A Friendly Hand
By Didi
Disclaimers: I don't own any of the characters. John Wells and his friends do. Let's not get into the debate as to who owns the ideas and all that; cause let's fact it, you'll lose. Enjoy the story anyways.
Summary: The hospital rumor mill get hold of a hush-hush situation.
Note: This is going to be one of those slight filler chapters as I move the story alone. Please enjoy it.
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Chapter 5
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"Dr. Slingerland, your 2:30 is here," Clare called out as Matt was passing by the receptionist desk on his way to his office. There was about three hours worth of paper work to be caught up on.
Puzzlement crossed his face, as the words finally registered in his mind after taking another half dozen steps down the hall. Turning about, he pinned Clare with a disbelieving look, "My what?"
"Your patient," Clare explained perturbed for a moment. "She's in exam room three."
"I don't have a 2:30 appointment," he explained slowly coming back to the receptionist's desk. "I purposely left it open for an hour to do office work."
"Don't look at me," the redheaded secretary replied handing him the necessary chart. "Frank made the appointment," pointing to her fellow lanky receptionist.
"FRANK!" Slingerland was not a happy man.
"Sorry but she said it was an emergency," Frank explained quickly, taking the chart from Clare's hand and passing it to him. "She's got a pretty sick kid on her hand."
"Kid?" he asked dropping his stack of paperwork onto the counter and glancing at the chart's heading. "Oh bloody hell." It was Debra Jankins. "Page Dr. Keating," he instructed before heading for exam room three. He'll need Jules to deal with the mother and the sick child.
Bracing himself, Slingerland came around the corner and stared at the mother and child through the glass partition. The look on Billy's face had him running into the room. "Billy? What's wrong?" touching the boy's forehead with his hand.
Billy moaned and said nothing, his head bent over the trashcan he was clutching onto for dear life.
Debra sighed and looked at Slingerland. "He woke up feeling sick and told me so. I thought he was just trying to get out of going to preschool, you know like most children do. The school nurse called me during lunch and told me that Billy made a mess on the playground and told me to pick him up. He's been throwing up since."
"Okay," he ran a quick hand over the top of Billy's head as the boy groaned and empty his stomach once more. "Let me get someone." Walking over to the side of the room, he picked up the phone. "Clare, get me Dr. Keating on the phone. Now please, we have a bit of a problem." There were a few moments of silence as the dull elevator music of the phone system's waiting period came on.
"Keating."
"It's Slingerland."
"Matt, I don't appreciate being paged when there isn't..."
"I've got Billy Jankins here, in exam room three."
"Jankins? As in your blonde problem?"
The amusement in her tone was not appreciated, especially not now. "The boy is looking a bit green around the gill."
The sobered her up nicely. "How bad?"
"Losing all his stomach contents now and it's been nearly two hours. It doesn't look good."
"I'm on my way." The phone clicked dead.
"Dr. Keating is on her way," he said as he came back to the exam table.
"Isn't there anyone else?" Debra asked, barely able to suppress the irritation in her voice.
"She's the best," he pronounced with a smile for Billy, who looked up pitifully. "And we do want the best for little Billy here, don't we?" his voice held enough challenge that Debra should have taken the hint.
"Why can't you do something about it?" she asked.
"Because I don't specialize in children the way Dr. Keating does," he explained wincing as Billy spewed clear liquid from his mouth once more. Looks like his stomach is now officially empty. "Oh, this is not good."
Two discreet taps on the door before Dr. Keating announced herself. "Hi there. What's going on? Billy?" her nose wrinkled with concern as Billy heaved more clear liquid from his mouth. She reached for the waste bin as she passed it and exchanged it for the one in Billy's hand. "Let me have a look," tilting the boy's face up to her. "Oh, you must be feeling really yucky right about now." The boy nodded his head miserably. "I'm going to do a quick exam up on you and see if I can make you feel any better, all right?" Again, he nodded his head. "Okay."
Keating turned to Slingerland. "Call up to pediatrics and tell them to get me Billy's charts." She turned to the mother. "Billy has been there before, right?" Debra nodded her head quickly.
