CHAPTER FIVE
SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN
May 1998
Gracie was pretty sure she was juggling too many patients that day. More than that, too many peds patients. She had one kid with the croup, another who had developed stridor and respiratory distress while eating lunch at daycare, another with a 10-day history of subjective fever and pain in multiple joints. The list did not end. It was as if all the kids in the city decided to get sick at once. She wore a black zip-up hoodie over her pink scrubs as she hustled about the ER.
She happened to be with Carter on a particularly frustrating case, in which a young teenage mom had brought in her two and a half month old baby boy. The mom claimed that she brought him in because he 'wouldn't wake up' and was 'shaking.' It did not look good. The baby was unresponsive, breathing on his own but experiencing brief episodes of apnea. He was tachycardic and had these sunken eyes that would haunt Gracie throughout her shift.
She started IVs and bolus normal saline, put him on a cardiac monitor and gave him oxygen through a non-rebreather mask. Carter assessed the airway and stabilized him medically before ordering any tests, looking stressed as he followed Gracie out of the trauma room, dictating orders. "Let's start with a CBC and differential, ABG, cultures, BUN and creatinine, ALT, AST and alkaline phosphatase. Get a coag panel too, and check UA and electrolytes."
"So, everything, basically?" Carter gave her a wry look, and disappeared down the hall. He was throwing everything at a boy who's story did not add up. It was their only shot of saving him.
On a hunch, however, Gracie threw in a head CT. When it came back, Gracie was in the middle of assisting Dr. Del Amico with a strange televangelist who had shown up with an infection. She had been tied up for fifteen minutes trying to start an IV on the woman, who was diabetic and apparently terrified of needles, only letting her bizarre doctor husband handle her insulin shots. It took a lot to convince her that she was 'one of the best sticks in the ER.' She was just slipping the needle effortlessly into the woman's vein when Jerry popped his head into the room. "Gracie, your films are back on Trauma Two."
"Thank you," Gracie sing-songed, securing the IV and pushing the meds before removing her gloves. She took the films from Jerry and excused herself into the hall. She read the radiologist's report: diffuse cerebral edema with mass effect and multifocal subdural hemorrhages of varying densities. Gracie swore loudly. Now she had to tell Carter.
She found him at admit. She stopped in front of him from across the desk. "So," Gracie began with a sigh, "you know how two month olds don't roll off beds, and how, I don't know, they don't generally put things in their mouths?"
Carter blinked. "Yeah…"
She flashed him an apologetic look. "I got a head CT for Trauma Two."
Carter straightened, his eyes wide. "And?" He was already reaching for the films.
"Diffuse cerebral edema."
He ran a hand over his face, and sighed. "Damn it," he said, scanning over the films and the radiologist's report. The kid had subdural hemorrhages. The findings were consistent with shaken baby syndrome. The mother was not telling the whole story, and now this baby needed a skeletal survey to look for metaphyseal and rib fractures, and an ICU bed. Carter held the films up to the light. "Call DCFS. And let's get a neurosurg consult."
"Good luck finding a PICU bed," Gracie sighed, scribbling down Carter's orders.
"Now, Africa, I know you have your ways."
"If you're talking sexual favors, Carter, I'm not prostituting for you. A PICU nurse owes me a favor, though."
Carter grinned, following Gracie as she crossed around the admit desk and went to pick up the phone. "What kind of favor?" He asked her, receiving a quirked brow in return. She was dialing a social worker.
Gracie smirked. "Wouldn't you like to know?"
They parted ways with Carter still chuckling, Gracie shuffling through the films he left behind — a stark difference from three months ago. She could not believe the change. It was a lighter work environment, to be sure. It was not that far from friendship, even. Was it really that simple? She wondered why it had not been this way all along.
