Chapter 12
Early September only brought more heat to Chicago rather than the usual shift to milder temperatures which brought some relief to the sweatbox that was summer. Being pregnant in a concrete jungle with poorly ventilated and air-conditioned buildings was its own hell. Lucy wanted nothing more than to sit in her air-conditioned apartment and not emerge until the temperatures dropped to at least seventy-five degrees, but alas, there was no rest for the wicked, or pregnant. Luckily, she was day off, and had started it with a cool shower and iced coffee. Planting herself on the sofa in her underwear, she savored the cool air when her pager went off. "Nooooo." Sulking she picked it up to check the message reading, 'ER at capacity, need help.' "Dammit". She dragged herself off the sofa and trudged into her room to get dressed.
Fifteen minutes later, she headed out the door in as little clothing as she could reasonably get away with, a cotton summer dress.
The ER was sweltering with staff and patients alike melting in the old building. Fans were everywhere to try and mitigate some of the heat, but all they did was move the warm air around and brought no relief. Still, the illusion that they were cooling the place was enough to leave them oscillating with their low hum.
By lunchtime, the board was full and there was no end in sight to the sea of people in the waiting area. Morris was reluctant to page Lucy on her day off, but with over fifty people waiting to be seen, they were desperate for more doctors.
Lucy poured herself through the ambulance bay doors and into the baking waiting room. She didn't think it was possible for somewhere to be hotter than outside, but it hit her as she walked in like when you open the oven door. Only this didn't smell of something tasty, it reeked of sweat and the air was thick with moisture. There were people everywhere; the seats were full, people sat on floors, and now it was standing room only. Bottles of water were being given out to people, visitors were being asked to leave due to lack of space, and there were a number of IV stands dotted around with numerous bags of fluids hanging from each of them in an effort to rehydrate people. It was chaos.
Lucy fought her way through the crowd, IV stands, and sweat to get through the doors into Admit. Inside wasn't much better. Gurneys lined the corridor, and there were two to a space in curtains. She finally managed to reach Admit to be greeted by Morris.
"Lucy, sorry to call you in on your day off, but…" He gestured his hands around the department and shook his head as he peered down at the computer screen in front of him.
"Don't worry about it, Morris. I can see I'm needed."
Morris looked up at Lucy more closely no longer distracted by the screen. "You're really glowing, Lucy." He had a big smile on his face accompanying the compliment.
Lucy couldn't contain her foul mood anymore. "It's called sweat Morris! Pregnant women don't glow. We sweat! It's ninety degrees outside, a hundred in here, and I'm six months pregnant. I'm hauling around an extra twenty pounds, I'm tired, I ache everywhere, my pelvis feels like it's being torn apart, I have a bladder the size of a pea, but that's not a problem because I'm losing that much fluid in sweat, I no longer have to pee ten times a day, sweat is dripping down my legs, and now I have to paint a smile on my face and pretend I don't feel all those things" She scowled at him, and he held his hands up defense.
As soon as it was out, she quickly felt guilty. Dave was the one who usually put up with her moaning and moods, but he wasn't around to take it right now. "I'm sorry, Morris. I didn't mean for you to take the brunt of my misery. This heat doesn't bring out my best qualities." She looked at him apologetically.
"There's no need to apologize. I'd be angry if I had all of that going on too. I'm happy for you to vent at me." He gave her a wink.
"Thanks, Morris. Right. Get me up to speed."
Morris went through the ER area by area filling her in on the situation. "We've pulled nurses from other departments to help out and have them assigned to each area. Our nurses are covering the trauma rooms and exam rooms with the more serious cases. We're trying to get people seen as quickly as possible, but there's no space, and not enough attendings to oversee everything. Dave is tied up with a trauma, and Simon and I are trying to keep up."
"Ok. Let me dump my stuff in my office, then I'll get stuck in. Do we know how Northwestern and Mercy are doing?"
"No. Haven't got around to calling." Morris called after her as she walked away before being accosted by a timid intern.
Lucy hit the operator number on the phone in her office to call Northwestern as she readied herself. She hit the space bar on her keyboard to wake her computer to take a quick look at her emails.
"Northwestern ER. Dr Kenzie speaking."
"Hi Noah, It's Lucy Knight from County."
"Hi Lucy. How's it going over there? We're rammed."
"That's exactly why I was calling you. I'm getting too close to declaring a critical incident and closing the ER. We're almost at capacity and our only trauma room is busy. We've got patients doubling up, IVs running in waiting..." Lucy trailed off as an email caught her attention as she spoke. 'RE: MacArthur Grant Name Change'.