Slingerland picked up the phone as Jules moved Billy fully onto the bed. "You tell me where it hurts okay?" After a full exam, with Billy crying out when she pressed on tender spots, Jules frowned with concern as she watched Billy gagged and retched again when there shouldn't have been anything left to expel. "Billy, can you tell me what you had for breakfast?"
"Nothing," came the weak reply.
Jules looked surprised. "You didn't have breakfast?"
"He woke up late and there wasn't any time to get any before the bus came," Debra explained quickly when Dr. Keating's eyes went to her with the question.
Letting the question go, Jules smiled at Billy and smoothed back a strand of soft hair. "Can you tell me what you ate for lunch?"
"Nothing," came the reply again.
"You didn't have lunch either?"
"Sick," he managed to get out before another bout of nausea hit him.
"Debra," Jules asked, "What did Billy have for dinner?"
"I don't know," Debra replied, her eyes shifting a little nervously. This was becoming more serious than she thought. "I work at night. My mother usually feeds Billy when I'm not there."
Feeling exasperated, Jules turned to the boy again. "Billy? What did your grandmother give you for dinner?"
Billy blinked up at him groggily, his exhaustion beginning to show. "Pizza. French fries. Ice cream."
Slingerland frowned as he leaned in to whisper in Dr. Keating's ears, "Nice balance meal they feed the poor kid."
A knock on the door and a manila folder was thrust through the door. Jules grabbed it and went to the side counter to flip through the contents with a quick assessing eye. Billy had never been one of her patients but she has always been quick to pick up stray charts for study.
Slingerland came up behind her, letting the tips of his finger rest on the small of Keating's back. He felt her stiffen at the touch and experience a moment of pleasure and amusement knowing he could affect her. "Relax, I'm not going to hurt you," he whispered softly.
Glancing at him impatiently, she hissed, "Now is not the time to be worrying about the mother's obsession with you."
"I'm not doing this for her benefits," he replied, reading the chart over her shoulder. "You're tense." Gently rubbing the small of her back with his hand. He smiled when she didn't move from his touch. "Relax a bit. You're doing fine with the boy."
"I'm not sure what's wrong with him," she replied worriedly, flipping the chart a little more. "She doesn't bring him in regularly. There isn't anything in here to help."
"So do what you would normally do when you have a new patient come in with an ailment," he advised gently. "Admit the boy and let's keep him under close observation for a while."
She sighed, "Your right."
Matt smiled, glad that she didn't argue the point. Doctors were notorious for not taking advise from others. "What does your gut instinct tell you?"
Jules chewed on her lip for a moment. "It's going to sound crazy to you."
"Shoot."
She glanced over her shoulders at the five year old, hunched over the wastebasket. "If I didn't know better, I'd say he's got a failed gull bladder. But he's too young for that kind of thing."
"But that's what your instincts are telling you?" he asked quietly.
"Yeah," she whispered back with a shake of her head. "He'd have to be eating greasy fast foods and sodas three meals a day since the day he was born to have that kind of damage though."
"If that's what you're gut is telling you, that go with it. Don't doubt yourself, Jules."
Dr. Keating grinned at him. "When did you become my champion?"
"When I realized what a good sport you really are," he replied with the same fond smile.
"Dr. Keating?" Clare's head opened through the doorway. Slingeland's hand dropped away from her quickly but not fast enough to have been missed by the eagle eyes of Clare.
Aggravated, Matt frowned at her as he stepped away from Jules. "Don't you know to knock, Clare?"
"Sorry," Clare replied though clearly her grin said otherwise. "Dr. Keating, your 2:45 is here."
Jules slapped her forehead with her palm, "Oh man, tell Diane to push all my appointments back by fifteen. I'll be right up." She turned to Matt before Clare had fully withdrawn from the room. "Can you admit him and get some blood works started?"
Slingerland nodded his head with a smile for her before taking Billy's chart. He knew that with Billy squeezing in, she was going to be overbooked for the rest of the day. "I'm at your command."
"Thanks," she said quietly as she turned to the slightly green Billy. "Billy, Dr. Slingerland is going to check you into the hospital. We're going to do some tests on you to find out what's causing you to be so sick, okay?"
Debra looked alarmed. "Wait a minute now, you saying that he has to stay?"
