A/N: This is Chapter 7, and it's sort of Jac showing she cares in her slightly odd way...
Sarah and Caja xxxx
Meeting in Cardiothoracic Consultant's office at 1pm. Would all staff listed please attend:
Sacha Levy
Luc Hemingway
Michael Spence
Frieda Petrenko
Elliot Hope
Ric Griffin
Chrissie Williams
Eddi McKee
Oliver Valentine
Greg Douglas
Antoine Malick
Thank you,
Jac Naylor.
"What's going on, Sacha?" Eddi asked the doctor as the both stared at their computer screens. "Jac Naylor wants just about every doctor and nurse in her office by one o'clock! She's probably already shifted surgical lists around so it can happen! And what's happened to Hanssen and Sahira Shah? Unless it's..." she trailed off. Unless of course it was about one of them. Or both of them.
"What is that?" Frieda asked from behind Sacha. "And why is my name on it?" she added after catching a glimpse of her Ukrainian name against the others. Then she saw Jac's name at the end of the email. "What is she up to?"
"I don't know, but make sure Chrissie knows, will you?" he requested of Frieda.
"Of course. Now," she began. "Man in bed three says he is dying of pain. In groin. Care to take a look?"
It was one o'clock, and the consultant's office on Darwin was at bursting point. There were ten doctors and two nurses, all here to discuss one thing. Jac scribbled on the whiteboard, saying the words as she wrote them down. "Shaking, Mood swings, Bad coordination, Chorea, Fatigue, Memory loss and in particular the loss of the train of thought and the inability to remember words. Any suggestions?" she asked as she turned back to a room full of puzzled faces.
"It could be any one of a hundred things, Jac," Michael pointed out. "Who is this about, anyway? Are they a patient?" he demanded.
"No. No, he isn't a patient. But he will be if we don't figure this out and get him some treatment!" she snapped.
"Jac, who are you talking about?" Elliot asked, in a gentler and less threatening tone. Jac looked at Greg, the only one who had seen what had happened, the only one who knew exactly what she was talking about. Then, it dawned on two of the people. A doctor and a nurse looked at each other, both remembering the shaking of his hands when he took the file.
Sacha and Eddi said, at exactly the same time and with a dismayed tone just one word, "Hanssen." They had both noticed the trembling and the reduced coordination. It had worried them, but they eventually dismissed it. "You're talking about Mr. Hanssen," Sacha added with a sigh. "He was on AAU the other day, and his hands were shaking like hell."
"Did it never occur to you, Jac, that maybe, just maybe, he wants to keep this to himself?" Ric demanded. "Didn't dawn on you that maybe he's dealing with this? Or that he already knows what it is? What if it's genetic, and he's watched someone suffer from it? Do you really think he would want that put around the hospital?" he shouted. He had been there. He had been sick. Deadly sick. In fact, if Hanssen hadn't pushed him into an operating theatre and sliced him open, he would be dead right about now.
"Maybe, but without Hanssen, we're all screwed. And, we might moan about him, but you all know that he's been fighting so hard to save this hospital, Darwin ward in particular!" she retorted. "Don't you think we owe him just a little interest in his well-being? He saved your life, Ric," she reminded him, as if he even needed it. "He saved your jobs, Greg, Ollie, Elliot. He might be a sarcastic pain in the arse, but he's ill and we all know it!"
Everyone looked at her in shock. They hadn't seen her so riled about a colleague before, much less the one that challenged her at every turn. "Narcotic abuse? Alcohol withdrawal?" Ric finally offered a suggestion.
"Hanssen's like me," Luc contradicted him. "He doesn't drink, and I don't think he's the type to even go near drugs. What about an acute reaction to stress? He's hardly having the time of his life," he commented.
"No," Jac replied. "It can't be that; Sahira told me that he's turned hospitals around in a worse state than ours."
"Aseptic meningitis," Malick offered. It wasn't a great idea, but it was a possibility. But then, a lot of conditions carried these symptoms with them.
"Parkinson's? Or schizophrenia?" Ollie offered to Jac. He knew that it wasn't good now; he had just gone down the road that pointed to genetic illness or psychological illness. Nobody wanted to believe that he was ill like that.
Chrissie leaned back against the wall, realising something. Something she ought to have seen before now. She looked up at the ceiling, hoping to God that she was wrong. Please, please let me be wrong about this, she begged in her mind.
Sacha shook Chrissie's arm to bring her back to Earth. "Chrissie, what's wrong?" he asked her softly. She merely looked up at him, not understanding, for a second, at least, what he was saying. The realisation had hit her when Ollie had suggested Parkinson's disease.
"Shayna Drew. Caitlin. Don't you remember, how he went after Caitlin, how unsettled he looked when he left AAU? How pale he was and how tired he looked?" she recalled. She found it unnerving when she saw it. She was used to him being sarcastic and making dry jokes that probably only Luc would get. And yet, she saw him low, she saw him really sick, and determined, however futilely, to mask it. "I watched them. I watched him take his guard down to the sister of someone with Huntington's disease."
"He's Swedish," Luc wondered aloud. Everyone looked at him, silently wanting to know why he just pointed the blatantly obvious out to them all. "There's a slightly higher prevalence of Huntington's disease in Sweden than in a lot of countries. Wales and Scotland are the same."
Elliot fell back into his chair. It was obvious now. He was emotionally closed, and kept everyone out. His recent mood swings were not pleasant in the slightest, and he had seen his hands shake, although very briefly.
"Wait," Frieda halted them all. "How do we know we are not blowing this out of proportion?" she asked of them. "We all watched him. How can we know we are not seeing what is not even there?"
