Page 4 of Heart Strings
“Thank you, Mam.” I slip off the cardigan and pull thejumper over my head. It fits well, and the craftsmanship is impeccable, but I’ve never owned a piece of clothing so ugly. “I love it.”
Herding us in front of the fireplace, Mam raises her phone. “Now, I want a photo of all of you in your matching jumpers!”
Chapter 2
Lo
A flying bedpannarrowly misses my head, striking the wall behind me with a clatter and a splatter.
“Get fucked by a fish!” the ancient patient shouts in Spanish from her hospital bed. Well, that’s an insult I haven’t heard before. Instead of the Irish lilt belonging to most of the staff and patients here, I recognize her lispy accent as Castilian. “I told you I never want to see you again.”
The nurse pulls me into the hallway. “I have four other patients to tend and it’s going to take ages to calm her down.”
“I’ll clean it up,” I offer. Environmental Services isn’t permitted to actually clean hazardous waste at our teaching hospital. Unfortunately, that means the worst of it falls on the already overextended nursing staff or students like me. “Really. I’ve got this.”
“Your funeral.”
A nasty fall explains why Mrs. Serrano is in the Accident & Emergency department; dementia explains her explosive reaction to a nurse coming in for vitals. Breathing through mymouth, I reenter her room with absorbent pads and sanitizer. Medicine isn’t for the faint of heart. People have been telling me that since the day I announced I was becoming a doctor at seven years old.
“Good morning, Mrs. Serrano. I’m going to take your blood pressure now,” I tell her in Spanish. Bilingual people with memory issues often revert to their first language and lose everything else.
She examines me with filmy, cataract-covered eyes. “Where are you from?”
“I’m American, but my dad is from Oaxaca, Mexico.” Although it’s a different dialect, the familiarity of Spanish seems to soothe her as I’d hoped. She offers me her arm and I slip the cuff on quickly while she’s agreeable.
“She thinks she can just walk in here?” She goes back to muttering about the nurse she confused for her sister. “I’d rather rot than accept her help.”
Contradicting a memory care patient only makes them more agitated, so I nod empathetically.
“And I don’t like people bothering with me. I can take care of myself,” she adds, sounding a little more lucid.
Looking at this woman feels like getting a peek at a possible future version of myself: a fierce sense of independence, colorful use of insults, the ability to hold a grudge for decades. Maybe that’s why I didn’t leave the room immediately after cleaning up. Combativeness is common, and there are plenty of other patients to see as I shadow the attending physician, but something about her flash of anger made me approach her instead of moving on.
“I understand it’s frustrating to be here,” I tell her with a soft smile. “We’re doing our best to get you back home soon.”
“My whole life, I lived on my own. Independent,” the old woman grumbles. “I feel so helpless now.”
I can relate to the unique restlessness of being stuck in a hospital bed. I never want to experience it again. “We all need to accept a little help from time to time.”
Her frown softens just a bit.
“I heard aboutyour Code Brown earlier.” Oisín runs a hand through his endearingly fluffy hair. The hospital’s cafeteria thrums with the lunchtime rush. Physicians, family members, and patients who are well enough to sneak away from their rooms form a line that snakes through the bright space.
Code Brown actually means disaster. If Mrs. Serrano had better aim and had hit me with that bedpan, it certainly could’ve been.
Oisín stabs a grilled zucchini. “The nurses all said that patient was calmer after you spoke to her in Spanish.”
“I read that speaking a memory patient’s first language helps comfort them.”
“Well, she’s only asking for you now. Congrats on making a friend.”
“Hey, I have friends. Don’t you count?”
Oisín waves the fork between us. “I thought this was a ‘keep your enemies closer’ situation.”
“Ass.” I flick a purple Skittle at him, which bounces off the lapel of his white coat and lands in a pile of orzo. The purple ones taste different here. European food standards probably make these candies a better product than their Americancounterpart, but it doesn’t matter. They’re slightly off to me, even if Oisín insists they all taste like pure sugar. “Just because I’ve never passed out friendship bracelets in our lectures doesn’t mean I’m enemies with anyone. I’m just…competitive.”
As a woman of color in a male-dominated field, I have to continually prove my place and battle my own impostor syndrome. All with a non-confrontational smile on my face. Oisín and I have been neck and neck in our cohort for the past three years. While he enjoys the opportunity to be a dickhead from time to time, I’m the one who has been told to work on my bedside manner.Curtwas the word on the A&E rotation feedback form—although the handwriting was messy and thatrcould’ve been ann.