"I'm afraid so," Jules replied calmly in her most professional tone. "Billy is suffering some acute abdominal pains that seems to be localized but I can't be sure of that until we do some more tests. In the meantime, it would be safer to keep him here so that we can monitor him and get him hydrated again."
"How much is this going to cost me?" Debra asked.
Jules counted to ten in her mind before she gave into the temptation to deck the woman. Matt must have sense the impending danger as he grabbed Jules by the arm and led her outside. "I'll be back," he called over her shoulder as he pushed Jules out ahead of him. "Don't do it."
"I'm going to kill her," she hissed before taking a deep breath.
"Just let me handle this," Slingerland said reassuringly as he continued to push her down the hall, away from where she could cause a scandal by doing some major damage to Debra. "You go do your rounds."
She glared at him. "I better see Billy's name on the admitting charts soon, Matt. Or I'm calling DCFS."
"Don't worry," he said, giving her a gentle push. "I won't let Billy leave the hospital. I promise."
"I'm counting on you," she said as she reluctantly made her way toward the elevators just as three nurses passed them on their way to the cafeteria for their break.
"I won't let you down," he replied before turning about and hightailing it back to the room to make sure Debra doesn't make a liar out of him.
With the two doctors headed in opposite directions and intent on getting to their destinations, neither of them heard the excited whispers that followed.
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"You called for a consult?"
Slingerland looked up from the notations he had been making to watch Dr. Nicholas Kokoris approach him. To put it mildly, the Greek doctor has looked better. The white lab coats no longer resembling anything close to white. His green scrubs were wrinkled and liberally sprinkled with brown spots. And the man looked to be in need of twenty straight hours of sleep. "What happened to you?"
"No one warned me that taking the power shift in the emergency room was going to be like being back in Bosnia's war camps," came the disgruntled replied as he rubbed his eyes and frowned at the pile of charts under his arms. "Why do American keep guns in their homes yet fail to teach their children the proper usage of one?"
Shrugging, "I'm still trying to figure out why they limit the drinking age to 21 when it is obviously not going to happen. Causes more abuse in alcohol if you ask me." He closed the chart in his hand. "To go back to your first question, yes, I did call a surgical consult though I may be premature on this one."
"What do we have?" he asked, blinking some of the exhaustion from his eyes.
"Five year old admitted with stomach problems. Has been vomiting non stop since noon today."
Glancing at his watch, Kakoris frowned. "It's been six hours then. Why have you just called me?"
"Because I can't be completely sure," Matt answered as he handed him the chart. "This is technically Dr. Keating's patient, I admitted him cause I brought the patient to her. She's been in and out all day, full caseload today and now this. She suspects gall bladder."
"Too young," Nick murmured as he looked over the lab results. "Whites are up. Did you do a sonogram?"
"Non conclusive, he's too small and his liver is in the way," rubbing his face, he sighed and looked through the glass wall to the patient's room. "Jules will be down in the moment to consult with you on this. Watch out for the mother."
"What?" came the question.
"Dr. Kakoris," Jules called out as she made her way down the hall at something near a dead run. "Wait here, I'll be right back," she hollered as she ran pass them and into the stairwell.
"What was that?" Nick asked staring after her as the door shut hind her flying lab coat.
Matt frowned concerned over the near frantic look on Dr. Keating's face as she sailed by. "Not a clue." Shaking his head, "Want to meet the patient?"
"Sure," Nick replied, still looking through the numerous lab works. "What is his name?"
"Billy Jankins."
Entering the room where Debra was holding a bottle of water while Billy was sitting with his head still facing a waste basket, Nick was surprised to be greeted by a less than distort mother. "Mrs. Jankins, I'm Dr. Kakoris, the resident surgeon."
"It's Miss Jankins," Debra corrected as she stood to shake the doctor's hand. "How's my Billy?"
"Very ill," he replied, slanting questioning look at Slingerland whose only reply was an I-warned-you look. "Has Billy had stomach ailments lately? Nausea, vomiting, stomachs, fever?"
"No, nothing like that. Billy has always been a very healthy boy," she replied, dimpling up at him. She tilted her head to include Dr. Slingerland in her enchanting smile. "Dr. Slingerland has been very good to us."
Nick bit the inside of his cheek. "I'm sure he has."
