PART 9
{November 10, 1999}
The room still had an acrid smell to it even though the gas explosion had occurred nearly two
weeks ago. Memories of the sudden explosion were fading fast - Malucci was already reverting to his
sloppy work habits and Mark's hearing had returned to normal. The antiseptic smell of bleach tinged
with the faint acerbic odour of smoke continued to permeate the room, but it was a welcome alternative
to the noise she had been putting up with for the last two hours. Kerry had given up on trying to do her
paperwork in the lounge or at the desk. For all the spaciousness out at the main desk, the amount of
traffic moving through it only served to increase in her a sense of claustophobia. The small staccato
beat in her left temple had increased to that of a full blown bass drum within an hour of her arrival.
A pile of charts for review sat in front of her and she rubbed her eyes once more to try and
distinguish what Dave Malucci had written. Kerry gritted her teeth as she finally deciphered his chicken
scratchings and decided that she'd set him the task of practising his writing skills the next time she saw
him. Now that she was able to go past Malucci's troublesome syncope patient's chart, which had her
stumped for close to five minutes, she began to make her way through the other charts.
Chart review was normally an easy job for her, yet she found that she wasn't able to
concentrate. Her mind kept wandering and she had to remind herself to focus. There was a budgetary
meeting in less than an hour and she wanted these done before then.
In the background, Kerry could hear the sounds of the ER. Trauma had been light that day
with only the usual run of the mill type of cases, easily handled by the residents and interns. It made it
easier for her to take time out and catch up on her paperwork. She couldn't understand why she was
behind. Even on her worst days, she had always managed to handle her caseload combined with the
administrative responsibilities. Granted, there had been times when she had only managed to pull
everything together but nothing like the feeling she was experiencing at the moment of constantly being
one step behind.
Kerry jumped when the pager on her coat beeped, the sound breaking through the silence in
the room like a siren. Looking at the pager, she recognised the number on the digital display. Kerry
wondered why Romano would be paging her now - until she looked at her watch and realised she was
fifteen minutes late for the meeting.
She quickly gathered up the charts into her arms, leaped to her feet and slipped her right arm
into the familiar crutch resting against the chair. Her anxiety at being late had her moving down the
hallway at a clipped pace, her mind churning over how time had just disappeared without her noticing;
chart review still wasn't finished and she was late.
Rushing down the hallway, concentrating on putting one foot ahead of the other, the beat of her
feet hitting the floor matching the pounding in her head, Kerry missed seeing the third year med student
come out of the exam room. They collided dramatically. Urine and blood samples flew through the air,
hitting the wall and leaving colourful fingers of red and yellow dripping down the cream walls; charts slid
down the hallway, stopping haphazardly at irregular intervals like stepping stones.
Kerry gave an anguished yelp of pain, clutching her ribs protectively. The young med student
looked at her mortified and waited in silent fear. Kerry felt the rush of anger rise like the bitter taste of
bile. She swallowed, trying to bite back her annoyance at the collision, but her barbed words surged
forth. The hall quickly cleared of any staff members that didn't need to be there; they didn't want to be
caught up in the waves of wrath rolling over.
"Kerry, what's the problem?" Mark's calm, even voice broke through her tirade. He took in
the med student with large tears rolling down her face, struggling to try and weather the storm of
Kerry's temper. Mark indicated for the student to go and she scurried off to the nearest toilet to regain
her composure.
"I'm late for a meeting." Kerry looked up at him, his lean figure towering over her as she
struggled to pick up the charts from the floor.
"That's not the med student's fault, Kerry."
"No but the fact that I'm even later is. Look at the walls!" Mark took in the dripping fingers of
blood and urine samples creeping in slow trails down the wall. "And even the charts, they're covered
in blood and urine."
"There's only a couple of spots on them, Kerry. It's nothing to worry about." Mark bent down
and helped her pick up the charts, quickly gathering them into a pile.
"Nothing to worry about! You don't know what the patient has."
