‘How does that eye feel?’ She wiped his right eye with gauze and Cory blinked a few times.
‘Better.’
‘How’s the pain now?’
‘A bit better.’
‘Need any help?’ Jasmine looked up at the sound of Jed’s voice. He smelt of morning, all fresh and brisk and ready to help, but Penny shook her head.
‘I’ve got this.’ She glanced over to another patient being wheeled in. ‘He might need your help, though.’
She’d forgotten this about Emergency—you didn’t get a ten-minute break to catch your breath and tidy up, and more often than not it was straight into the next one. As Vanessa, along with Penny, dealt with X-rays and getting Cory ready for CT, Jasmine found herself working alone with Jed on his patient, with Lisa popping in and out.
‘It’s her first day!’ Lisa warned Jed as she opened some equipment while Jasmine connected the patient to the monitors as the paramedics gave the handover.
‘No problem,’ Jed said, introducing himself to the elderly man and listening to his chest as Jasmine attached him to monitors and ran off a twelve-lead ECG. The man was in acute LVF, meaning his heart was beating ineffectively, which meant that there was a build-up of fluid in his lungs that was literally drowning him. Jim’s skin was dark blue and felt cold and clammy and he was blowing white frothy bubbles out through his lips with every laboured breath.
‘You’re going to feel much better soon, sir,’ Jed said. The paramedics had already inserted an IV and as Jed ordered morphine and diuretics, Jasmine was already pulling up the drugs, but when she got a little lost on the trolley he pointed them out without the tutting and eye-rolls Penny had administered.
‘Can you ring for a portable chest X-ray?’ Jed asked. The radiographer would have just got back to her department as Jasmine went to summon her again.
‘What’s the number?’ Jasmine asked, but then found it for herself on the phone pad.
Jed worked in a completely different manner from Penny. He was much calmer and far more polite with his requests and was patient when Jasmine couldn’t find the catheter pack he asked for—he simply went and got one for himself. He apologised too when he asked the weary night radiographer to hold on for just a moment as he inserted a catheter. But, yes, Jasmine noticed, Vanessa was right—he was detached with the staff and nothing like the man she had mildly joked with at her interview or walked alongside on the beach.
But, like Penny, he got the job done.
Jasmine spoke reassuringly to Jim all the time and with oxygen on, a massive dose of diuretics and the calming effect of the morphine their patient’s oxygen sats were slowly climbing and his skin was becoming pink. The terrified grip on Jasmine’s hand loosened.
Lisa was as good as her word and popped in and out. Insisting she was done with her ovaries, she put on a lead gown and shooed them out for a moment and they stepped outside for the X-ray.
Strained was the silence and reluctantly almost, as if he was forcing himself to be polite, Jed turned his face towards her as they waited for the all-clear to go back inside. ‘Enjoying your first day?’
‘Actually, yes!’ She was surprised at the enthusiasm in her answer as she’d been dreading starting work and leaving Simon, and worried that her scrambled brain wasn’t up to a demanding job. Yet, less than an hour into her first shift, Jasmine was realising how much she’d missed it, how much she had actually loved her work.
‘Told you it wouldn’t take long.’
‘Yes, well, I’m only two patients in.’ She frowned as he looked up, not into her eyes but at her hair. ‘The hairdresser cut too much off.’
‘No, no.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s white.’
‘Oh.’ She shook it and a little puff of plaster dust blew into the air. ‘Plaster dust.’ She shook it some more, moaning at how she always ended up messy, and he sort of changed his smile to a stern nod as the red light flashed and then the radiographer called that they could go back inside.
‘You’re looking better.’ Jasmine smiled at her patient because now the emergency was over, she could make him a touch more comfortable. The morphine had kicked in and his catheter bag was full as the fluid that had been suffocating him was starting to move from his chest. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Like I can breathe,’ Jim said, and grabbed her hand, still worried. ‘Can my wife come in? She must’ve been terrified.’
‘I’m going to go and speak to her now,’ Jed said, ‘and then I’ll ring the medics to come and take over your care. You’re doing well.’ He looked at Jasmine. ‘Can you stay with him while I go and speak to his wife?’
‘Sure.’
‘I thought that was it,’ Jim admitted as Jasmine placed some pillows behind him and put a blanket over the sheet that covered him. After checking his obs, she sat herself down on the hard flat resus bed beside him. ‘Libby thought so too.’
‘Your wife?’ Jasmine checked, and he nodded.
‘She couldn’t remember the number for the ambulance.’
‘It must have been very scary for her,’ Jasmine said, because though it must be terrifying to not be able to breathe, to watch someone you love suffer must have been hell. ‘She’ll be so pleased to see that you’re talking and looking so much better than when you came in.’
Libby was pleased, even though she promptly burst into tears when she saw him, and it was Jim who had to reassure her, rather than the other way around.
They were the most gorgeous couple—Libby chatted enough for both of them and told Jasmine that they were about to celebrate their golden wedding anniversary, which was certainly an achievement when she herself hadn’t even managed to make it to one year.
‘I was just telling Jasmine,’ Libby said when Jed came in to check on Jim’s progress, ‘that it’s our golden wedding anniversary in a fortnight.’
‘Congratulations.’ Jed smiled.
‘The children are throwing us a surprise party,’ Libby said. ‘Well, they’re hardly children …’
‘And it’s hardly a surprise.’ Jed smiled again. ‘Are you not supposed to know about it?’
‘No,’ Libby admitted. ‘Do you think that Jim will be okay?’
‘He should be,’ Jed said. ‘For now I’m going to ring the medics and have them take over his care, but if he continues improving I would expect him to be home by the end of the week—and ready to gently celebrate by the next.’
They were such a lovely couple and Jasmine adored seeing their closeness, but more than that she really was enjoying being back at work and having her world made bigger instead of fretting about her own problems. She just loved the whole buzz of the place, in fact.
It was a nice morning, a busy morning, but the staff were really friendly and helpful—well, most of them. Penny was Penny and especially caustic when Jasmine missed a vein when she tried to insert an IV.
‘I’ll do it!’ She snapped, ‘the patient doesn’t have time for you to practise on him.’
‘Why don’t you two go to lunch?’ Lisa suggested as Jasmine bit down on her lip.
‘She has such a lovely nature!’ Vanessa nudged Jasmine as they walked round to the staffroom. ‘Honestly, pay no attention to Penny. She’s got the patience of a two-year-old and, believe me, I speak from experience when I say that they have none. How