Matt flushed for no apparently reason.
"Billy," Nick said sitting on the bed. "I'm Dr. Kakoris. May I exam you?"
Billy lifted his head for moment, his eyes encircled with a dark ring. "Where's Dr. Jules?"
"Dr. Jules?" Nick looked at Slingerland.
Matt smiled, "He means Dr. Jules Keating."
"Oh," realizing for the first time that he hadn't known the pediatrician's name. "Dr. Keating is a bit busy at the moment. But she'll be right back. She asked me to take a look at you and see how you are doing."
Nodding his sober little head, Billy allowed Kakoris to shift the wastebasket to the side and began to gently probe his stomach. "Dr. Keating says that you've been feeling some bad tummy aches. Can you tell me where it hurts?"
"OWW....."
"Okay," Kakoris murmured as he shifted his hand away from the slightly extended area. "I guess that part hurts."
Billy sniffed and nodded his head before grabbing the trashcan again and gagging.
"Sorry," Keating said breathily as she came into the room in a hurry. She was panting for breath and looked less than composed. "A little incident in neonatal."
"What happened?" Slingerland asked, coming to her, his concern obvious by the trouble look on his face.
She gave a weak smile and nudged him aside, away from the medical bed and the curious ears of the mother. "There was a pink alert."
Matt's eye went wide. "You're kidding."
"No, they caught him in the parking lot just as he was putting the baby in the trunk of a car," she took a deep breath and tried to calm her racing heart.
He rubbed her back with his hand, noting that she was too distracted to be aware of the gesture. She was tense and upset, things like this always got to her. "Are you all right?"
"I hate it when that happens. Why do these people think that taking a child from the hospital is the right thing to do? There are always other ways," she whispered back. Her shook her head to clear her thoughts. Another patient needed her now, "Kakoris find anything?"
"Only that he may agree with you," Nick answered as he came up behind the couple. He had not been the only observing the charmingly intimate conversation. Debra looked ready to blow a gasket. It had surprised Nick to no end to note the unconscious gestures between the two. "You may be right, the gall bladder appears to be the problem."
"Damn," she muttered, his frustration obvious.
Matt frowned as he looked over at the ill Billy. "Jules, at least you caught it. If it had erupted..."
"He's so young though," she murmured.
Nick nodded his agreement. "This type of thing doesn't usually start so early but there has been cases of it. We need to remove it as soon as possible. He's stomach has already begun to extend. A sure sign of infection."
"I like to scrub in if you don't mind," she asked, tilting her head to offer Billy a reassuring smile.
"Not at all, I think I may need your expertise on this one," Kakoris replied, his eyes shifting from Keating to Slingerland. "Shall I have the nurses prepare a consent form?"
"Yeah," she nodded. "Matt, you want in?"
"No, I'll observe."
"Keep the mother calm," Kakoris advised with a slight shifting of his eyes. Debra looked more like a put upon babysitter than a worried mother. "Then again...."
"Noticed that did you?" Slingerland muttered with a roll of his eyes with his back to Debra. "I doubt she'd want to observe. And I sure the hell don't want to be stuck in a room with her."
"Keep it down," Jules hissed as she made her way toward the bed just as Billy spewed green liquid from his mouth. "Oh my god," she rushed to the boy's bedside just as he was about to pass out. "Kakoris, we're going to need to go in on an emergency."
Nick was already on the phone as Matt reached Jules's side to help her ease the boy back and onto his side. They did not want the kid to choke to death on his own vomit. "OR 3 is open now."
"Let's get him prepped," Jules called out as Matt and Nick unlock the bed. "Debra, follow us. We're going to need you to sign some stuff."
"Okay," came the cool as cucumber reply.
Jules looked up at Matt, her irritation almost palpable. "Remind me again why we let people like her have small children?"
Matt grinned in return. "As you Americans say, free country, love. It's a free country."
She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bite me."
Nick watched the light interplay with interest and amusement. This was certainly something new.
TCB.....
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Okay, for those of you that may have been slightly offended by the way I portrayed Debra, I wanted there to be no misunderstanding that I would actually there are mothers out there like that. I like to believe that all parents love and adore their children to the very core of their being. I merely created a rather unlikable character to facilitate the story. No flames please.