Mark was surprised at the way Kerry was reacting to such a simple accident. She was
blowing the incident totally out of proportion. It wasn't as if this sort of thing hadn't occurred before.
The last week had been rather tedious with Kerry being irritable and exploding in anger at the slightest
mistake.
He rose to his feet, offering his hand to Kerry to help her up. She ignored it, pulling herself up
expertly on her crutch and wincing at the twinge of pain through her ribs.
"Kerry, what's wrong?" Mark had been watching her carefully, assessing her unusual
behaviour. He was concerned at the way she had been acting this last week. She had seemed to be
perpetually at the hospital outside her scheduled hours, working on administrative matters of one sort or
another and it was taking its toll. Her eyes had taken on a haunted look; at least the eye that she could
clearly see through. Her left eye, injured in the fall last week, was slowly healing, yet her right eye
seemed to be matching the left one in appearance with a deep, dark blue-black smudge growing in
depth each day.
"Nothing. I just had the wind knocked out of me when we collided."
"I want to check you out, you seem more than just winded."
A pager went off. Both of them looked down at their coat pockets to see whose it was. "It's
mine. Romano's chasing me. I'd better get going. Could you put these in the lounge for me to finish?"
Kerry handed over the few charts she had retrieved from the floor.
"Sure, but Kerry......" Mark trailed off as she disappeared down the hall, heading towards the
elevators.
*************
"Dr. Weaver, very nice of you to bless us with your presence," Romano commented
sardonically as she entered the conference room. "An urgent trauma case again?"
Kerry didn't bother to dignify him with a response, sitting down in the last seat available at the
conference table. Sinking into the seat, Kerry struggled to get her breath, the sound rasping and loud in
the silence of the conference room. As she calmed herself down, Kerry realised that she had left her
notes and paperwork down in the ER, paperwork she had stayed at the hospital to complete until the
early hours of this morning.
Romano conducted the meeting with his usual string of barbs and innuendos, striking at
unsuspecting staff. Kerry yawned, losing interest in the meeting and her eyes began to feel very heavy.
"Dr. Weaver, we aren't keeping you awake, are we? I don't suppose you've got those figures
I wanted?"
"Yes, Robert."
"Yes, I am keeping you awake or you have the figures?"
"I've got the figures for you." Kerry rattled them off for him, grateful for her memory and gave
a small smile of satisfaction when Romano had nothing to come back at her with, the details she
provided him with fully covering what he sought. His eyes watched her, a saturnine smile plastered
across his face.
It was the small, beady eyes that caught her and mesmerised her, taking her back to another
time. They swallowed her soul and drained the colour from her face as she remembered. *He* had
had small, beady eyes; eyes that had stripped her to the core, taking away all warmth and leaving her
cold and clammy. She could once again feel his breath against her skin, the headiness of wanton desire
as he took in her virtually naked body.
"Kerry, are you okay?" Elizabeth's soft English lilt broke through the memories. She jumped
as she felt Elizabeth's touch on her arm at the same time.
"Uh, yes, no....I think I'm going to be sick." Kerry struggled to control the feeling, yet her
stomach rebelled against her fight to contain it. She scrambled to get her crutch and raced out the door
to the toilets. Once there she finally gave in to the rolling waves of nausea, emptying the contents of her
stomach rather dramatically. Her stomach was still heaving when a voice broke through the silence in
the room.
"Kerry?" Elizabeth, concerned about the competent doctor, had followed her. It was unusual
for Kerry to be late to a meeting and it had now occurred twice in one week. Her loss of colour in the
conference had worried Elizabeth, the distant look in Kerry's eyes and the clamminess of her skin when
she had touched her. The aluminum crutch outside the cubicle indicated where Kerry was and
Elizabeth tentatively pushed the door open.
She found Kerry hunched over the toilet bowl, her face pallid as she looked up at Elizabeth.
