over to the cot and gazed down at the tiny, pale-looking infant. He was receiving oxygen through thin tubes inserted in his nostrils, and when she looked at the monitors, she could see that his blood oxygen level was very low. He was breathing fast, and even with the oxygen therapy it seemed as though he was struggling to get enough air into his lungs.
‘You poor little thing,’ she murmured. ‘I’m going to disturb you for just a minute or two, poppet, while I listen to your chest.’ She put the earpieces of the stethoscope into her ears and warmed the chest piece with her hands before running it over the baby’s lungs.
‘What have you managed to find out, Lucy? Anything interesting?’
She jumped as Professor Farnham suddenly appeared at her side. Even more startling was the fact that Matt was with him. She looked at both of them, wide-eyed, before recovering herself and sliding the stethoscope back around her neck.
‘I—uh …’ What was Matt doing here? He wasn’t meant to be on this team, was he? The professor was waiting for an answer, though, and she hurriedly pulled herself together. ‘There are decreased breath sounds bilaterally and I heard inspiratory crackles, suggesting involvement of the deeper lung tissues. He has a high fever, he’s breathing fast and has shortness of breath. I’d say he was suffering from a severe chest infection, possibly pneumonia.’
The professor nodded. ‘And what procedures would you carry out?’
She gave it some thought. ‘Blood cultures, sputum sample and chest X-ray.’
‘Good, well done. Keep that up and you’ll get through your clinical exams without any trouble at all.’ He beamed at her. He was a tall, slim man, in his mid-fifties, she guessed, with dark brown hair that was beginning to grey a little at the sides. His hazel eyes showed an alert, keen intelligence. ‘The tests have already been done. Let’s see what the lab came up with, shall we?’ He moved over to the computer at the other side of the room, leaning over the table and pressing a few keys.
While the professor was otherwise engaged, Lucy sent Matt a narrowed glance. ‘What are you doing here?’ she mouthed silently.
‘New rotation,’ he mouthed back. ‘Paediatric medicine and intensive care.’
A small surge of dismay flowed through her. He could have told her before this, couldn’t he? As things were, it had come as something of a shock to discover that they would be working together, and she felt as though she had been completely wrong-footed. Why had he held back from telling her?
‘I thought it might put you off your stride if I told you this morning,’ he whispered, as though he had read her mind. ‘I only got the placement at the last minute when someone dropped out.’
‘Here we are,’ Professor Farnham said. ‘The test results are on screen. What do you make of them, Lucy?’
Discomfited, she hoped he wouldn’t notice the warm colour that had flooded her cheeks. She hated being put on the spot like this, with Matt looking on.
She went over to the table and studied the lab report. ‘It’s a bacterial infection—Staphylococcus aureus.’ She brought the X-ray film up on screen and studied it for a while. ‘Definitely pneumonia,’ she decided, ‘though there’s something else going on there.’ She hesitated, unsure of what she was seeing. ‘There appears to be some inflammation in the pleural space.’
‘What do you think, Matt?’ The professor waved Matt forward so that he could have a look.
‘I think she’s right. It could be an empyema,’ he said, ‘a collection of pus in the cavity between the lung and the inside of the chest wall. I expect that’s why the baby is in so much distress.’
The consultant nodded. ‘Usually, these things clear up with antibiotic treatment, but he’s already been given that. We might be dealing with a secondary infection here. I don’t think we can leave this one—perhaps you’d like to do the chest-drainage procedure? That should reduce the pressure and help the baby to breathe more comfortably. We’ll get the sample analysed and then we can see what kind of antibiotic we need to add to the mix.’
‘I’d be glad to do it.’ Matt turned to look at the baby, his expression serious. ‘I’ll set up the equipment right away.’
‘Excellent. Lucy can help you with that—in fact, it might be a good idea if she were to shadow you for the next week or so.’ He sent Matt a querying look. ‘It’ll give her a good insight into what goes on in Paediatrics.’
Matt hesitated just for a moment, and then said, ‘That’s fine. I’m okay with that.’
Lucy held her breath for a second or two, trying to take it in. She was to follow Matt around? Her mind skittered, seeking a way out of the situation, before coming around to the inevitable conclusion that there was no escape.
She had to be professional about this, of course. Obviously the professor had no idea how she and Matt tended to avoid one another back at the house, if only for the sake of peace and quiet. Something that had been easy enough when Jade and Ben had been around, but now …? She was doomed. Not only were they being thrown together at home, now they were to work together, as well. How long would it be before they found themselves at loggerheads over something or other?
Matt looked at her, and for a moment their glances met, each of them keeping their innermost thoughts hidden.
‘I’ll leave things with you, then,’ Professor Farnham said. ‘Any problems, and James will be around to help you out.’
Lucy looked anxiously at the baby after the professor had left. ‘He’s so small and vulnerable,’ she said softly. ‘I’m glad it’s not me having to do an invasive procedure on him. Are you okay with it?’ She sent Matt a troubled look. She felt unnaturally queasy at the thought.
He shrugged. ‘It has to be done if he’s to get better,’ he murmured. ‘Let’s take him over to the treatment room, and then we’ll scrub up.’
She went with him and helped him to lay out a trolley with the necessary medical