By Didi
Disclaimers: I don't own any of the characters. John Wells and his friends do. Let's not get into the debate as to who owns the ideas and all that; cause let's fact it, you'll lose. Enjoy the story anyways.
Summary: The hospital rumor mill get hold of a hush-hush situation.
Note: This is going to be one of those slight filler chapters as I move the story alone. Please enjoy it.
*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*
Chapter 5
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"Dr. Slingerland, your 2:30 is here," Clare called out as Matt was passing by the receptionist desk on his way to his office. There was about three hours worth of paper work to be caught up on.
Puzzlement crossed his face, as the words finally registered in his mind after taking another half dozen steps down the hall. Turning about, he pinned Clare with a disbelieving look, "My what?"
"Your patient," Clare explained perturbed for a moment. "She's in exam room three."
"I don't have a 2:30 appointment," he explained slowly coming back to the receptionist's desk. "I purposely left it open for an hour to do office work."
"Don't look at me," the redheaded secretary replied handing him the necessary chart. "Frank made the appointment," pointing to her fellow lanky receptionist.
"FRANK!" Slingerland was not a happy man.
"Sorry but she said it was an emergency," Frank explained quickly, taking the chart from Clare's hand and passing it to him. "She's got a pretty sick kid on her hand."
"Kid?" he asked dropping his stack of paperwork onto the counter and glancing at the chart's heading. "Oh bloody hell." It was Debra Jankins. "Page Dr. Keating," he instructed before heading for exam room three. He'll need Jules to deal with the mother and the sick child.
Bracing himself, Slingerland came around the corner and stared at the mother and child through the glass partition. The look on Billy's face had him running into the room. "Billy? What's wrong?" touching the boy's forehead with his hand.
Billy moaned and said nothing, his head bent over the trashcan he was clutching onto for dear life.
Debra sighed and looked at Slingerland. "He woke up feeling sick and told me so. I thought he was just trying to get out of going to preschool, you know like most children do. The school nurse called me during lunch and told me that Billy made a mess on the playground and told me to pick him up. He's been throwing up since."
"Okay," he ran a quick hand over the top of Billy's head as the boy groaned and empty his stomach once more. "Let me get someone." Walking over to the side of the room, he picked up the phone. "Clare, get me Dr. Keating on the phone. Now please, we have a bit of a problem." There were a few moments of silence as the dull elevator music of the phone system's waiting period came on.
"Keating."
"It's Slingerland."
"Matt, I don't appreciate being paged when there isn't..."
"I've got Billy Jankins here, in exam room three."
"Jankins? As in your blonde problem?"
The amusement in her tone was not appreciated, especially not now. "The boy is looking a bit green around the gill."
The sobered her up nicely. "How bad?"
"Losing all his stomach contents now and it's been nearly two hours. It doesn't look good."
"I'm on my way." The phone clicked dead.
"Dr. Keating is on her way," he said as he came back to the exam table.
"Isn't there anyone else?" Debra asked, barely able to suppress the irritation in her voice.
"She's the best," he pronounced with a smile for Billy, who looked up pitifully. "And we do want the best for little Billy here, don't we?" his voice held enough challenge that Debra should have taken the hint.
"Why can't you do something about it?" she asked.
"Because I don't specialize in children the way Dr. Keating does," he explained wincing as Billy spewed clear liquid from his mouth once more. Looks like his stomach is now officially empty. "Oh, this is not good."
Two discreet taps on the door before Dr. Keating announced herself. "Hi there. What's going on? Billy?" her nose wrinkled with concern as Billy heaved more clear liquid from his mouth. She reached for the waste bin as she passed it and exchanged it for the one in Billy's hand. "Let me have a look," tilting the boy's face up to her. "Oh, you must be feeling really yucky right about now." The boy nodded his head miserably. "I'm going to do a quick exam up on you and see if I can make you feel any better, all right?" Again, he nodded his head. "Okay."
Keating turned to Slingerland. "Call up to pediatrics and tell them to get me Billy's charts." She turned to the mother. "Billy has been there before, right?" Debra nodded her head quickly.
