"Nicole Vanzant"
A young male nurse with caramel skin and a curly coif called her name and she stood up and followed him back through the double doors down the hall and to the room on the left.
"Please hop on the bed and I'll get your vitals."
Nicole turned and sat on the bed and the young man placed a blood pressure cuff around her arm.
"What's going on today?'' He asked as he pumped up the cuff.
She paused as she tried to think of what to say. Bruises and broken bones were easy to explain with a fall. The glass was a little harder.
"My china cabinet fell over when I was trying to get something from the top shelf."
"Ouch, that must've hurt." Nicole just nodded in response.
"On a scale of 1-10 what's your pain today?" He asked as he took the cuff off her arm and did her temp and heart rate.
Nicole could barely move. Realistically it was an eight or nine but instead she muttered"five...maybe six." Looking anywhere but at the nurse.
"Dang, you're pretty tough. Well, your blood pressure and heart rate look good. I'll need you to fill this cup to the line and leave it here on the cabinet when you're done. The doctor will be in shortly."
"Thank you." She said as she finally looked at him.
He smiled, "You're very welcome, it's what we're here for."
In another room Dr. Chen is quickly trying to go through Nicoles medical history.
'Aye, there's so much here, I need more time to go through it all." Dr.Chen thought to herself as she checked the time on her watch then ran her hand over her eyes. She had got called into a different room for an emergency which took a decent amount of time. By the time she was done Nicole's urinalysis and x-rays had already come back.
Dr. Chen became a doctor because she wanted to help people, and for some reason unknown to her she felt extra compelled to help Nicole. She knew she couldn't let her get out the door without coming up with a plan. Victims were usually easily spooked and mentioning help would cause her to close up and she probably wouldn't come back to this hospital. Dr.Chen had to be smart and pretend to not suspect anything. If she could get her to come back and see her then maybe she would be able to figure something out by then.
Dr.Chen was ready to make her move and headed to the room Nicole was waiting in.
Nicole sat restless on the bed when a knock came on the door.
"Come in," Nicole answered.
The door opened and a tiny, pretty little Asian woman with sleek black shoulder length hair and warm brown almond eyes walked in. Something about this doctor's presence carried a strange calm with it. It was such an unexpected feeling it made Nicole's breath hitch. A sense of wonder came over her, and she watched the doctor carefully.
"Good morning, Nicole, I'm Dr. Chen, I'll be treating you today. I hear you've got some bumps and bruises, and some glass stuck in your scalp?"
"Yes."
"Oh my, how'd we manage that?" Dr. Chen was trying to make the banter seem casual and friendly.
"I was trying to get some stuff from the top shelf, I couldn't reach and it so I climbed up and it fell over." Nicole didn't make eye contact while she told this lie.
"Well, these things happen," Dr. Chen smiled and stood from her stool. "Can you show me where it is?"
Nicole went to lift her hand to point to the spot on her head, but forgetting those ribs were broke her hand jerkily fell down to her side and she used her left arm instead. This motion didn't go unnoticed by Dr. Chen but she kept her poker face as she said, "Easy does it. The x-rays show you've got a couple fractured ribs, thank goodness that's all that was broken."
Nicole just nodded her head. This dr was new. She was a lot nicer than most of the others. She didn't stare at her suspiciously or talk down to her like others had done. She pressed a call button and soon the young male nurse came into the room with a tray of syringes and sutures. He set them next to the bed and stepped back.
"Okay Nicole I'm going to try to do this without shaving any of your hair, I know how important us girls hair is and yours is such a gorgeous color so I'll do my best, but I can't promise, okay?"
"okay." came the meek response.
"This may burn a little,"
Dr. Chen applied a foam disinfectant. Nicole's head was on fire, it felt like rubbing alcohol in a million cuts. Her hands tightly gripped the bed and she grit her teeth.
Dr. Chen used her hands to wave at Nicole's head as if she were a child.
"I know, I know just hang in there. I'm about to give you a few shots on the head to numb the area and you'll feel much better. " Dr.Chen picked up the first syringe. "Your just going to feel a pinch, then a burn, then everything in that area will start to go numb. "
"Okay." Nicole said resolutely.
Dr. Chen injected the numbing agent in three quick shots around the wound. As Nicole's head went numb her body relaxed a bit. Dr. Chen immediately located and pulled out the shard of glass. it was about half an inch long. For it to have stuck in her that deep it needed a good amount of force. Once she pulled it out it bled a bit, once the bleeding slowed she put in 8 stitches. She was about to put her tools down when a reflection caught her attention. She squinted to see better until she finally asked Nurse Dan to bring in a light. Once under the light Dr.Chen found many more smaller glass splinters embedded in her scalp and neck, though no others needed stitches over all there were over 20 shards.
After some time Dr. Chen put her tools down and instructed nurse Dan to get some ice packs. She wrote Nicole prescriptions for pain and antibiotics.
"Okay, we're all done for today. I wrote you a couple prescriptions take them with food as directed. Now the sutures in your head are self dissolving, but sometimes when placed on the head they have issues and can cause infections, so you'll have to make a follow up to have them checked in 7 days." Of course this explanation was all a lie but Dr.Chen needed a reason for her to come back after she had time to review her medical history.
"Come back here?" Nicole asked, not really wanting to come back to the hospital so quickly. She never knew who she would run into or who might began to suspect what's going on. Many nurses just treated her like a junkie who was here to get pills. Which was better than them knowing the truth and making waves that would surely drown her. Though it did suck when she had to endure the pain without anything to ease it.
"Oh no, I only work here sometimes to help my Father. I have a clinic, that's where your follow up will be. Though I'm not open Saturday so we'll make it Friday 10am. I know the doctors is never fun but better safe than sorry. The address is on your discharge paperwork. In the meantime keep your lacerations clean and your movements minimal. "
With that she didn't leave time for Nicole to respond as she sauntered out the door. As Dr.Chen walked down the ward her heart was full of angst, she couldn't help but think, " Just hang in there, help is on the way."