Page 39 of Prognosis Irreconcilable Differences

Nathan palpated over the area Jeremy was guarding and the teenager cried out. Nathan looked at Jacqui. Was she also thinking possible splenic or other abdominal injury from the seatbelt? His gaze flicked to the monitor. Tachycardic at one hundred and twenty.

‘Spleen?’ Jacqui asked, their earlier argument forgotten amidst the seriousness of the drama being played out in her veterinary theatre.

‘Could be.’

She pointed behind him. ‘Ultrasound help?’

Nathan looked over his shoulder at the machine. It was like manna from heaven. He looked back at her. She’d secured her curls in a hasty ponytail and was chewing anxiously on her bottom lip. He smiled at her. ‘You bet.’

She smiled back at him, and the adrenaline surging through his system spiked.

‘Let’s get a couple of IVs into him first and get him warm. We’ll have a quick look with the ultrasound, and then arrange to get him the hell out of here to a primary care facility.’

Jacqui agreed with his razor-sharp assessment. ‘Jimbo, can you go upstairs to my linen cupboard and grab some blankets? Nathan, I’ll stick a large bore in this arm; you can do that side.’

‘Don’t suppose you also have a blood pressure cuff amongst that lot?’ Nathan asked, indicating the monitor equipment.

‘Fraid not — don’t really use them on animals. But I do have a manual cuff that I bought after Timmy Marshall’s grandmother had an MI in my waiting room.’

Nathan stared at her nonplussed for a moment. He’d missed out on so much of her life. Her stories. But now really wasn’t the time to go there. He smiled. Despite the gravity of the situation, working with Jacqui was exhilarating. He felt alive.

‘God bless Timmy Marshall’s granny.’

Nathan inserted his IV while Jacqui retrieved the sphygmomanometer and took a quick BP.

‘Ninety over forty,’ she said. Borderline. She wasted no time inserting another large-bore IV into the crook of Jeremy’s elbow.

Nathan whistled. ‘And on a human too.’

‘Shut up,’ she said, her voice bordering on affection as she handed him a bag of fluid Wongaree hospital regularly supplied her with.

Within two minutes Jeremy had two IVs running wide open and was cocooned in blankets. They fired up the ultrasound and Jacqui watched as Nathan ran the transducer through the jelly he’d squeezed on Jeremy’s abdomen. She squinted at the fuzzy screen, looking for evidence of any free fluid.

‘Hard to tell,’ Nathan mused. ‘Nothing obvious. Don’t suppose you’ve got a CAT scanner hidden somewhere?’

Jacqui rolled her eyes. ‘Sorry.’ Her gaze flicked to the monitor. ‘Heart-rate settling at one hundred. He’s responding well to the fluid bolus.’

Nathan placed the transducer back in its place and strode to the wall phone as Jacqui pumped up the blood pressure cuff one more time.

‘One hundred systolic,’ she told him.

Nathan repeated the figure to the emergency call taker and she watched surreptitiously as he gave a succinct summary of Jeremy’s condition.

Nathan replaced the receiver. ‘Ambulance is on its way. ETA twenty minutes.’

Jacqui hadn’t realised how on edge she’d been until help was at hand. All they had to do was keep him warm, monitor him and keep his vitals stable, and then Jeremy would be whisked away.

Animals she could handle. Humans were a whole other proposition. Thank God Nathan was here.

‘So he’s going to be okay, then?’ asked Jimbo, who had been hovering in the background.

‘He’s stable at the moment.’ Nathan nodded.

Jeremy groaned again, and Jimbo said, ‘He seems to be in a bit of pain. Surely you’ve got something here you can give him, Jacqui?’

Jacqui shook her head. ‘We don’t want to give him anything in case it masks a deterioration in his condition, Jim. When the ambulance gets here, they’ll give him something.’

Nathan smiled at Jacqui’s answer as Jeremy groaned one more time. He hoped the pain was coming from soft tissue damage, and not blood oozing into his abdomen from a hole somewhere.

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