"You still there?"
"Yeah. Sorry. Trying to multitask. And we've officially run out of gurneys. The only ones left are the OR ones."
"Well, we're not as bad as you. We're not doubled up and we still have beds. Have you spoken to Mike at Mercy?"
"That was my next call."
"I've got Mike on the other line at the moment. They're doing about as well as us."
"If I call dispatch, can they divert ambulances to you both for now until we can get on top of this?"
"It's fine with me. I'll check with Mike."
Lucy scanned the email as she waited. '…congratulations on the honor of renaming the MacArthur Grant.' She pulled up the attachment which read...
'MacArthur Society Certificate of Name Change
Awarded to
Country General Emergency Room
The grant for medical research formally known as the MacArthur Grant will be hence forth be known as
THE MARK GREENE RESEARCH GRANT
Date: September 5th, 2009'
They approved it! Lucy started doing a little dance in celebration, but when Noah came back on the call, she stopped, embarrassed as if he could see what she was doing.
"Mike okayed it. Clear it with dispatch."
"Great. Thanks Noah. I'll call later and update you on the situation." Lucy breathed a sigh of relief. They had some breathing room. She tapped in the number, knowing it by heart and put County ER on divert until further notice.
The final thing she did was hit forward on the email and found Corday's address. 'Hi Elizabeth. I have some great news for you. The name was approved by the MacArthur Society. See below. Sorry, I can't chat more, but I've just put us on divert due to reaching capacity. Speak soon. Lucy.' She typed quickly and hit send.
When she emerged from her office, she was in a much better mood, and went to find Morris. He was surrounded by interns and residents trying to get advice, get their patients signed off, and get tests authorized.
"Your saviour is here." Lucy announced herself to the crowd.
Morris looked up at her. "You took your time." He said sarcastically.
"That's because I have good news. I just got off the phone with dispatch. We're on divert while we try and get this under control. Ambulances are going to Northwestern and Mercy."
"I love you!" Morris declared enthusiastically.
"Oh. And the grant." She lowered her voice just enough, so that he could hear her. She gave him an excited thumbs up.
A week later and Lucy and Dave had a rare evening off together and they decided to hole up in the apartment with takeout and a movie. She'd sent Dave to the rental store, so the night's choice was Iron Man. They'd seen it at the theater when it was released the year before, but he wanted to watch it again.
Lucy sprawled out on the couch with her feet on Dave as he massaged her swollen, weary legs. She wasn't sure if the swelling was just normal pregnancy swelling from being on her feet, or if it was fluid retention because of her heart. It was something she would have to keep an eye on.
She was only half paying attention to the movie because something had been playing on her mind all day. A single mother had died in the ER that morning after having a brain aneurysm. A neighbour had heard her baby crying and found her passed out on the kitchen floor. DCSF had no luck in tracing any relatives and had to take the baby into care. It made her think about her own situation and mortality.
The movie finished and she had to ask him now or she would never sleep that night. "Dave, can I ask you something?"
He was going to say something witty, but he saw the look on her face and knew it was something serious. "What is it?"
"That mother today got me thinking. You're the only family I have now my mom is gone, and I can't bear to think about Bean not having anyone."
"He has a father." He said matter-of-factly.
"I know. But I'm getting into the final months, and it's been playing on my mind today. It's a lot to ask of you, but if anything happens to me...will you take care of him?...And tell Carter?"
"Nothing is going to happen to you."
"If it does. I need to know he's going to be taken care of."
"We wouldn't need to be having this conversation if you would just tell him."
"Dave. We've gone over this already..."
"I know, I know. But imagine how he would feel finding out the woman he loves died from someone he never liked and had been insanely jealous of? And then add on top finding out he has a son?" He let that sink in for a second. "But you know I'd do anything for you and this baby. So, of course I'll take care of him. And I'll tell Carter."
"Thank you. It makes me feel better knowing that. And I finally picked out a name..."
"Go on."
"You're sworn to secrecy though. I don't want anyone else to know...Oliver Robert Carter Knight."
"Carter?"
"I want him to have his father's last name even if..." She trailed off. "And Robert was the name of Carter's older brother who died from leukemia when he was a kid."
"That's a nice tribute. All you have to do now is actually tell him." He gave her dig, not letting it drop.
She rolled her eyes at him. It didn't matter how right he was; she still couldn't bring herself to do it.