Slingerland picked up the phone as Jules moved Billy fully onto the bed. "You tell me where it hurts okay?" After a full exam, with Billy crying out when she pressed on tender spots, Jules frowned with concern as she watched Billy gagged and retched again when there shouldn't have been anything left to expel. "Billy, can you tell me what you had for breakfast?"
"Nothing," came the weak reply.
Jules looked surprised. "You didn't have breakfast?"
"He woke up late and there wasn't any time to get any before the bus came," Debra explained quickly when Dr. Keating's eyes went to her with the question.
Letting the question go, Jules smiled at Billy and smoothed back a strand of soft hair. "Can you tell me what you ate for lunch?"
"Nothing," came the reply again.
"You didn't have lunch either?"
"Sick," he managed to get out before another bout of nausea hit him.
"Debra," Jules asked, "What did Billy have for dinner?"
"I don't know," Debra replied, her eyes shifting a little nervously. This was becoming more serious than she thought. "I work at night. My mother usually feeds Billy when I'm not there."
Feeling exasperated, Jules turned to the boy again. "Billy? What did your grandmother give you for dinner?"
Billy blinked up at him groggily, his exhaustion beginning to show. "Pizza. French fries. Ice cream."
Slingerland frowned as he leaned in to whisper in Dr. Keating's ears, "Nice balance meal they feed the poor kid."
A knock on the door and a manila folder was thrust through the door. Jules grabbed it and went to the side counter to flip through the contents with a quick assessing eye. Billy had never been one of her patients but she has always been quick to pick up stray charts for study.
Slingerland came up behind her, letting the tips of his finger rest on the small of Keating's back. He felt her stiffen at the touch and experience a moment of pleasure and amusement knowing he could affect her. "Relax, I'm not going to hurt you," he whispered softly.
Glancing at him impatiently, she hissed, "Now is not the time to be worrying about the mother's obsession with you."
"I'm not doing this for her benefits," he replied, reading the chart over her shoulder. "You're tense." Gently rubbing the small of her back with his hand. He smiled when she didn't move from his touch. "Relax a bit. You're doing fine with the boy."
"I'm not sure what's wrong with him," she replied worriedly, flipping the chart a little more. "She doesn't bring him in regularly. There isn't anything in here to help."
"So do what you would normally do when you have a new patient come in with an ailment," he advised gently. "Admit the boy and let's keep him under close observation for a while."
She sighed, "Your right."
Matt smiled, glad that she didn't argue the point. Doctors were notorious for not taking advise from others. "What does your gut instinct tell you?"
Jules chewed on her lip for a moment. "It's going to sound crazy to you."
"Shoot."
She glanced over her shoulders at the five year old, hunched over the wastebasket. "If I didn't know better, I'd say he's got a failed gull bladder. But he's too young for that kind of thing."
"But that's what your instincts are telling you?" he asked quietly.
"Yeah," she whispered back with a shake of her head. "He'd have to be eating greasy fast foods and sodas three meals a day since the day he was born to have that kind of damage though."
"If that's what you're gut is telling you, that go with it. Don't doubt yourself, Jules."
Dr. Keating grinned at him. "When did you become my champion?"
"When I realized what a good sport you really are," he replied with the same fond smile.
"Dr. Keating?" Clare's head opened through the doorway. Slingeland's hand dropped away from her quickly but not fast enough to have been missed by the eagle eyes of Clare.
Aggravated, Matt frowned at her as he stepped away from Jules. "Don't you know to knock, Clare?"
"Sorry," Clare replied though clearly her grin said otherwise. "Dr. Keating, your 2:45 is here."
Jules slapped her forehead with her palm, "Oh man, tell Diane to push all my appointments back by fifteen. I'll be right up." She turned to Matt before Clare had fully withdrawn from the room. "Can you admit him and get some blood works started?"
Slingerland nodded his head with a smile for her before taking Billy's chart. He knew that with Billy squeezing in, she was going to be overbooked for the rest of the day. "I'm at your command."
"Thanks," she said quietly as she turned to the slightly green Billy. "Billy, Dr. Slingerland is going to check you into the hospital. We're going to do some tests on you to find out what's causing you to be so sick, okay?"
Debra looked alarmed. "Wait a minute now, you saying that he has to stay?"
