Page 46 of Prognosis So Done

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - 2300 HOURS

Sometimes this jobwas crazy and the team found themselves rushing one patient out to Megan in HDU and preparing for another. They heard a helicopter land as their patient arrived and knew Megan and the others would be grateful to soon have four fewer patients.

Harriet wondered how many more helicopters would land and take off tonight before theirs arrived in the morning. She pushed herself to do her job, despite her tummy feeling more and more like a helicopter had landed inside it and was tearing it to shreds with its blades. The painkillers she had taken before the burns case didn’t seem to be having much effect this time.

She decided to pass on scrubbing for this op, even though it was her turn. Katya didn’t mind and Harriet promised she’d scrub in next, even though she doubted she’d feel like doing it then either, unless she had a miraculous recovery.

Her normal treatment for cyst pain was to take paracetamol

and rest as much as possible. The pain usually only lasted a day or two and was generally fairly bearable. She could manage it just fine without it interfering too much with her day-to-day life or work. It was a nuisance more than anything. But this was shaping up to be almost as bad as the time she’d had to have it drained.

Great!She didn’t want to have to spend her stopover in London having fluid sucked out of her abdomen. Not a great way

to start her new life. And Gill wouldn’t be with her either... just as well he was heading straight home or she didn’t know if she’d be brave enough to go through the procedure alone.

And then what would he think? She was supposed to be ending it, making a clean break. Something she’d already failed when she’d slept with him again so soon after her return to the team.

And every day since, apart from the time she’d been sick.

No wonder Gill had been a little surprised by the divorce papers that morning. Talk about giving him mixed signals! She had to stop leaning on him. She’d managed for a year without him and she’d manage again.

Gill would go home to be with his grandfather and she would see to her own condition if needed and that was that.

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Kelly arrived withthe patient from the medical building a short time later. Theire came as well, talking quietly to the young man.

‘This guy is the sixth passenger from that car accident,” she said to Gill. ‘He jumped clear of the vehicle before it crashed and exploded, but landed heavily on his left side. He’s complaining of abdo pain and has rebound tenderness in his left upper quadrant.’

Gill nodded as he smiled at his patient. ‘Kehr’s sign?’ He knew that when blood from an injured spleen irritated the subdiaphragmatic nerve root, referred pain was felt in the left shoulder tip.

‘Yep. Also free fluid in the abdomen on ultrasound. He’s hypotensive and tachycardic. He’s had two units of colloid and that’s his second unit of blood hanging.’

‘What pain relief has he had?’ asked Gill, as he switched on the handheld ultrasound machine and located the free fluid Kelly had been talking about.

‘He’s had some morphine. Theire has explained what you’re going to do.’

‘OK, thanks, Kel. Don’t suppose it’s slowing down?’

‘In your dreams, Guillaume,’ she threw over her shoulder as she and Theire exited the theatre.

Gill went to scrub and was surprised when Katya joined him.

‘I thought it was Harry’s turn,’ he said, as he soaped up his hands.

‘She’s going to scrub in next.’

Gill hesitated behind his mask as he asked the next question. ‘Is she all right, Katya?’ He had heard her confiding in Katya earlier on — maybe Harriet had told the Russian nurse more about her pain.

‘Nothing a baby wouldn’t fix,’ she said, not bothering to even look at him.

Gill’s hands stilled momentarily, before recommencing the scrub. Not really what he’d meant. ‘Katya,’ he said, a warning in his voice.

‘Guillaume.’ She half turned in his direction, her eyes sparkling with ferocity above her mask. ‘You are a stupid man.’

Gill smiled and bit the side of his cheek to stop himself

from laughing. He should have known that Katya-the-blunt

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