Pathologies of the Nervous System

                “You can take your lunch now, Dr. Andrews has offered to take over for you”

Although I clearly heard what the nurse, Rhonda, had said, I just stared at her blankly.

“Take your lunch before he changes his mind dear” She reiterated. Rhonda was such a nice woman, she reminded me of my mom.

I made my way down to the cafeteria and set up camp. I put headphones in and connected them to my phone, but I didn’t start any music. Music distracted me from my reading, but the headphones acted as a nice conversation repellent. A lot of the other residents liked to sit down and bitch about their lives, and to be frank I had absolutely no interest in hearing their problems.  I sipped my tea and cracked open my book. Whenever I got a spare second lately, I would read up on head trauma and neurological conditions. The knowledge gives me peace. I read and highlighted for about ten minutes before I saw the chair on the other side of the table being pulled out and filled. The man sat down, and although I couldn’t place him, he looked familiar. He had short, dark hair and bright blue eyes. He seemed average height, with a very skinny build. He was wearing scrubs. Maybe he was another resident? He set his coffee on the table, grabbed a napkin and started polishing his apple with it.

“Can I help you?” I asked. This guy was already annoying the shit out of me.

“Ah no, I just couldn’t find anywhere else to sit.” He said. There was a very detectable hint of arrogance in his voice. I looked around the cafeteria, which was mostly empty.

“There is whole bunch of open tables over there” I said, pointing off in the distance. “Maybe you could move to one of them.” I really didn’t want the company right now.

“Oh no, those are definitely occupied” he said, grinning. I already could tell that I couldn’t stand this guy. I looked back down at the textbook in front of me and resumed my reading.

“Ah, Pathologies of the Nervous System, are you in neurology?” he asked

“No, I’m internal medicine” I mumbled. I was done with this conversation before it started

“Ah, you have a tough diagnosis to crack or something then?”

“Not really”

“Then what? Are you just reading for fun?”

“Sure, let’s go with that.”

“I’m Jack”

“Good for you”

Just then, my pager started beeping. Jill needed me at the nursing station. I packed up my things without saying a word and started walking away.

“Okay good talk!” Jack yelled as I walked away. I pretended I didn’t hear him and turned the corner.

I reached the nursing station and Jill was there, laughing.

“Nurse Williams saw that Jack kid down in the cafeteria bothering you, and she said you looked like you needed a rescue mission. You’re welcome” as she said this, she looked down at the book under my arm and then back up at me.

The gossipy laughter faded from her face and was quickly replaced by concern.

“Aw Honey, why are you reading that book again? You are torturing yourself.” As she said this she came around the counter and put her arm around me.

“I was just looking something up for a patient.” I said, my eyes finding the ring on my left hand. I felt a sting and looked away from it, my eyes then finding the floor. The floor tiles were this ugly grey and green checkered pattern. The pattern was blurring, and for the first time in two months, I realized I was tearing up. I didn’t even know why.  Jill must have seen the tears, because she grabbed my hand and pulled me into the storage room with her.

“Quinn, are you okay? I have never seen you cry.”

For the first time in months I didn’t feel empty. I felt like someone was ripping me apart at the seams. For the first time in months, I knew I was alive, but I wished I was dead. I desperately searched for the words to convince Jill that I was okay, but they weren’t there.  After what seemed like eternity, Jill finally broke the silence.

  “You are going to be okay. You are not his doctor, you are his fiancé. It’s not your job to diagnose him and treat him. It’s your job to hold his hand through it.”

I was sitting on a step stool with my head in my hands. I knew she is right, but it still felt horrible, being so helpless. We were in there in silence for a few minutes, Jill rubbing my back and my own sobs being muffled by my hands. I finally composed myself and stood up.

“Why don’t you go home? We are a little overstaffed today anyways. I’ll tell the attendings that you have a bug or something.” Jill said, still looking concerned. I nodded my head compliantly and left the room. I grabbed my coat and backpack from my locker and went to the elevator. My hand hovered over the “Ground” button for a split second, but then hit “5” instead. The elevator rose, stopped and the doors opened. I stepped out, took a left and looked at the door. “Extended Care Unit” was etched in the glass. I pushed through the door and walked down the hall. There, through the fifth door on the left he was.

I sat down in the chair slowly. Someone had combed his hair. I ran my fingers through it, returning it to his natural state. I wished more than anything that he was only sleeping, and that just a quick shake of his arm and he would be with me.

