Chapter 3, enjoy!

Warning: Some Feels around here, watch out!

Disclaimer in chapter 1

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Nurse Me!

Chapter 3

"So, Papi…." Heidi said, kicking her feet, in the waiting room of the children's hospital, "MRI….?"

Carlos looked down at his child and ran his hand over her hair saying, "Yes, Heidi an MRI and?"

"I should have seen it coming, right?" Heidi asked, leaning into her father's hand, "Momma had it, and I was at risk for it, I got cancer…"

"You don't know that," Carlos said softly, looking down at his child, "Heidi! Don't say that, it could be something less than that."

"Please, Papi, I'm 15, not 10, I can see all the signs," Heidi said, leaning back in her seat, getting out a tissue so that she could try to stop the nose bleed she got, "Though Momma didn't get a chance to really fight her cancer, she seemed to die real fast, Papi, barely six months after she had gotten diagnosed, at least, if we catch mine earlier, I'll have a fighting chance."

Carlos leaned back and then said, "Heidi, can't you be somewhat optimistic? At least say that you don't have cancer?"

"Papi…we'd both be kidding ourselves," Heidi sighed, as the radiologist nurse came out into the waiting room, "And, I for one, want to face it head on, remember, Papi, a solider never cowers at danger."

Carlos smiled at his child as she was led off into the changing room, god, she was too much like him it hurt.

"Do you want your father to be in the MRI room with you?" The nurse asked Heidi who nodded her head, "Okay, we'll get him suited up and he'll keep you company, you're going to be in there or a while, and it's nice to have someone in there with you."

"Oh yeah, don't we know," Carlos said, as he got up from his seat and made his way over to the two.

(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)

Stephanie only had three days of peace before her mother found out that she had gone back to nursing. She had been grocery shopping for her and Joe the next at the local grocery store when her mother accosted her. In the frozen food aisle, her mother had berated her, for going back to work, no respectable married woman would abandon her house to go back to work, just because she wanted to.

Stephanie wasn't going to let this happen to her right now, so she promptly bypassed her mother, paid for what food she had and went home. She made sure to unplug the land-line and make sure any calls from her mother went to voice mail.

"I can't believe she would do something like that!" Stephanie huffed and puffed, pulling off her nurse uniform and tossing it in the dirty laundry bin, "Joe, what is wrong with that woman!?"

Joe chuckled at the story and said, "Cupcake, you know how your mother is, if it's not 'Burg standards then it's wrong!" The man frowned at Stephanie dirty scrubs, "Those aren't the same clothes you left in this morning."

"I know, one of the children got sick after a bad chemo treatment," Stephanie said with a chuckle, making Joe shake his head, "Lula said that every new nurse gets a little vomit on them the first time in the ward."

Joe climbed under the covers and said, "Cupcake, are you sure you want to work there, I mean, not only do you have to deal bodily fluids, you're dealing with children who have cancer."

"If I can help these kids in any way," Stephanie said, with a soft smile, "It's a rewarding job."

"Speaking of children…." Joe said, as Stephanie walked by him, "Mom was talking to me, she wanted to know why she doesn't have any grandchildren from us."

"Joe, you know I'm not ready for children, that's a big responsibility that I'm not ready for," Stephanie said, earning a groan from Joe, "Joe! I just went back to working, I really don't want a child right now."

"Stephanie," Stephanie sighed, knowing that when Joe said her name, that meant that he was serious, "We're not getting any younger, and I want at least three children."

"Three?!" Stephanie yelped, looking at Joe, "Three, what if I want only one child?"

"Cupcake, you can't be serious," Joe said, sitting up in the bed, "Only one?"

"That's a big if too, Joe, maybe I don't want children," Stephanie said, earning pointed look from her husband, "Joe, don't look at me like that…"

"I thought you wanted children," Joe said softly, getting up from the bed, "Cupcake, give me a straight answer, do you want children or not?"

"I don't know," Stephanie said with honesty, "It's been on my mind, but…I don't think I'm ready for kids."

Joe let out a sound and said, "Okay…okay, I have an early day, so, I'm going to bed," turning away from Stephanie and climbing back into the bed, "Night, cupcake."

"Joe…." Stephanie started, but Joe turned off the side lamp, leaving her to stand in the dark bedroom, with only the lights from the bathroom shining in the area. Stephanie bit her lip, but then she turned and went into the bathroom to shower.