Another wave of nausea hit and Kerry dry-retched, the heaves shaking her slight frame. Kerry could
hear water running in the background as her stomach twisted and turned once again. A moment later
she felt wet toweling pressed against the nape of her neck. The coolness was welcome, bringing relief
to the heat that seemed to be billowing inside her. Kerry sat back, closing her eyes as her nausea
settled. Another piece of toweling paper came against her forehead, the smell of the damp paper
bringing her back to awareness.
"How are you feeling?"
"Do you want the truth?" Kerry asked tiredly, a twisted smile coming to her face before it
disappeared once again.
"I think I can take a guess. Stupid question, I suppose." Elizabeth slid down the wall to sit
opposite Kerry. "Is your stomach settling down?"
"Only just." Kerry closed her eyes again, her head drooping forward and she put her hand
against the damp cloth to stop it from falling.
"Are you ill?"
"No. It just hit me all of a sudden."
"You're not pregnant, are you?" Elizabeth asked.
Kerry opened her right eye and looked at Elizabeth to check whether she was serious. Kerry
gave a half-hearted laugh and replied, "No, I'm not pregnant."
"Just a bit of Romano Ad Nauseum, then?"
"Is that the clinical name for it?"
"Yep, I suffer from it on occasion myself," Elizabeth admitted. "I don't know about you, but I
am getting awfully cramped sitting like this. Do you think you'll be able to leave the safety of the toilet
without throwing up everywhere?"
Elizabeth's way of phrasing it had Kerry smiling. "I think my stomach is limiting it to the
occasional somersault."
"How about I take you to the surgeon's lounge and you can lie down for an hour?" Elizabeth
asked. She saw Kerry about to dispute her suggestion, and continued, "That wasn't just a suggestion,
Kerry. Be grateful that I'm not submitting you to a full physical. You look terrible."
"Gee, thanks. That's just what I needed to hear."
"Well, have a rest and maybe I'll change my opinion in an hour." Elizabeth commented dryly as
she gave Kerry a hand to get up off the floor. She didn't miss Kerry's wince at the pain in her leg and
ribs. Passing Kerry her crutch, Elizabeth accompanied her out of the toilets and down the hall.
End Part 9
{November 10, 1999}
The room still had an acrid smell to it even though the gas explosion had occurred nearly two
weeks ago. Memories of the sudden explosion were fading fast - Malucci was already reverting to his
sloppy work habits and Mark's hearing had returned to normal. The antiseptic smell of bleach tinged
with the faint acerbic odour of smoke continued to permeate the room, but it was a welcome alternative
to the noise she had been putting up with for the last two hours. Kerry had given up on trying to do her
paperwork in the lounge or at the desk. For all the spaciousness out at the main desk, the amount of
traffic moving through it only served to increase in her a sense of claustophobia. The small staccato
beat in her left temple had increased to that of a full blown bass drum within an hour of her arrival.
A pile of charts for review sat in front of her and she rubbed her eyes once more to try and
distinguish what Dave Malucci had written. Kerry gritted her teeth as she finally deciphered his chicken
scratchings and decided that she'd set him the task of practising his writing skills the next time she saw
him. Now that she was able to go past Malucci's troublesome syncope patient's chart, which had her
stumped for close to five minutes, she began to make her way through the other charts.
Chart review was normally an easy job for her, yet she found that she wasn't able to
concentrate. Her mind kept wandering and she had to remind herself to focus. There was a budgetary
meeting in less than an hour and she wanted these done before then.
In the background, Kerry could hear the sounds of the ER. Trauma had been light that day
with only the usual run of the mill type of cases, easily handled by the residents and interns. It made it
easier for her to take time out and catch up on her paperwork. She couldn't understand why she was
behind. Even on her worst days, she had always managed to handle her caseload combined with the
administrative responsibilities. Granted, there had been times when she had only managed to pull
everything together but nothing like the feeling she was experiencing at the moment of constantly being
one step behind.
Kerry jumped when the pager on her coat beeped, the sound breaking through the silence in
the room like a siren. Looking at the pager, she recognised the number on the digital display. Kerry
wondered why Romano would be paging her now - until she looked at her watch and realised she was
fifteen minutes late for the meeting.