I had been in this room almost every day, for exactly two months. Usually when I went to see him, the room was silent under the beeps of machines. I never felt the need to say anything. In that moment, for the first time in two months, I spoke to my fiancé.  

“How am I supposed to do this without you?”

Bambi at the frat party

                My watch said 5:06 when I walked through the doors of the hospital’s walk in clinic. The clinic isn’t exactly an emergency room, but isn’t exactly an urgent care center either. People who go there usually don’t have health insurance, but have maladies that range from the sniffles to broken bones. The sad part is, most of these people have let their illnesses and injuries go for some time. They ignore them, hoping they will go away because they can’t pay for the treatment. It’s a sad place to have to work, and an even sadder place to visit.

                I made my way over to the reception area and signed in to the system. The time card said I started at 05:09. Just as I turned around, Jill practically shoved a chart in my gut.

                “Morning Dr. Mettlen, nice of you to make it. There is a lady in room two, complaining of abdominal pain, fatigue and nausea. Twenty bucks says she’s prego. Anyways she needs an exam.”

                Jill had the bedside manner of an old, miserable cat. If you really made her, she would be nice, but she always made it perfectly clear that she didn’t want to be. The rest of the time she was sarcastic and borderline rude, but for some reason patients seem to love her.

                Jill and I had known each other since elementary school. We had actually grown up in the same little coastal town in Virginia. After graduating high school, she married a guy in the Navy who later would get assigned in Boston, which is where I went to Medical School. By some twist of fate, we ended up at the same hospital. The two of us were never particularly close growing up, but we had mutual friends. Since working together we had developed a working professional relationship, with plenty of room for crude jokes and after work drinks, but we had never really gotten much farther than that.

                I am only about six months into my residency, but I feel comfortable and competent.  I just turned twenty five two months ago, making me the youngest resident here. Most of the others graduated med-school at twenty five, then had their internship, putting them at about twenty six when they entered their residency. I was twenty four when I started mine. I graduated high school a year early, and my birthday wasn't until November. When I graduated high school, I went straight to a big state school for undergrad, so for the longest time I never felt like I was on the same page as everyone else. Either they were my age and I felt a year ahead scholastically, or they were a year older and I felt a year behind socially. That’s where Jill helped me find some sort of normalcy in this place, she was my age, went to high school with me, and we could relate to each other. We could gossip about friends from back home, and talk about normal, everyday things. Jill is a nurse, and I am a doctor, so there is no competition. I can be friends with her without having to worry that she is going to try to out perform me. I always felt at ease around her. Even though we weren’t super close outside of the hospital, it’s nice to have a work friend like that.

                  I have always felt like I have been playing catch up with my peers.  I was only sixteen when I started college, turning seventeen in the November of my freshman year. When I arrived on campus for the first time, I was even more naïve than the average freshman girl. It was in my youthful, sixteen year old freshman state that I met Sean.  The first time I met him was at a frat party that was being thrown at the house he was pledging. When I walked in, he was frantically picking up the pieces of an empty liquor bottle someone had thrown down the stairs, while some active member was shouting at him and two other freshman boys to go faster. The same active member came over to the group of girls I was with and started flirting. He ordered Sean to bring us all drinks, and when Sean returned, he had a dining hall tray with plastic cups full of some lethal concoction.

Sean handed me mine and whispered “For the love of God, If you want to wake up in the morning with pants on, do not drink this”.

 I had heard so many stories during orientation about girls getting drugged and raped, that the thought of drinking whatever was in that cup made me nauseous. My paranoid, sheltered, roofie-fearing hands dropped the cup to the floor, the red liquid splashing everywhere. The senior frat boy didn’t have to say a word before Sean and three of his pledge brothers began cleaning the mess up. I turned on my heel and sped-walked away to avoid any further embarrassment. Later, while hiding with my new friends in another crowded room, I felt someone tap my shoulder.

 When I turned around, I saw him again, except this time he wasn’t nearly as pathetic. He actually looked like a person instead of an abused butler.

“Sorry if I am interrupting, but I was instructed by the active members to follow you around and make sure you don’t spill any more punch” He said, looking me up and down like he was a cop and I was a teenage boy out past curfew.

“You said it was drugged. I’m not drinking that shit” I shot back at him, Trying to sound confident by swearing. I never used to swear.

  “I didn’t say it was drugged, I meant it was strong so be careful. You look like Bambi walking around here. Like you are so innocent and don’t know what’s going on. I was trying to help you out, not make a mess for me to clean up"
 “Well you could have worded it better.” I said, feeling a little embarrassed. I was a little fish in a big pond here. I was anxious and insecure, and apparently everyone there could see it.