DCFS arrived while Gracie was watching her televangelist patient broadcast live from the ER. Gracie saw it on the television in the lounge with the other nurses, who were cracking up, while she fixed a cup of tea. They had no choice but to let them broadcast; that had come straight from upstairs. When Dr. Del Amico herself appeared on the TV, Gracie was rather hesitant to go anywhere near her room. She was rather grateful for the appearance of the social worker for that reason, and Gracie briefed her on the case over her cup of rooibos tea. She oversaw DCFS's takeover of custody for the child, and the ensuing family fight. The boy was holding solid on a vent, and neurosurg was considering operating. That was all relative. The boy still had to survive the night.
Gracie shook her head, looking generally despondent as she returned to her televangelist, having delayed as long as she could. She had to give the woman her insulin.
"Oh, now honey, you look sad," Tina Marie announced as Gracie entered the room. She stopped mid-step and grimaced. The camera crew was still in the room, although apparently off the air. "What happened?"
"I just find the world a terribly depressing place, don't you agree?" Gracie asked her, stopping at the woman's bedside. She was to get IV insulin, and Gracie prepared to hook the bag to the woman's saline lock.
"You just need to pray a little more, is all."
Right, thought Gracie. "That's the cure, huh?"
"You got problems, don't ya? I take it you don't let anyone listen to them," Tina Marie giggled. Gracie gave her a wry look, hooking up a bag of fluids as well, then taking her vitals. "All I know is the Good Lord sees fit to hear me."
"And as for me?"
"Don't know until you try." A wink.
Gracie would find herself musing over these words as she headed home.
DAY FOR KNIGHT
September 1998
A young woman pushed her way up to admit, moving insistently and arriving at the counter with an anxious, vociferous air. Gracie was standing by the admit window and making notes in a chart. She did not even look up at the girl — but it turned out that did not matter, for the panicking girl spoke first.
She banged her hands on the counter. "Do you have a bathroom?" Her tone of voice was distressed, demanding attention in the most obnoxious kind of way.
Gracie blinked and glanced up, her eyebrow quirked. "What?"
"Can I use your bathroom? I just made out with a guy who has herpes, you have to let me use the goddamn bathroom!"
Gracie blinked once more, aghast. She had no idea what to say to this young woman, so she said nothing, pointing with her writing hand in the direction of the restrooms. The girl ran off.
"Did she say what I think she said?" Jerry asked poignantly. Gracie looked at him with a meaningful glance, then shook her head with disbelief, muttering something about Americans. "I'll take that as a yes."
"Africa!"
She looked over her shoulder at that familiar sing-song tone, finding Carter making his way into admit. He wore his usual work attire and a rather overgrown beard. "Hello, Carter," Gracie greeted him absently, focusing her gaze back on the chart in hand. "I see you've decided to scare your new med student."
"I see you've decided to skip lunch again."
Gracie rolled her eyes. Reconciliation and friendship kept a severe case of mother hen syndrome in tow. "I decided to eat in half an hour, is that okay, Dad?"
"Because waiting is the most logical thing to do."
"The decision doesn't have to be logical, it was unanimous."
"Unanimous? Gracie, it's not unanimous if you're the only one voting."
Carter stopped there, placing in front of her a pre-packaged salad and a bottle of grape juice. Gracie blinked, then looked back at her chart, remarking with an absent, sing-song voice, "I don't take food from men who haven't shaven in ten days."
"Ten days? You are grossly over-exaggerating."
"Jerry, tell Bigfoot here he's shedding on my chart."
"Why don't both of you shut up?"
Carter smirked at Jerry's tone. While most of the staff appeared to appreciate Carter and Gracie's newfound lack of rivalry, their idea of pleasant banter had a tendency to get on everyone's nerves. He swept around her side, placing a hand on both of her shoulders. He leaned in close to her ear and said, "If you don't eat now, I'm going to check your blood sugar every twenty minutes until you do."
Gracie murmured a noncommittal response, and just before he moseyed off again, she noted idly, "Play nice now, don't want Lucy to call Channel Five reporting a Sasquatch sighting."
He merely laughed in reply, and despite everything, she glanced over her shoulder and opened the salad when Carter was out of sight.