She quickly gathered up the charts into her arms, leaped to her feet and slipped her right arm
into the familiar crutch resting against the chair. Her anxiety at being late had her moving down the
hallway at a clipped pace, her mind churning over how time had just disappeared without her noticing;
chart review still wasn't finished and she was late.
Rushing down the hallway, concentrating on putting one foot ahead of the other, the beat of her
feet hitting the floor matching the pounding in her head, Kerry missed seeing the third year med student
come out of the exam room. They collided dramatically. Urine and blood samples flew through the air,
hitting the wall and leaving colourful fingers of red and yellow dripping down the cream walls; charts slid
down the hallway, stopping haphazardly at irregular intervals like stepping stones.
Kerry gave an anguished yelp of pain, clutching her ribs protectively. The young med student
looked at her mortified and waited in silent fear. Kerry felt the rush of anger rise like the bitter taste of
bile. She swallowed, trying to bite back her annoyance at the collision, but her barbed words surged
forth. The hall quickly cleared of any staff members that didn't need to be there; they didn't want to be
caught up in the waves of wrath rolling over.
"Kerry, what's the problem?" Mark's calm, even voice broke through her tirade. He took in
the med student with large tears rolling down her face, struggling to try and weather the storm of
Kerry's temper. Mark indicated for the student to go and she scurried off to the nearest toilet to regain
her composure.
"I'm late for a meeting." Kerry looked up at him, his lean figure towering over her as she
struggled to pick up the charts from the floor.
"That's not the med student's fault, Kerry."
"No but the fact that I'm even later is. Look at the walls!" Mark took in the dripping fingers of
blood and urine samples creeping in slow trails down the wall. "And even the charts, they're covered
in blood and urine."
"There's only a couple of spots on them, Kerry. It's nothing to worry about." Mark bent down
and helped her pick up the charts, quickly gathering them into a pile.
"Nothing to worry about! You don't know what the patient has."
Mark was surprised at the way Kerry was reacting to such a simple accident. She was
blowing the incident totally out of proportion. It wasn't as if this sort of thing hadn't occurred before.
The last week had been rather tedious with Kerry being irritable and exploding in anger at the slightest
mistake.
He rose to his feet, offering his hand to Kerry to help her up. She ignored it, pulling herself up
expertly on her crutch and wincing at the twinge of pain through her ribs.
"Kerry, what's wrong?" Mark had been watching her carefully, assessing her unusual
behaviour. He was concerned at the way she had been acting this last week. She had seemed to be
perpetually at the hospital outside her scheduled hours, working on administrative matters of one sort or
another and it was taking its toll. Her eyes had taken on a haunted look; at least the eye that she could
clearly see through. Her left eye, injured in the fall last week, was slowly healing, yet her right eye
seemed to be matching the left one in appearance with a deep, dark blue-black smudge growing in
depth each day.
"Nothing. I just had the wind knocked out of me when we collided."
"I want to check you out, you seem more than just winded."
A pager went off. Both of them looked down at their coat pockets to see whose it was. "It's
mine. Romano's chasing me. I'd better get going. Could you put these in the lounge for me to finish?"
Kerry handed over the few charts she had retrieved from the floor.
"Sure, but Kerry......" Mark trailed off as she disappeared down the hall, heading towards the
elevators.
*************
"Dr. Weaver, very nice of you to bless us with your presence," Romano commented
sardonically as she entered the conference room. "An urgent trauma case again?"
Kerry didn't bother to dignify him with a response, sitting down in the last seat available at the
conference table. Sinking into the seat, Kerry struggled to get her breath, the sound rasping and loud in
the silence of the conference room. As she calmed herself down, Kerry realised that she had left her
notes and paperwork down in the ER, paperwork she had stayed at the hospital to complete until the
early hours of this morning.
Romano conducted the meeting with his usual string of barbs and innuendos, striking at
unsuspecting staff. Kerry yawned, losing interest in the meeting and her eyes began to feel very heavy.