"I'm afraid so," Jules replied calmly in her most professional tone. "Billy is suffering some acute abdominal pains that seems to be localized but I can't be sure of that until we do some more tests. In the meantime, it would be safer to keep him here so that we can monitor him and get him hydrated again."
"How much is this going to cost me?" Debra asked.
Jules counted to ten in her mind before she gave into the temptation to deck the woman. Matt must have sense the impending danger as he grabbed Jules by the arm and led her outside. "I'll be back," he called over her shoulder as he pushed Jules out ahead of him. "Don't do it."
"I'm going to kill her," she hissed before taking a deep breath.
"Just let me handle this," Slingerland said reassuringly as he continued to push her down the hall, away from where she could cause a scandal by doing some major damage to Debra. "You go do your rounds."
She glared at him. "I better see Billy's name on the admitting charts soon, Matt. Or I'm calling DCFS."
"Don't worry," he said, giving her a gentle push. "I won't let Billy leave the hospital. I promise."
"I'm counting on you," she said as she reluctantly made her way toward the elevators just as three nurses passed them on their way to the cafeteria for their break.
"I won't let you down," he replied before turning about and hightailing it back to the room to make sure Debra doesn't make a liar out of him.
With the two doctors headed in opposite directions and intent on getting to their destinations, neither of them heard the excited whispers that followed.
*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*
"You called for a consult?"
Slingerland looked up from the notations he had been making to watch Dr. Nicholas Kokoris approach him. To put it mildly, the Greek doctor has looked better. The white lab coats no longer resembling anything close to white. His green scrubs were wrinkled and liberally sprinkled with brown spots. And the man looked to be in need of twenty straight hours of sleep. "What happened to you?"
"No one warned me that taking the power shift in the emergency room was going to be like being back in Bosnia's war camps," came the disgruntled replied as he rubbed his eyes and frowned at the pile of charts under his arms. "Why do American keep guns in their homes yet fail to teach their children the proper usage of one?"
Shrugging, "I'm still trying to figure out why they limit the drinking age to 21 when it is obviously not going to happen. Causes more abuse in alcohol if you ask me." He closed the chart in his hand. "To go back to your first question, yes, I did call a surgical consult though I may be premature on this one."
"What do we have?" he asked, blinking some of the exhaustion from his eyes.
"Five year old admitted with stomach problems. Has been vomiting non stop since noon today."
Glancing at his watch, Kakoris frowned. "It's been six hours then. Why have you just called me?"
"Because I can't be completely sure," Matt answered as he handed him the chart. "This is technically Dr. Keating's patient, I admitted him cause I brought the patient to her. She's been in and out all day, full caseload today and now this. She suspects gall bladder."
"Too young," Nick murmured as he looked over the lab results. "Whites are up. Did you do a sonogram?"
"Non conclusive, he's too small and his liver is in the way," rubbing his face, he sighed and looked through the glass wall to the patient's room. "Jules will be down in the moment to consult with you on this. Watch out for the mother."
"What?" came the question.
"Dr. Kakoris," Jules called out as she made her way down the hall at something near a dead run. "Wait here, I'll be right back," she hollered as she ran pass them and into the stairwell.
"What was that?" Nick asked staring after her as the door shut hind her flying lab coat.
Matt frowned concerned over the near frantic look on Dr. Keating's face as she sailed by. "Not a clue." Shaking his head, "Want to meet the patient?"
"Sure," Nick replied, still looking through the numerous lab works. "What is his name?"
"Billy Jankins."
Entering the room where Debra was holding a bottle of water while Billy was sitting with his head still facing a waste basket, Nick was surprised to be greeted by a less than distort mother. "Mrs. Jankins, I'm Dr. Kakoris, the resident surgeon."
"It's Miss Jankins," Debra corrected as she stood to shake the doctor's hand. "How's my Billy?"
"Very ill," he replied, slanting questioning look at Slingerland whose only reply was an I-warned-you look. "Has Billy had stomach ailments lately? Nausea, vomiting, stomachs, fever?"
"No, nothing like that. Billy has always been a very healthy boy," she replied, dimpling up at him. She tilted her head to include Dr. Slingerland in her enchanting smile. "Dr. Slingerland has been very good to us."
Nick bit the inside of his cheek. "I'm sure he has."
Matt flushed for no apparently reason.
