“Thanks Joe,” was Sarah’s reply. She had recently become quite close to Amanda’s parents and felt quite lucky that Joe was a Pediatric Neuro-Surgeon at this hospital. Not that she had anything against the other doctors or anything, but the ability to talk to someone you trusted outside the hospital was just perfect.
Joe could see the flash as Sarah relaxed, and he realized he had taken a load off her mind. “I really would like to know what she’s dreaming about though. That rhythm is quite interesting”.
“Just remember, be quiet and courteous. Waking her probably wouldn’t cause any long term problems at this point, but we want to let her wake on her own as much as possible.” Was Joe’s final statement before smiling and leaving the room.
Little Girls Pt 1
“Mommy, I can’t do this it hurts,” the 6 year old little girl named Brianna called out. She had been trying to brush her hair just like her mother had shown her, but there were just too many knots.
“Maybe we should think about cutting your hair shorter, so that it won’t knot up like this,” her mom suggested.
“NOOOOoooooo,” was the reply that came from the little girl, with the stomping of her left foot. It came with more than a little bit of fear at having her beautiful hair cut short. She felt the long blond hair made her look like a Princess, like her favorite princess in fact.
Mom picked up the hairbrush, and started brushing little Brianna’s hair. Sure she tugged a little, and Brianna flinched, but there was just something about mom brushing her hair that made everything ok.
“BEEEEB BEEEEEEB BEEEEEEEEB BEEEEEEEEEB.” The sound of the smoke detector in the kitchen snapped Brianna out of her bliss.
Moms
What’s that? Mom asked of no one in particular as the machine attached to her daughter started beeping.
At that point, Mandy walked in, and went over to the machine. She pressed a couple buttons to silence the alarm and then went moved over to the child.
With a deftness usually seen only by those with many more years of experience, the young nurse proceeded to re-attach the electrical leads to the young child, whilst doing a basic check for any signs of elevated temperature and other happenings.
“It’s just a loose lead. It happens when they start moving around like this,” Mandy replied, hoping to reassure Sarah.
She noticed Aurora had been perspiring ever so slightly, that probably aided the sticky pads in coming loose. Her temperature was elevated to the touch, so she grabbed the ear canal thermometer from the wall, placed a new cone on the end, and took the child’s temperature. It confirmed there was a slight rise, but nothing to really worry about.
Deciding to error on the side of caution, she smiled at Sarah on her way out the door, and decided to call Dr. Constantine whilst she made the note in the chart.
Bliss
Mom dropped her brush, and instantly grabbed her little girl. She rushed her towards the front of the house and the offending alarm. After seeing Denny by the toaster, scared, and not seeing any flames, or excessive smoke she put her youngest down, and went into the kitchen.
“What happened?” she asked whilst turning off the smoke alarm and hugging her elder child.
I wanted to make toast for you and Brianna. I wanted to help make breakfast since it’s her first day,” he said with a bit of a dejected sniffle.
“I got the cereal and milk and bowls to the table fine, but when I put the toast in the toaster it started smoking,” he said whilst starting to get animated again.
“It’s ok honey,” Mom said reassuringly to her child. “We’ve needed a new toaster for a while. I really wish you would have waited for me though”. She said it with a smile to her voice.
“Smoo,” was little Brianna’s only comment, combined with a little pout.
“I’m sorry mommy,” was Denny’s reply as he hugged his mother back.
Mom kissed her eldest on the forehead then walked away to finish with her youngest’s hair. Just as she was about to grab her daughter, Brianna dodged the embrace and ran to her elder brother. She hugged him tight and chastely, then ran back to her mother.
Mom smiled, knowing that her kids would always have a great relationship, and went to get Brianna ready for her first day of kindergarten.
Nurses
Mandy had only just made it before her shift was due to start and then there was the new intake from the ER just after the ‘handover’ had finished. Normally she would have had time to settle into her routine for the day, but not today.
It hardly felt like a full 8 hours had gone by since she started that morning but as things were slowing down now, she had some time to think.
It was Monday morning. Mandy had heard that Denny was staying with a friend. She knew it wasn’t Dr. Constantine’s family, as his family was here nearly as much as Brian’s mother.
Mandy wanted much to call the child a girl, but the chart said M, and she wanted to make sure it was okay with her young patient first.
Sure she had seen the tattered dress, but that could have been an anomaly.
She entered the child’s room again, to see Sarah dozing in the corner. ‘She really loves this child, but I hope she realizes she has two children that need her,’ she thought, nearly out loud.
After checking the monitors and making sure that she was relatively alone, except for the sleeping mother, she bent down and whispered in the girl’s ear, “You sure are sweet, I wish you’d wake up and tell me your name.”…
Miss Taylor
Denny proudly grabbed his younger sister’s hand and led her down the hallway to her kindergarten class. Miss Megan Taylor was a fairly young new teacher to the school, but when Mom had met her over the summer, she seemed to be a quite a delightful person.
Spotting the two children from the door of her classroom, Miss Taylor walked over and asked, “Well aren’t you adorable. What’s your name sweetie?”
“Brianna,” the little girl said a bit shyly.
“And whom is this young man?” Miss Taylor asked of the little girl.
“This is my big brudder Denny. He’s 8!” she said with pride.
The bond between these two kids was greater than she had ever seen.
