The Sisterhood - Michael Palmer [13]
The last two nurses arrived and took their places at the table. Report began with a discussion of the new patients who had come onto the floor during the two shifts since the evening crew had last been on. They were discussed in more detail than the rest of the patients would be. Even so, most of the remarks from around the table were not about the patients, but about their doctors.
“Sam Engles, patient of Dr. Bertram …”
“… Uh-oh, Jack the Ripper strikes again.”
“Bert the Flirt, ten thumbs in the operating room but a dozen hands around the nurses.”
“Stella Vecchione, patient of Dr. Malchman …”
“Good luck, Stella.”
“Donald McGregor, patient of Dr. Armstrong …”
“She’s nice, don’cha think?”
“Nice, but senile. She writes like my grandmother.”
“Edwina Burroughs, patient of Dr. Shelton …”
“Who?”
“Shelton, the cute one with the frizzy hair.”
“Oh, I know who you mean. Is he on drugs or something?”
“What?”
“Drugs. Penny Schmidt on three said she heard from one of the O.R. nurses that Shelton was on drugs.”
“Good ol’ Penny. Always a kind word for everybody. I’ll bet she could find dirt in a sterilizer.”
They went through the rest of the patients on the floor room by room. As she listened, Christine pre dieted to herself which of the nurses would limit her report to facts, lab reports, and vital signs, and which would make some comment on the appearance and activities of her patients. Three stressed the numbers, and three the people. Christine scored 100 percent, noting with some satisfaction that the human-oriented reports were given by the nurses whose work she admired the most. Gloria Webster was not among that group.
“Beall, I guess you’re gonna take four-twelve again, like always,” Gloria said as she doused a half-smoked cigarette in the bottom of a Styrofoam cup. She addressed all the floor nurses at her level by their last names, more out of a sense of camaraderie than any effort to display toughness. “Well, there’s not much to report except that things are even worse than they were yesterday, and that includes the bedsore, if ya know what I mean. Her temp and B.P. keep bouncing up and down. Nasotracheal suction is ordered every two hours. I did the bedsore, so you won’t have to do it again for four hours. Christ, does that thing smell. Nothin’ much else, I guess. Any questions?”
Christine fought back the impulse to say, “Yeah, one. How can you talk like that about a woman who has more wonder, more magic in one cell than you have in your whole body?” Instead she bit back her feelings of disgust and anger and merely shook her head.
The remainder of the report took ten minutes. Then the six day nurses put on their coats and left. The torch of care had been passed.
After the lounge had emptied out, Christine sat with Charlotte’s chart and began reviewing it a page at a time. The process was painful. Page after page of notes, reports, and procedures. The chronology of a medical nightmare. As she jotted significant items on a small pad, Christine’s sense of resolve grew. It was enough. Just as Peg had said on the phone. Enough. She would present Charlotte’s case to The Sisterhood.
She spent several minutes rewriting her notes and double-checking to insure she had omitted no important information. Satisfied, she opened her address book and copied a phone number on a scrap of paper. Then she hesitated. Her mouth grew dry. She sat, picking absently at a fingernail. Come on, lady, she urged herself. If you’re going to do it, then do it. In the moment before she stood up, her mind saw Charlotte’s eyes. The glow of peace, of infinite peace, was even clearer than before. “… Whenever you must really know, listen to your heart.”
There was a pay phone at one end of the floor, partially shielded by a glass partition. The nearby corridor was deserted. Christine hesitated once more,