"Billy," Nick said sitting on the bed. "I'm Dr. Kakoris. May I exam you?"
Billy lifted his head for moment, his eyes encircled with a dark ring. "Where's Dr. Jules?"
"Dr. Jules?" Nick looked at Slingerland.
Matt smiled, "He means Dr. Jules Keating."
"Oh," realizing for the first time that he hadn't known the pediatrician's name. "Dr. Keating is a bit busy at the moment. But she'll be right back. She asked me to take a look at you and see how you are doing."
Nodding his sober little head, Billy allowed Kakoris to shift the wastebasket to the side and began to gently probe his stomach. "Dr. Keating says that you've been feeling some bad tummy aches. Can you tell me where it hurts?"
"OWW....."
"Okay," Kakoris murmured as he shifted his hand away from the slightly extended area. "I guess that part hurts."
Billy sniffed and nodded his head before grabbing the trashcan again and gagging.
"Sorry," Keating said breathily as she came into the room in a hurry. She was panting for breath and looked less than composed. "A little incident in neonatal."
"What happened?" Slingerland asked, coming to her, his concern obvious by the trouble look on his face.
She gave a weak smile and nudged him aside, away from the medical bed and the curious ears of the mother. "There was a pink alert."
Matt's eye went wide. "You're kidding."
"No, they caught him in the parking lot just as he was putting the baby in the trunk of a car," she took a deep breath and tried to calm her racing heart.
He rubbed her back with his hand, noting that she was too distracted to be aware of the gesture. She was tense and upset, things like this always got to her. "Are you all right?"
"I hate it when that happens. Why do these people think that taking a child from the hospital is the right thing to do? There are always other ways," she whispered back. Her shook her head to clear her thoughts. Another patient needed her now, "Kakoris find anything?"
"Only that he may agree with you," Nick answered as he came up behind the couple. He had not been the only observing the charmingly intimate conversation. Debra looked ready to blow a gasket. It had surprised Nick to no end to note the unconscious gestures between the two. "You may be right, the gall bladder appears to be the problem."
"Damn," she muttered, his frustration obvious.
Matt frowned as he looked over at the ill Billy. "Jules, at least you caught it. If it had erupted..."
"He's so young though," she murmured.
Nick nodded his agreement. "This type of thing doesn't usually start so early but there has been cases of it. We need to remove it as soon as possible. He's stomach has already begun to extend. A sure sign of infection."
"I like to scrub in if you don't mind," she asked, tilting her head to offer Billy a reassuring smile.
"Not at all, I think I may need your expertise on this one," Kakoris replied, his eyes shifting from Keating to Slingerland. "Shall I have the nurses prepare a consent form?"
"Yeah," she nodded. "Matt, you want in?"
"No, I'll observe."
"Keep the mother calm," Kakoris advised with a slight shifting of his eyes. Debra looked more like a put upon babysitter than a worried mother. "Then again...."
"Noticed that did you?" Slingerland muttered with a roll of his eyes with his back to Debra. "I doubt she'd want to observe. And I sure the hell don't want to be stuck in a room with her."
"Keep it down," Jules hissed as she made her way toward the bed just as Billy spewed green liquid from his mouth. "Oh my god," she rushed to the boy's bedside just as he was about to pass out. "Kakoris, we're going to need to go in on an emergency."
Nick was already on the phone as Matt reached Jules's side to help her ease the boy back and onto his side. They did not want the kid to choke to death on his own vomit. "OR 3 is open now."
"Let's get him prepped," Jules called out as Matt and Nick unlock the bed. "Debra, follow us. We're going to need you to sign some stuff."
"Okay," came the cool as cucumber reply.
Jules looked up at Matt, her irritation almost palpable. "Remind me again why we let people like her have small children?"
Matt grinned in return. "As you Americans say, free country, love. It's a free country."
She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bite me."
Nick watched the light interplay with interest and amusement. This was certainly something new.
TCB.....
*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*
Okay, for those of you that may have been slightly offended by the way I portrayed Debra, I wanted there to be no misunderstanding that I would actually there are mothers out there like that. I like to believe that all parents love and adore their children to the very core of their being. I merely created a rather unlikable character to facilitate the story. No flames please.