Prompt: 39. Get-up
Character(s): Nurse
Word Count: 1,166
Rating: PG
Warning(s): None
The fact that she had kept the habit of ironing her uniform every morning gave her a sense of pride; laundry starch was one of her favorite things, though even to her it seemed odd to admit.
Every other day she'd scrub her shoes clean with Ajax powder in the kitchen sink and polish them to white leather perfection, they were no longer pearl white but instead powder white and it made her smile, like it was a secret joke.
She'd always made her bun tight enough to pull at the corners of her forehead but not tight enough for a headache, hair spray reminded her of the laundry starch as she used it to keep down frizz and add a shellac finish to her perfectly neat, professional and tidy hair-do.
Her nails stayed short and filed and clean with clear polish. There were no runs in any of the twelve pairs of white stockings she kept sealed in a Ziploc bag next to her underwear.
She'd gone as far as to wear white undergarments and a slip that reminded her of the ones her grandmother had worn.
It was early enough that she could lounge, dressed in her underwear whites, stockings and robe watching the television until the reruns of the night news became the morning news, her mug of coffee was finished sometime between the crime report and the weather, she refilled it and lit her first cigarette of the day.
Her chart reports sat in room order with their medications listed on post-its. The other nurse's had all finished their care except for one that lagged behind and left certain tasks for the next shift after theirs. She would speak to her once she got to the facility.
As a nurse she had always enjoyed having a single patient over several, she wondered if the patients felt the same way. She'd made sure to give no one a heavy load based on their own nursing skills and patience. It was always when she was in charge that she chose the most laborious patients.
Unless they were larger than her, she'd rather put two nurses on one patient than break her back during a bed to chair transfer.
Peter Hale was a nice change of pace.
She felt that he didn't get enough of the attention that he should, it was hard for the other nurses, she knew that but it still saddened her that someone was left alone in a room for seven hours out of the eight hour shift. She made it a point to stay in the room for the whole shift.
His room had become like her office, she wondered if he minded.
The facility nurses complained about his nephew, she knew. She'd met him and understood why, he wasn't very patient or chatty, and rather it was more that he irritated himself much more than anyone else and was too terse for anyone to really care what he had to say. He just needed to work on his delivery and way of asking for things, she thought.
He had requested that his uncle have a one-to-one and before the facility had hired the group of nurses she came in with they had ignored the idea, there wasn't any real reason for it from a medical or safety standpoint.
It was on a social and emotional level that he had asked.
A few nurses, mostly the ones that were just out of school and under twenty-five and single, had understood but they were too swamped and it was hard to stay with the mute man who couldn't tell you what he wanted, or if he wanted for anything at all, when they had patients who were perhaps more vocal than they should be on everything they wanted and everything they weren't getting.
His chart said he had survived a CVA that resulted from a TBI due to an accident at his home.
She had wondered to herself what the reason was for his prescription of Haldol early in his admission and then the subsequent taper off of the drug and then the pattern of reorder of the prescription and the same taper off pattern again numerous times.
It didn't make sense as a drug therapy regimen, the doses were too far apart to be maintained at any sort of a consistent level, and as maintenance therapy the doses weren't large enough and it wasn't being used as a PRN prescription.
The math for the dosages and time of administration was easy but it was so convoluted that she wondered if the doctor had made a mistake that they didn't know about it, but it wasn't as if the levels were dangerous just ineffectual for what the drug was supposed to do. It was odd.
Maybe she was making a mistake in her math that she couldn't see or had made one while copying the chart scribbling into her notebook, she could have read it wrong.
She'd have to check the chart and not just her notes when she got to work and then have someone look over the math and confirm it was right, she knew it was but still it was very strange.
It was odd to see that the date of the order was from after he arrived at the facility and not while he'd been in emergent care for his burn injuries from the same accident that had caused his stroke, she corrected the idea of stroke in her mind, they were being called 'brain attacks' now according to the new textbooks and medical encyclopedias.
She'd definitely have to take another look at his chart; maybe request the hospital transcript from his medical archives file.
The morning news came on, she watched it as she stepped into her uniform and left it unbutton while she padded to the bathroom in stocking clad feet to brush her teeth.
A newscaster reported on the latest animal attack that had happened in a school parking lot. They said that the two-hundred and thirty four pound mountain lion had been shot and killed by a police firearm liaison who was to be making a drop-off of handguns at the precinct later that night, she buttoned her uniform and put on her shoes as they pandered to the masses with the promise of an exclusive interview of the local hero after the break.
Something niggled on her mind, she kept picking at the thought that she was forgetting something until it clicked. Opening the top drawer of her nightstand she checked to make sure she had her own loaded and made sure the safety was on before slipping it back into its pocket holster.
Beacon Heights was a nice town but driving alone at night was always dangerous for a woman. She placed it in the glove box on the way to work.
Mountain lions weren't exactly cuddly and the fact that they showed up in school parking lots wasn't exactly comforting.
A/N: This is not the same nurse as the one we've been seeing yelling at Derek in the show, the reason I'm writing drabbles with a nurse in them is a way of trying to get across some Peter Hale back story.