"She raises a good point," admitted Malick. "We could just be making it more than it actually is. Maybe we're just thinking that he's changed so drastically when he actually hasn't." He thought on it for a second. "We need someone who hasn't spoken to him in months, to describe the change to them and see what they think."
"Connie," Greg piped up. He pulled out his mobile. He still hadn't deleted her number; he just hadn't gotten around to doing it yet. It actually escaped his notice that it was even there most of the time. He called her number and got the answer he expected.
"Connie Beauchamp," she answered, as frostily as he remembered her.
"Connie," Greg greeted her, not quite as cheerily as he normally would have done if they needed her for another reason.
"Greg," replied Connie, a bit surprised that he was calling on her. "To what do I owe this great pleasure?"
"Well, we sorta have a problem," he confessed to her. To his surprise, she started laughing. "What the hell is so funny?" he snapped at her.
"You actually are calling me because you have a real problem," she realised. She stopped laughing and waited for an explanation. "Well, what is it? The Great Swede isn't wielding his axe again, is he?" she joked.
"No," he answered carefully. "But he is the problem. Well, his health is...we think. We can't be sure though. What was he like the last time you spoke?"
"Well, what is he like now?" she countered curiously. This was odd. She was miles and miles away from them all, and yet they called upon her for advice on a man she hadn't seen in a year. Greg looked at Jac for help. She heaved a sigh and took the phone from him.
"Connie, it's Jac here. We're all holed up in my office, trying to figure this out, and Dr. Petrenko made a valid point: we might be making something out of nothing. So...can you remember how he acted and how he looked when you last saw and spoke to him?"
"He was stubborn, arrogant, sarcastic, rude...would you like me to go on, or do you get the general picture?" she attempted to joke again. "Look, he seemed to be in perfect health. Though, I did wonder if something happened to him that made him so...emotionally closed. But then, there are a lot of people who are just like that. But, physically, he was absolutely fine. Now, what on Earth is going on here?"
Jac hesitated. It seemed like she was right. Frieda's reluctance was optimism. Connie had described the physical health of the Hanssen that Jac only vaguely recalled. "He's sick, Connie. His hands tremble; he has these really bad mood swings, Bad coordination, chorea, bad memory. He forgets what word he's meant to use...we were thinking it might be Huntington's?" she asked.
"'We'? Who is 'we'?" she checked.
"Uhhh..." she trailed off, looking around. "Four consultants, four registrars, an F1, an F2 and two senior nurses," she listed to her old colleague and friend. "Bottom line, I called them all here because I've notice that Hanssen really doesn't seem to be very well at all. You should see him, Connie. He looks dreadful."
"It's not like you to be worried about a colleague," Connie noted. "What is actually going on here? You're worried about Henrik Hanssen being sick, you've hauled half the hospital to your office and I'll bet that Hanssen doesn't have a clue, probably because nobody is stupid enough to say anything."
"It's...complicated," Jac allowed.
"Complicated is just a word people use instead of saying, 'If I tell you, you won't agree, so I'll just tell you it's complicated so that you'll leave it alone,'" Connie said harshly.
"Anyway, do you agree that something isn't right?" Jac persisted. "You agree that he's ill?" There was a long pause as Connie considered it. Yes, he sounded sick to her. Yes, something was far from normal. But, they knew nothing of his medical history, nothing of his family history, nothing of his childhood, and she also knew that he fully intended to keep things that way.
"Yes," she finally sighed. "I think he's unwell. Has he got close to anyone since I left?" she enquired.
"There was a new registrar who came here after you left; they've known each other for sixteen years. And I think she knows what's going on."
"Right. He needs medication to control the tremors, but we can't do a lot about the mood swings except from Anti-depressants, maybe. Do you need me to come and help?" she offered. It was unlike her to go out of her way to help Hanssen, but the fact remained that he was ill and she was a doctor. It was second nature to her now.
"No, no, we'll be fine. We just wanted to check we weren't making a mountain out of a molehill," she assured Connie. "You better get back to work now. I'll maybe speak to you later."
"Alright. Tell me if you find out what it is, would you?" Connie requested. She was genuinely worried now.
"Of course. Bye," Jac said before hanging up. "She agrees with us – there is something wrong. The question is, what?" She looked at Chrissie and Luc. "You two think Huntington's?"
"Think about it," Eddi told everyone. "A kid who is sent here from Sweden so young that he loses his accent probably hasn't had all that great a time. My guess is he was sent to school here when his mum died. What if she died from Huntington's disease? Luc, you say he's like you, that he doesn't drink. For most people, it's either because they're recovering from addiction or because they've watched a relative stagger down that road and don't want to go there themselves. So, if his mum died, possibly from Huntington's, his father dealt with that by hitting the bottle and the Swede was sent here as a kid, it would explain a hell of a lot, wouldn't it?" she pointed out. There was a quiet knock at the door and Jac very hastily wiped the board clean.
Suddenly, the door opened and Sahira stood and looked over them. Bewilderment on her face transformed into suspicion and then resignation. She knew what they were up to; they were trying to figure out what was wrong with Henrik. She wouldn't say anything, though. She could clearly see they were all concerned, whether they liked to admit to it or not. The whole lot of them scattered back to their wards with one glare from Jac. "Sahira," she greeted her colleague. "Sit down. I want to talk to you."
"Whatever it is, Greg did it," she half-joked. She did obey, though and sat down on Elliot's chair. She really was suspicious, especially when Jac didn't start a lecture about some mistake she made ages ago and even more so when she saw the look of sympathy on her face. Oh, God, Sahira cringed internally. What has she figured out?
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Sarah and Caja xxxx