Denny
Denny had showed up and woke his mom. He promised to watch Brian whilst she used the restroom and went to grab a snack from the cafeteria.
Sure they both knew the nurses and doctors weren’t going to let him go unwatched even if there was no family there, but he knew his Mom wanted someone Brian knew there just in case he were to wake up.
Denny touched his brother’s arm, tracing down to the hand.
It wasn’t exactly fast, but at the same point it startled Denny. As his hand reached Brian’s hand, Brian grasped it.
It wasn’t tight, and Denny was easily able to remove his hand, but he shed a tear for his brother. He didn’t wish him to be hurt, in fact he wanted Brian to be normal and nothing wrong, because maybe Denny would get a little attention, but at the same time, he didn’t know what to do about Brianna.
Big Brudder
Denny removed his hand from his sister’s grasp “You have to be a big girl now. Miss Taylor is a good teacher,” he told her.
Their mother looked on, and couldn’t have been more proud of what she was seeing. She couldn’t have had two better kids than she had now.
Denny waved to his sister, just before joining with his returning friends for his first day of 2nd grade.
Brianna looked at her mother, and hugged her, then offered her hand to her new teacher.
Miss Mandy appeared to be a pleasant woman, and Brianna was ready for her newest adventure.
(Not so) Accidental Encounters
“Hey Mandy,” said Susan, one of the other day nurses on shift. They were both in the lunch room, and normally would have eaten together but today Mandy was on a mission.
“Hey Susan, sorry can’t stop and talk today, I need to take care of something,” she said with a sly smile.
“Which patient is your cause this time?” Susan asked with a mock sneer.
“Well, It’s not actually a patient, but more the the family. It’s the boy they brought into the E.R. after Trick or Treat.”
“The boy in the dress?” Susan said with at little less compassion than she meant. Mandy picked up on this and bristled a little.
“Yes,” she said curtly. “But I think his Big Brother is having issues too.”
Noticing the slight change in Mandy’s demeanor, Susan reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. “Listen, if you need anything from me, even if it’s just to talk, I’m here,” she said with a smile.
Mandy softened a little, returned the smile, then continued on with her mission.
She walked over to the table, with the lone woman, and lightly tapped her shoulder. Sarah startled a little then looked up to see the sweet nurse that had been taking such good care of her child.
“Mind if I take this seat?” Mandy asked pointing to the chair next to Sarah.
“No, but I thought spending your lunch with a patients family would be the last thing you would want to do”.
Mandy chuckled a little whilst she took the seat next to Sarah. “Well, much of the time probably, but I… Well…” Mandy had originally planned to lead up to this subtly but Sarah’s comment had set her off guard.
“Well I wanted to talk to you about Denny actually,” Mandy said with an apologetic smile.
Sarah sighed and looked at Mandy. “He’s not as bad as he seems you know. He used to be a sweet kid. I know he’s having some issues, but the therapist I talked to said it was a ‘normal phase’ and I should just let him work through it.”
“Have you noticed he’s smoking?” Mandy asked gently.
“No, he doesn’t smoke, I know his clothes smell like smoke sometimes, but that’s because of the kids he hangs around with,” Sarah replied slightly defensive.
“Look at his teeth sometime. Right now, I think the worst thing you can do is give him space. I think he wants you to notice him, and if you don’t, it’s just going to escalate.”
Sarah started bristling a little. “And you know this because of your years of experience?” was her reply, making obvious reference to the nurse’s young age.
“No,” was Mandy’s flat reply. “I know this, because I saw it in my brother, before he ended up in juvi.” She said it with a seriousness that seems to transcend her age.
“He was a sweet kid, and did good in grade school, and we were about 4 years apart in age. When I got a scholarship to med school, He started to feel left out, and well, started to act out. My parents didn’t seem to notice and felt that he was just being a normal boy, but then when he and his friends got drunk one night and started a fire in an abandoned building where they had went to smoke, my parents started to take notice.”
Sarah was confused, and had no idea how to respond. She wanted to say she was sorry, but she also wanted to think that Mandy was wrong.
There were so many things going around in her head, and then there was the stress of her youngest child lying unconscious upstairs in ICU.
Sarah just couldn’t take anymore and just started crying.
Mandy was quick to Sarah’s side, and pulled a tissue pack from the pocket of her scrubs. Most nurses didn’t think to carry such a thing, but as a Pediatric ICU nurse, she found that it was probably the 2nd most important tool she had.
For my Mother
Amanda had finally come back from her tests for that day. Denny was feeling a bit uncomfortable with the girl in the room, and decided to go find his Mother.
She wasn’t usually gone that long, and was wondering what had come up. She would probably be upset at him for leaving Brian, but he figured it would probably be better for Amanda to be there than him should his brother wake up.
He started out of the room, and down the hall towards the elevators when he saw the doors open and Mandy was sort of carrying his mother.
Well not really carrying, but his mother was slumped to her side sobbing.
“What did you do to her?” he screamed as he ran to his Mother.
Sure they had their issues, but Denny still loved his Mother, and wanted to do everything he could to protect her.
Mandy relinquished her hold on Sara, and let Denny take lead, whilst staying near by. “I didn’t do anything,” was her apologetic reply.
“She’s just worried about you, and your sibling, and I think it finally got to her.”