"Dr. Weaver, we aren't keeping you awake, are we? I don't suppose you've got those figures
I wanted?"
"Yes, Robert."
"Yes, I am keeping you awake or you have the figures?"
"I've got the figures for you." Kerry rattled them off for him, grateful for her memory and gave
a small smile of satisfaction when Romano had nothing to come back at her with, the details she
provided him with fully covering what he sought. His eyes watched her, a saturnine smile plastered
across his face.
It was the small, beady eyes that caught her and mesmerised her, taking her back to another
time. They swallowed her soul and drained the colour from her face as she remembered. *He* had
had small, beady eyes; eyes that had stripped her to the core, taking away all warmth and leaving her
cold and clammy. She could once again feel his breath against her skin, the headiness of wanton desire
as he took in her virtually naked body.
"Kerry, are you okay?" Elizabeth's soft English lilt broke through the memories. She jumped
as she felt Elizabeth's touch on her arm at the same time.
"Uh, yes, no....I think I'm going to be sick." Kerry struggled to control the feeling, yet her
stomach rebelled against her fight to contain it. She scrambled to get her crutch and raced out the door
to the toilets. Once there she finally gave in to the rolling waves of nausea, emptying the contents of her
stomach rather dramatically. Her stomach was still heaving when a voice broke through the silence in
the room.
"Kerry?" Elizabeth, concerned about the competent doctor, had followed her. It was unusual
for Kerry to be late to a meeting and it had now occurred twice in one week. Her loss of colour in the
conference had worried Elizabeth, the distant look in Kerry's eyes and the clamminess of her skin when
she had touched her. The aluminum crutch outside the cubicle indicated where Kerry was and
Elizabeth tentatively pushed the door open.
She found Kerry hunched over the toilet bowl, her face pallid as she looked up at Elizabeth.
Another wave of nausea hit and Kerry dry-retched, the heaves shaking her slight frame. Kerry could
hear water running in the background as her stomach twisted and turned once again. A moment later
she felt wet toweling pressed against the nape of her neck. The coolness was welcome, bringing relief
to the heat that seemed to be billowing inside her. Kerry sat back, closing her eyes as her nausea
settled. Another piece of toweling paper came against her forehead, the smell of the damp paper
bringing her back to awareness.
"How are you feeling?"
"Do you want the truth?" Kerry asked tiredly, a twisted smile coming to her face before it
disappeared once again.
"I think I can take a guess. Stupid question, I suppose." Elizabeth slid down the wall to sit
opposite Kerry. "Is your stomach settling down?"
"Only just." Kerry closed her eyes again, her head drooping forward and she put her hand
against the damp cloth to stop it from falling.
"Are you ill?"
"No. It just hit me all of a sudden."
"You're not pregnant, are you?" Elizabeth asked.
Kerry opened her right eye and looked at Elizabeth to check whether she was serious. Kerry
gave a half-hearted laugh and replied, "No, I'm not pregnant."
"Just a bit of Romano Ad Nauseum, then?"
"Is that the clinical name for it?"
"Yep, I suffer from it on occasion myself," Elizabeth admitted. "I don't know about you, but I
am getting awfully cramped sitting like this. Do you think you'll be able to leave the safety of the toilet
without throwing up everywhere?"
Elizabeth's way of phrasing it had Kerry smiling. "I think my stomach is limiting it to the
occasional somersault."
"How about I take you to the surgeon's lounge and you can lie down for an hour?" Elizabeth
asked. She saw Kerry about to dispute her suggestion, and continued, "That wasn't just a suggestion,
Kerry. Be grateful that I'm not submitting you to a full physical. You look terrible."
"Gee, thanks. That's just what I needed to hear."
"Well, have a rest and maybe I'll change my opinion in an hour." Elizabeth commented dryly as
she gave Kerry a hand to get up off the floor. She didn't miss Kerry's wince at the pain in her leg and
ribs. Passing Kerry her crutch, Elizabeth accompanied her out of the toilets and down the hall.
End Part 9