Just like he said he was going to, he followed me around all night. We even struck up conversation, talking about our majors and our classes so far. It turned out that our hometowns were only about a half hour drive apart, and that we both love professional baseball, except he was a Rays fan while I was a Red Sox fan. The fearful, self-protective part of my personality would like to say I had no idea that he would play such an important role in my life, but I would be lying.

I knew from the minute I met him that long after that night he was still going to be there, right beside me, making sure I didn’t embarrass myself and keeping me company while I tried to figure this whole “life” thing out.

Calling Dr. Mettlen

             The setting Boston sun shone a salmon colored streak across the kitchen floor. Although the fall air was chilly, it made my kitchen feel warm. I was in my own little world, singing and dancing to an old mix CD. I took the lid off the pot of pasta, steam billowing out of the bubbly water. My glasses fogged over, and as I took them off, I felt this familiar little whisper in my ear. I couldn’t even understand what it said; I was too entranced by the strong arms that were squeezing my waist and the feeling of his stubble against the soft of my neck. All I could express was a low, “Hmm?”

             “I said, you are killing me with all of these home cooked meals. My buddies were right, I shouldn’t have moved in with you. I am going to turn into a chubby homebody.” He laughed.

              I turned around and gave him a kiss, resting my hands on his arms.

             “But, I’m sure there are worse positions I could be in” he said.

              I looked at him and smiled. Sean always had this smirk that never failed to make me melt. He was tall, with a very strong build, and even though I was tall and athletically built myself, he always made me feel petite and feminine in his arms. God, I loved that.

            We stood there, staring at each other in silence for a few seconds. How could I not be in love with this man? He was so driven, I had never known him to not chase a dream or meet a goal. He had matured a lot since we met when I was sixteen, but there were still little pieces of the boy I used to know there too. His eyes were icy blue, always alive and searching, as if looking for the next adventure, and his hair was a yellow mess. It wasn’t too long or too short, but for some reason he never felt the need to comb it, so there it sat, however it wanted. It always looked unruly, like he had just gotten in a fight. Paired with his shirt and tie, he almost looked like a frat boy who overdressed for his summer internship. At twenty six, Sean looked his age, but his hair always made waitresses second guess their judgment and ask for ID when he ordered a beer with dinner. He had an old soul, but a young spirit.

             He jumped in, chopping lettuce for a salad. We cooked alongside each other that way for a while, singing along to all of our classics. Free Falling, Change the World, and Sean’s favorite, Living on a Prayer. He belted every word, using a spoon for a microphone. It reminded me of when we were in college. We would get into the bars using fake ID’s and whenever the song came on, he couldn’t hold a conversation, only sing the words in his drunk, raspy voice, as if it wasn’t one of the most popular songs of all time, but instead his own personal anthem that Bon Jovi performed just for him. He knew it was cliché and overplayed, but he loved that song, and didn’t care who else did. It was his.

             The CD was over, and the music stopped. Dinner was ready, and as we set the table, I walked over and hugged him, burying my face in his chest.

I let out a muffled “I love you, Sean Gannon”.

             He kissed the top of my head.

             “I love you too, Quinn Mettlen”

             

             In that moment, I should have felt warm and secure, but I was cold and uncomfortable. I didn’t understand what was going on. Then I realized my phone was ringing. Slowly my world started to melt away, although I was desperately holding on to it. My eyes opened and slowly focused on the red numbers of my alarm clock, which read 4:46. I laid there for a moment, feeling as empty as the bed beside me. I couldn’t believe that was just a dream. It had felt so real. I could smell the rolls that I was cooking in the oven. I could feel his hand on my lower back as he squeezed by me to get to the fridge. But it was all in my mind. Suddenly I jolted up realizing my phone had stopped ringing. I scrambled over to my dresser where it was charging and saw that I had a missed call and a voicemail from the hospital.

            I listened to the message, recognizing Jill’s voice, the head nurse on the night shift.

           “Dr. Mettlen, the physicians in the clinic are swamped and need some help, so we are going to need you to come in. Call back as soon as possible.”

           I dialed the number and her extension.

            “Hi Jill, sorry I missed the call. I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.” I croaked into the phone.

           I threw on the only pair of clean scrubs that were in my drawer, grabbed my backpack and phone, and walked out into the street. As the cold January air hit my face, it served as a cruel reminder of how much things can change over just a few months.