Carol hung up the phone at the desk and thanked the baffled temp as she jogged to catch up with Kerry. "I'm really sorry Kerry."
"It's not a problem, Carol. These things happen." She responded simply as she walked with Carol towards Exam 3.
Elizabeth was standing next to Kate, rubbing her back. It looked as if she'd fallen asleep again, and Elizabeth said goodbye quietly before she headed out of the room to go find Mark. "I'm going to need to wake her up."
"All right, let me get her." Carol said, walking over to her daughter. "Kate, it's time to wake up please. Kate, it's time to get up now, come on Kate."
"No." Kate whined; her voice was hoarse from the crying she'd been doing of late, and after being pulled up to a sitting position, she renewed her objections simply saying, "No."
"It's okay Kate, my name is Dr. Weaver and I'm going to take good care of you." Kerry said, moving cautiously towards the girl who had previously given her cause to change.
"No." Kate cried as Kerry walked towards her. She held on tighter to her mother, having no desire to be examined at that point in time.
"Kate, remember what we talked about?" Carol asked, cupping Kate's chin in her hand and tilting her face upwards, "We're going to be in and out, the faster you let Dr. Weaver do her job the faster we can go home."
Kate nodded her head as Kerry moved closer and picked up the thermometer, carefully inserting it into her ear as the 6 year old held tightly to her mother. Kerry checked the number and wrote it down quickly, then completed the rest of her checkup, eyes, ears, nose, throat, BP, etc. before saying, "Now that wasn't so bad, was it?"
Kate didn't reply and Carol asked, "How high is it?"
"I wouldn't worry about it too much Carol," she said, not answering the question. "Kids spike fevers all the time."
"Kerry," she said with a little anger in her voice, "how high is it? I'm not some inept stay-at-home mom, I'm a nurse."
"Hey Carol!" Chuny said, bursting into the room. "I thought I saw you come in. What's going on?"
Chuny made her way over to Kerry and looked at the chart, "Aiy, do you want me to get her on fluids?"
Getting fed up with not having an answer from Kerry and worried by Chuny's reaction to Kate's chart Carol demanded an answer, "Kerry! I realize we've never been close, and that I've been away from Chicago for 6 years, but I am a medical professional and any other parent who asks what their child's temperature is would get a straight answer. Now what is it?"
"Her temp's 104 Carol, but I don't want you to worry, she'll be fine." Kerry said dismissively.