(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)

"Bossman, what are you doing at Rangeman on a Saturday?!" Lester Santos looked surprised, watching his boss and cousin walk through the nearly deserted office floor, "You're usually with Heidi, doing god knows what-hey man, what's going on…?"

Carlos stopped walking and turned to Lester and then turned back to walk into his private office. Lester got up quickly from his seat and went into Carlos's office, closing the door and locking it. He watched as his cousin got out a hidden bottle of whiskey, uncork it and take a long and heavy pull from it. Lester grabbed the bottle and said, "Shit, it must be serious, I haven't seen you hit the bottle since the death of, well…"

Lester could see Carlos cracking at the edges, he could see his cousin grip the side of the desk tightly before Carlos looked up to Lester and said, in a rough voice, "Heidi has cancer, Stage 3 brain cancer, it's so deep in her brain near, her brain stem, that if she were to have surgery, to get out the cancerous parts, it could possibly kill her. It's in a place that affects organ functions and the like, one small slip up…god…."

"Fuck," Lester said, sitting down and looking over to his cousin, "Cuz, where's Heidi?"

"She's with Ella," Carlos croaked, closing his eyes and clasping his hands together, "Stage 3 brain cancer…with a survival rate that's less than 10 percent, fuck…we always talked about this, but we thought maybe she wouldn't get cancer, like her mother."

Lester grabbed Carlos's arm and said, "What's the game plan, I'm sure you went to talk to Bobby."

"Yeah, the Children Hospital went over with us our options. Since the type of cancer she has is aggressive and rare, they want to admit her, just in case, to the Serious Illness Ward, and they told me what that ward is, it's the last resort ward, it's like a hospice for sick children… oh god…not my child, not my Heidi." Carlos said softly, tears forming in his eyes, "She's been through so much, not now."

Lester squeezed Carlos's arm and said, "Carlos, man, you got us, you got Rangeman to help you both out."

"They want to try Chemotherapy and Radiation first," Carlos said softly, tears dropping on his hand, "If that doesn't work , then surgery is the last thing they want to do and then do radiation and chemo."

"That kid of yours is strong, and I believe that she's going to pull through this, they caught the cancer before stage 4," Lester said, letting go of Carlos's arm, "She's your child, so she's strong, thick headed and head strong."

Carlos chuckled softly, looking over to his cousin, "You're right about that, she is my child. She's a fighter, I raised her to be a fighter."

(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)

"Nurse Jackie! How'd you like the Kindergarten Room, I heard Zack threw up on you, the other day!" The blond haired boy said, as he was wheeled by the nurses' station, "You're still here? Damn, I have to give you props. Smell ya later!"

"Ignore him," Lula said, as she placed patient files in their respective slots, "That's our Diesel, one of the oldest children here and one of the smart asses here."

Stephanie shook her head at Lula and said, "He's a piece of work, so, Claudia is switching me around, she's taking control of the Kindergarten Room, I have the Blue Room, why is it called the Blue room?"

Stephanie and Lula had become fast friends, much faster than she had with Mary Lou. Lula was a heavy set black woman, who always came to work with a new hairstyle every other week and wearing as much jewelry as she could. She also like to wear scrubs two sizes too small for her, and Claudia gets on her. Lula was actually a paid student intern at the hospital, in her last semester at her school. By January, she would graduate and work full time at the hospital, as a nurse with a bachelor's degree in nursing specializing in terminal illness . Unlike Lula, Stephanie had gotten her Master's in Nursing, which was why she was given the co-head nurse job.

"Well, it's actually called the Adolescence Room, but, it's all blue and shit, so the kids call it the Blue Room," Lula said, sitting down and typing information into the computer, "It's for the children age 15 and up to age 20, it's a pretty small room, only two in there now, it was four, last week, but the poor dears didn't respond to their treatment. The boy that went by, Diesel is one of the two children in the Blue room, the other one, well, you gotta watch out for her…"

"Speaking of Blue room," A woman's voice said, making Stephanie and Lula turn to see the Head Doctor of the children's ward walk over with a file, "There is a new member of the ward coming on Tuesday with a rare form of Brain Cancer."

Jeanne Ellen Borrows, one of those geniuses that got into medical school at an early age, was a 30 year old woman with blond hair and bright green eyes. She took control of the Serious Illness ward two years ago, revamping it and making the survival rate of the children double from 10 percent to 20 percent. Stephanie liked her a lot, she was intelligent, extremely kind to the children and attentive to both the parents and patients' needs.

