Page 58 of The Night Shift
‘There it is– the bedside manner we know and love.’ He barked a short laugh and shook his head. ‘No, Doctor. I haven’t got the energy to do anything dramatic, don’t worry. Anyway, I expect the good Lord has already got things sorted out on that score, if my scan result is anything to go by.’ He inclined his head towards the pile of notes resting in her lap. ‘Sounds like I don’t need to be worrying about waiting for a royal telegram on my hundredth birthday.’
She opened the file. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I think you might be right. Has someone been to have a chat with you about the scan then?’
‘Briefly,’ he said. ‘But I wanted to talk to you, so I told them to bugger off.’
She laughed. ‘And there’s the polite patient behaviour we know and love.’
‘Touché,’ he said with a twinkle in his eye. ‘We’re a pair, you and I.’
They sat for a while talking through the options but it was clear that Mr Zeller was not interested in further surgery and Violet suggested that it might be worth having a discussion with the palliative care team.
‘Even if you do decide to go ahead with an operation, it would be useful to know your options if the surgery doesn’t result in a complete cure,’ Violet said. ‘And they’re all very nice in palliative care. Nothing like me and my dreadful communication skills. I’ll ask one of them to drop by maybe?’ She jotted it down in his notes. ‘Dr Grainger,’ she said, thinking of a colleague she’d had some contact with about a previous patient. Both Anjali and Gus had rated her too. ‘She’s just come from an attachment at St Martin’s Hospice. I think you’d like her.’
He nodded wearily. ‘We’ll see.’
‘And I do think you should talk to the surgeons as well,’ she said, watching as his face pursed up in disapproval. ‘I can see you’re deeply suspicious of them but they know what they’re doing. Saved my friend’s life just a few days ago.’ She nodded as he raised his eyebrows. ‘Really,’ she said. ‘They’ll be able to give you a much better idea than me as to what can and can’t be done with this tumour of yours.’
‘I’m not speaking to that idiot who came round a few nights ago,’ he said, folding his arms across his chest.
‘Mr Snell?’ said Violet. ‘He’s not so bad. He did come back and talk you through the procedure a second time after I asked him to. And I wasn’t very polite when I spoke to him.’
‘That makes two of us.’
‘I don’t doubt it.’ She smiled. ‘No, I’m sure it will be one of the other surgeons who’ll come and talk to you. Maybe after they’ve had their big meeting with the oncologists and radiologists.’
He nodded and reached across for his lavender pillow spray, emptying half the contents of the bottle onto his bedding with a vigorous pump action before settling his head back, a contented expression on his face. Violet took this as her cue to leave but as she stood, he reached out a hand to hold hers in an awkward half-shake.
‘You alright, Mr Zeller?’ she said, looking at him closely. The soft folds of yellowing skin crinkled around his eyes as he nodded. He gave her hand the briefest of squeezes before letting go.
‘Thank you,’ he said.
Violet made her way back to the nurses’ station and had a chat with Cindy about a couple of the other patients. They got to the end of the list and Cindy gave her an apologetic look. ‘Mrs Chambers,’ she said.
‘Breathless again?’ Violet panicked that she’d missed something yesterday.
‘No, nothing like that.’
‘Venflon?’
Cindy nodded. ‘Blocked this evening. And– she’s asked specifically for you to re-site the next one. Otherwise I’d have got Dr Jacobs to do it earlier. Sorry.’
‘No problem,’ said Violet, feeling quite smug about being selected. She also wanted to catch up with how Mrs Chambers was doing, given that when she’d seen her yesterday to check her breathing, they’d had a chat about her plans for a cruise around the Caribbean as soon as she was discharged from hospital. Violet had even stopped to look at the brochures which was most out of character, but she’d enjoyed talking to her more than she’d expected.
On her way to get the bits she needed for the cannulation she stopped outside the wandering Mrs Jenson’s door, opening it a fraction to see her daughter-in-law sat reading in the lamplight.
‘Evening,’ she whispered, hoping not to disturb the slumbers of her patient who was as usual snoring like a freight train.
The daughter-in-law looked up from her book and nodded. ‘Hello, Dr Winters,’ she said at normal volume. ‘Don’t worry,’ she inclined her head towards the bed, ‘you won’t wake her now. I’m going to head off as soon as I’ve finished this chapter, get back home for some sleep.’
‘Sounds like things are going well,’ said Violet. ‘Chest infection’s almost completely resolved. I hear they’re hoping to discharge her tomorrow.’
The woman smiled and patted her mother-in-law on the hand fondly. ‘It’ll be lovely to have to her home in time for New Year,’ she said as Mrs Jenson senior paused in her snoring, muttered something about swimming to Durdle Door and settled back into her pillows with a loud trumpeting fart.
‘The place will certainly be quieter without her,’ said Violet and the woman laughed.
‘I know she gave you a difficult time those first few nights, didn’t she?’
‘She was just confused,’ said Violet. ‘My gran has dementia. I know what it’s like.’ She realised as she spoke that she had never previously volunteered this information to a patient, let alone one of their relatives. Mrs Jenson’s daughter-in-law was looking at her with a new kind of shared understanding.
