Page 51 of Prognosis So Done

Harriet heard his voice from far away as a ringing in her

ears grew so loud it was like being in the middle of a million crickets. Her arms shook uncontrollably and her vision blackened from the edges inwards until all she could see were two pinpoints of light and then not even that before she lapsed into unconsciousness.

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Gill realised whatwas happening just in time, dropping the

almost bandaged leg with a thump and twisting to catch Harriet

before she banged her head. Luckily he didn’t need to be sterile anymore because they both ended up on the floor.

‘Harry! Harry!’ Gill shook her, ripping her hat and mask off, alarmed at her rag-doll limpness. She moaned and her eyes fluttered open briefly and a cool surge of relief washed through him like a tidal wave.

‘What’s wrong?’ demanded Katya. Everyone had gathered

around and were squatting next to Gill, their amputee patient

temporarily forgotten. Their look of alarm and concern mirrored his.

‘She fainted,’ Gill said, a sick feeling of worry like a lump of cold porridge in his belly as he lay her head gently against the floor and called her name.

She came around again slowly, moaning and drawing her legs up until she lay a foetal position, her arms folded around her abdomen.

‘Harry? What’s happening?’ he asked gently but she just moaned again and Gill’s alarm spiked further. ‘Joan, can you reverse the anaesthetic on our one-legged friend and get him out to Megan so we can put Harry up on the table?’

The team sprang into action. Joan injected the reversal agent and they shifted the groggy amputee onto a trolley. Helmut wheeling him out to Megan while Siobhan and Katya cleared the table and wiped it quickly down.

Helmut returned and he and Gill lifted Harriet off

the floor and placed her on the table.

‘Harriet,’ Gill said, giving her shoulder a gentle shake. ‘Talk to me. What’s happening? Is it your belly?’

Her pallor was terrible as he reached for the blood-pressure cuff attached to the anaesthetic monitor, wrapped it around her arm and pushed the button. Her skin felt cool and clammy and Gill tried to stay calm.

Tried to be the doctor she needed him to be right now.

Joan clipped a tourniquet on Harriet’s other arm and flicked at the crook of her elbow looking for a vein to insert an IV.

‘The pain...it’s been getting worse and worse.’ Tears ran down her cheeks.

‘Why didn’t you say something?’ he chided gently.

‘I thought it was just a cyst but...I don’t know, Gill. This is different. I think maybe it’s ruptured or I have appendicitis.’

‘Where does it hurt?’ he asked.

‘Same place, but it’s never been this bad. Not even that time in London.’

“Can you lie on your back so I can have a feel?” he asked.

She unfurled but it was obviously uncomfortable as Gill lifted her scrub top to expose her abdomen and pushed down gently with his fingertips in the right lower quadrant, using the prominent jut of her hipbone as leverage.

Harriet cried out and clutched his sleeve.

‘I’ll get the hand-held,’ said Katya.

The blood-pressure reading pinged onto the screen. Eighty-five systolic and her heart rate was one hundred and twenty.

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