Jeanne sat down on the counter passing Stephanie the file, "15 year old Heidi Manoso will be admitted into the Blue room for Radiation and Chemotherapy, at the same time. But we have to watch out, the cancer is in an area of the brain we like to call the black zone, which means-"

"Too much chemo and radiation, we could give the child brain damage," Stephanie said, looking through the file.

"And surgery is the last resort," Lula finished off, grabbing the file from Stephanie's hands, "Man, these kids go through a lot of shit, it ain't right."

Jeanne nodded her head and said, "Well, Lula, I know you and the other nurses will welcome her with open arms and Stephanie here will go over the treatment plan with the family, Stephanie if you have time, I'm going to the Blue room to check up on the children there, since you'll be their new nurse, it's best if you meet them."

Stephanie got up from her seat and followed Jeanne over to a blue hallway. It was one of the smallest areas of the Serious Illness Ward, with only six rooms, a small communal area for both the children and the families that came to see them. Unlike the Kindergarten Ward, there were no brightly colored pictures on the walls, no drawn pictures tape messily to the walls. It felt more like a prison than a hospital.

There were only two room occupied in the hallway and Jeanne led Stephanie to a door that had the name, 'Brittany Small,' on it. Jeanne opened the door saying, "Miss. Brittany, how are you today?"

"Better, now that you're here," A chipper voice said, as doctor and nurse entered the hospital room.

Brittany's hospital room looked homely. There were clothes thrown around the large room, on the visitor chairs, the built in couch that was situated on the window still. Instead of the typical hospital drawers and cabinets, there were dark wooden wardrobes and dressers. Brittany had trinkets on every surface and posters of old music bands on her wall. She had a record player on her desk with a milk crate of records on the floor.

Brittany herself, was laying in the hospital bed, which was covered in a soft feather downed blanket. She was a small, frail girl of color, with tired looking light brown eyes, and only a dusting of hair on her head. It seemed as though all the children had tired eyes and it pulled at Stephanie's heart. She wore a pair of flannel pants and a matching flannel shirt that had Jeanne chuckling.

"Did you steal Diesel's shirt again?" The doctor asked, looking at Brittany's vital charts.

"I didn't steal it," Brittany said, rolling her eyes, "I took it without permission," Brittany looked past Jeanne's shoulder and said, "Oi…is this Nurse Jackie? Man, Diesel sure laughed himself silly, which he really shouldn't, given his condition, might pop his balls."

"Brittany," Jeanne chided, rolling her eyes, as she looked at Brittany's chart, "I see you lost some more weight, I'm putting you on a high calorie diet, but that doesn't mean you can pig out!"

"Going to," Brittany said, climbing out the bed and over to Stephanie, "Brittany Small, age 19, at your service! I have acute promyelocytic leukemia, or whatever, rare type of leukemia that only adults over 60 get, Jeanne here is saving me, so she can take me out on a date."

Jeanne rolled her eyes again and said, "Brittany, are you in any pain, are you still on those hormones that prevent your menstrual cycle?"

"I am, Lula makes sure I take them five times a day and no pain," Brittany said, shaking Stephanie's hand, "You're not that bad looking, maybe Diesel's being a grade A douche."

"I just wanted you to meet your new nurse," Jeanne said, as Brittany hopped over to the record player, "So, if you have any issues with anything she's your nurse to go to."

"Hey, I got a new record, and I think it's a sign," Brittany said pulling out record and putting on the player, "A sign for us to go out on a date, a dancing date."

"Brittany here is our resident old school D.J.," Jeanne said as music filled the room, "I've been trying to get her hooked on some music from this decade, it's not working out too good."

Stephanie giggled as Brittany danced around the room, signing along to the upbeat 70's song. Jeanne shook her head and said, "Okay, Brittany, we'll talk about that later on."

"She's sweet," Stephanie said, as Jeanne closed Brittany's door, "Diesel…I've met him on two occasions, he's something else…"

"Yup," Jeanne said, looking at the closed door that had Diesel written on it, "And he took off his other name plate, he's at Chemo right now, we'll meet him later, for now, let's go back to the nurses station and I can fill you out on standard procedures with Claudia."

TBC…..

Man, back to doing research again! These medical stories, it's like writing a research paper! Please leave a review, they're like an addicting drug to me!