Chapter 12
The patient in 11-A had survived an auto accident and extensive surgery to repair the damage, losing a kidney and his spleen in the process. His surgeon had deemed him well enough to be transferred out of SICU to the regular surgical floor, the patient being alert and stable, eating light but solid foods, his remaining kidney producing urine at a normal rate. His temperature was climbing, however, and he had declined to eat his evening meal.
The surgeon on duty had managed to hide himself where no one could find him, and he wasn't answering his page. Karen put in a call to Mr. Gibbons's surgeon and kept a close watch on the patient. If he had picked up a post-op infection, the sooner they caught it, the better. Concern over Mr. Gibbons kept her from brooding. It felt good to be back on the floor, in the familiar world of tile floors, medicinal smells, and beeping monitors. Her name tag was pinned to her short-sleeved tunic, the pockets of which were jammed with various bits of paraphernalia that might or might not come in handy. Her stethoscope was slung around her neck, and her rubber-soled shoes squeaked on the tile as she walked. Familiar. Good. Despite her expectations, she had managed to grab several hours' sleep before coming to work. She didn't know whether to be glad of the sleep or sorry Marc hadn't called and disturbed her. Evidently, he had decided just to drop the matter, which, when she thought about it, was the most sensible thing to do. They had slept together, she had made a fool of herself, but it was over. He was in Louisiana. She was back home in Ohio, where she belonged. Maybe one day she would be in a reminiscent mood and tell Piper about the hot night she had spent with a New Orleans detective. Piper would be vastly relieved; in her opinion, Karen's love life was a contradiction in terms, because where there was life, there had to be activity.
Mr. Gibbons's surgeon finally called right before Karen went on break. As expected, he was grumpy. In the general opinion of nurses, all surgeons were assholes, but Dr. Pierini was a logical asshole. "Mr. Gibbons's temp is a hundred point eight," she said. "At midnight, it was ninety-nine point seven."
"Shit." He yawned. "Okay. I want a culture so we can see what's going on here. Tell the lab I want the results when I do morning rounds." He rattled off more instructions, then said, "Where the hell is Dailey?"
"Dr. Dailey isn't answering his page."
"Well, find him, god damn it, instead of calling me."
He slammed the phone down, but Karen shrugged as she hung up. She had gotten what she wanted, and whenever she woke someone up at three o'clock in the morning, she was inclined to cut him a little slack. She would be more than happy to find Dr. Dailey, if it were possible. No nurse on the surgical floor had ever performed that miracle, however.
She would be even happier if someone shoved a wire up Dr. Dailey's patootie, so she could hit a buzzer whenever she needed him and light up his life. He could then be found by following the yelps. The nurses' break room was habitually strewn with newspapers and magazines, and the refrigerator harbored new life forms that no one wanted to investigate too closely. Four folding chairs sat around a small round table, and a lumpy sofa, covered in noxious orange vinyl, completed the furniture. A nineteen-inch television hung on the wall, but the video portion had been lost for several months, and the nurses had a lot of fun trying to figure out what was happening by listening to the dialogue and special effects.
Karen took a diet soda from the refrigerator and plopped down on Big Val, short for Valencia, as the orange sofa was not so affectionately known. Sighing with relief, she arched her feet and stretched her tired Achilles tendons and wished she had a basin of cold water in which to soak them. She would have liked to pull off her shoes but knew better; the feet would swell immediately, then she would have trouble getting her shoes back on, and they would be too tight for the rest of the shift. Several days' worth of newspapers were scattered on the floor. Leaning over, Karen grabbed up
several sections to see if anything exciting had happened while she had been gone. She doubted it, but maybe "Dilbert" hadn't been clipped out of the comic page. The cartoons had a way of winding up on bulletin boards in the hospital, with hospital employees' names penciled in. Administration didn't think it was funny.
She leafed through the papers, scanning headlines and photo captions. One photograph grabbed her attention because something about the burned shell of a house looked familiar. "A fire yesterday morning destroyed the residence of Nathan and Lindsey Hoerske—" Why, that was her house! Shocked, she stared at the blackened ruins in the photograph. It had been her house, rather. She had lived in that house for fifteen years. Oh, the poor Hoerskes, just married and so happy to have their own house. They had lost everything they owned, from the look of it. The newspaper said the fire started in the kitchen. Almost as rattled as if she had lost an old friend, Karen laid the newspaper aside. House fires were never just about lost property, they were about memories and dreams. The fabrics of lives were woven together within the protective walls that provided sanctuary from the rest of the world. She had liked Nathan and Lindsey; though she had made up her mind to sell the house anyway, she was glad they were the ones who bought it. They had seemed so much in love, but settled, as if they had found their groove in life and nothing could jar them out of it. Karen had imagined them having a couple of kids, the rooms cluttered with toys and resounding with the happy, high-pitched shrieks of children at play. Now they would have to start over, find another place to think of as home.
Piper breezed onto the floor at six-thirty. She put her hands on her ample hips when she saw Karen.