Struggles

Further signs that Ricks was flailing, as I noted from his near frantic words coming from the alcove next to me. They had three of us working at hospital A and E dealing with simple walk-ins. Mine was a sprain of the wrist and thumb from a fall from a skateboard; dreadful things. Frank Proctor's was a young woman with unremitting vomiting; my guess was food poisoning from what I had heard and the pallid complexion.

Ricks, on the other hand? I could hear the verbal struggle right through the curtain between us.

"Open your mouth! Tell him to open his mouth!" I heard the former cardiologist exclaim.

"Sweetie dear. The nice man just wants to look in your throat. Do it for mummy?" the child's mum said.

"Don wanna," the kid muttered. I'd seen them when they walked in and 'sweetie dear' was around three or so; not the best of ages to deal with even when they were well.

"Look," Ricks started again, "you say you have a sore and scratchy throat."

The squeaky voice responded. "Uh, huh."

"And you have a fever," Ricks prodded.

"Oh, he's been a right grumpy gus this whole day, haven't you Davey?" the mum added.

I was strapping up the sprain and my patient, a rather scared looking boy of thirteen, had absolutely gone white in the face and became as meek as a lamb when I told him it might be broken. "Broke?" the kid replied. "It weren't that bad of a fall."

"Mm,"" I manipulated his fingers slowly, all good there. Only the carpometacarpal joint at the thumb's base was swollen and elicited a yelp from the kid when I touched it. "Close your hand, not tightly, but make a fist."

The boy winced but he could - just. "That hurts my thumb, right here," he pointed to the basal thumb joint.

I then moved his wrist slowly. "That hurt?"

"Ahhhwwwrrr," he hissed at the extremes of both flexion and extension.

"Right. You caught yourself on your hand when you landed," I said to him.

"Yeah, yeah. Been doin' tricks. A rail - a grind, yah know?"

"Nope." I got a length of elastic bandage at hand, antiseptic spray for the palm scrape plus a large plaster.

"Not broken?" he asked, lip quivering. "We got a contest coming up; me and my mates."

"Not broken." I cleaned his hand scrape - only oozing - applied the palm plaster, and then started to wrap his wrist with a good two meters of elastic strapping.

"But…" he smiled, "if I had a cast I could have my friends sign it?"

"You don't need a cast."

He face fell. "Oh. No cast?" he added sadly.

"You don't need one," I told him.

Proctor's was retching away and I heard the stomach contents go from basin to floor in a mighty splash. The smell followed right after.

"What is that stink?" I heard Ricks say. "Davey, look, please open your mouth?"

"Let me get another basin," Frank said. "How long has she been like this?" he asked.

"Coupla mornings, I reckon," the male (father I assumed) who was with her, answered. "Been off her feed. Didn't touch tea yesterday."

"Open - your - mouth," Ricks repeated, now with real menace. "Now!"

"I can't say I like your tone," Davey's mum told him. "Not at all."

"If your child will NOT open his mouth, then I cannot properly diagnose him, can I?" Ricks replied, almost pleading. "Fever, sore throat, listless."

"I know THAT," the mum said.

"Now," Ricks said. "Just let me look inside. Right? I won't hurt you at all. Just open. That's good. Just like that. Now I'll look inside with my little light."

Frank was now starting to ask relevant questions. "How old is your daughter?"

"Just turned sixteen," the man answered.

Frank cleared his throat. "And she been well, normal?"

The man laughed. "You tell me doc what's bloody normal for a teenager, right? Moody as all get out."

"Sure."

"My old lady split so know it's just me and Robbie, here. But we get by," the man told him.

"Robbie, right - Roberta, " Frank answered. "Roberta, you are sixteen years old, so have you been - how to ask this? Seeing anyone? Boyfriend?"

Between the retching sounds I heard the girl answer in the affirmative.

"You got enough elastic on there, Doc?" the boy asked me.

I responded, "Yes. Now, I want you to take paracetamol for the aching, and it will ache. You can unstrap this in two days. I want your wrist to heal. The swelling to go down. You can use an ice pack on it for 20 minutes a time, Twenty on, 20 off. Do not let your fingers get too cold. Got that? Keep the bandage not too tight for the next week or until our wrist feels normal." I looked around. "Where did your father go?"

The kid chuckled. "Oh him? Not my da, doc. Social services. He brung me in."

I shook my head. "So this person…"

"Bob Sharp is his name. Well, you see, I… live in a… sorta group home," the kid said.

It started to add up. "A carer then."

"Oh yah," the boy said brightly. "Better than when I was with my mum. She didn't always have time for me… you see?"

I regarded this boy with new eyes. Neglectful mother, no father apparently around, now being cared for in a group home by Her Majesty's network of many charities and needed social facilities. "Right," I muttered, suddenly embarrassed more for me than for this child.

The kid gave me a level look, saying, "Better for me with them than with her."

I had a home and a father and mother growing up. At times it was hard… or even… difficult between me and my mum. It still was for I'd not spoken directly to her for over a year; only through my dad.

"Owwww!" Ricks screamed from beyond the curtain. "You bit my finger!"

"And when was the last time you had your period?" I heard Frank ask the girl.

"Wot's a period?" I heard the girl answer.

I packed off the boy and his wrist, handing him patient advice notes. "And stay off that skateboard. Wear a helmet."

"Nah, no helmet!" the kid said as he walked away.

I looked around the curtain and caught Frank's eye he questioned the girl, who was still retching. "Dr. Proctor, better get a pregnancy test," I told him.

"A preg… nancy?" he stammered, but then his eyes lit up. "Oh too right. Brilliant, Mart. Thanks."

I turned when I heard quick footfall behind me. Ricks stood there holding out his hand clenched in his other one, as blood spattered down onto the floor in large red drops. "That little bastard drew blood! Just look at this!"

Red drops, of blood, on the floor, and then the bile rose to my throat. "Ulp, just a moment…" I ran around the corner to a bin and vomited into it.