I went into medicine because I didn’t want my dream of our restaurant if Leo wasn’t a part of it, but I went into pediatric emergency medicine to help the kids like Leo and Gage. But let’s be honest… The system is fucked, and most of the time, these kids get discharged back to their monsters with a CPS follow-up. It’s only the “bad” cases that get immediate help. How does one rank child abuse on a scale? It’s all fucking bad.
I run my hand through my hair, which is in desperate need of a trim, and then down my face. I finish up writing a few notes in her chart so I can go back and chart the same shit in the computer. I hate everything about being a doctor, except the kids. Making them smile in their worst moments is the only reason I come into the stale, dull hospital. Their perfect, innocent souls deserve nothing but love and kindness. And the ER is a scary place. If I can make their stay here better with a joke, a non-accidental embarrassing moment on my part, or simply just a fist bump, then I have done my job.
But as I have learned, the good always comes with the bad. The MVCs where the kid wasn’t buckled or even in a car seat, the bruised chunky arms of a five-month-old who wouldn’t stop crying, the twelve-year-old girl who comes in for abdominal pain because she has an STD or, worse, is having a miscarriage.
In so many of the kids I treat, I see Leo. I see what she went through, what she could have gone through, and then I do my fucking best to save them like no one saved her.
“Here now!”
I turn my head, immediately pushing away the tiredness that was creeping over me. I rush to the EMS stretcher rolling in then help them pull the sheets from the stretcher.
“Someone on C-collar. On my count. One. Two. Three.”
“Ready for report please,” I say, and the room quiets.
“Seven-year-old male involved in an MVC, back seat passenger, was wearing his seat belt. According to driver, going approximately forty miles per hour when she was T-boned in an intersection.Unknown speed of other driver. Kiddo was ambulatory on scene but complaining of abdominal pain and has a lac to his right forehead.”
“Thank you, gentlemen.”
I immediately go into trauma mode. When there is a trauma coming in or one that just shows up like this one, chaos is expected but is not accepted in my room. Calm and collected is how I run it, and anyone who is disrupting and not contributing can fuck off. I don’t mess around when it comes to kids' lives.
The kid is calm, looking around the room with just his eyes. He looks scared, but who wouldn’t be in this situation? ER rooms with all the commotion and people moving about can be intimidating, especially to a kid. They don't always understand that what we are doing is to help them.
“Hey buddy. What's your name?”
I go up to the head of the stretcher so he can see me. See that he is safe with me.
“It’s Ru—”
“RuRu! Oh my God! Are you okay! I’m so fucking sorry!” A frantic woman comes in, pushing nurses out of her way to get to her son.
“Shit. RuRu, are you okay, baby?”
“I’m okay.” His voice is shaky. Poor kid.
“Airway intact,” I announce.
We run through our trauma assessment, and I don’t see anything concerning on the FAST.
“Ma’am, I’m Doctor Rowan. He looks good overall. I couldn’t say for sure if there are any internal injuries without getting someimages. But my suspicion is low right now. The cut there on his head should just take a few stitches, but I would still like to get an image of his head to be on the safe side. We can also treat his pain with Tylenol and Motrin. Is that all okay with you?”
“Whatever you need to do. I don’t care.”
I nod at her.
“Lynn, we’re going to do a CT of the head and C-spine, chest, abdomen, and pelvis. I want to cover all our bases. Start him on some D5NS at 20 milliliters per hour then give him 15 milligrams of Tylenol and 10 milligrams of Motrin per kilogram. Orders are already in.”
Lynn nods once as she exits the room. “I’ll need to start another IV, the one that EMS started isn’t working properly. I’ll be right back.”
“If you could just grab the fluids and medications, I’ll start his IV. Thanks, Lynn.”
I walk over to the kid. Now that things have settled and it’s just his mom and me in the room, I pull up a swivel stool next to him so that I can get to know him a little bit. I pull out my giraffe headband that has two little giraffe ears. The nurses started calling me Dr. Giraffe after a five-year-old girl told me that she saw one at the zoo and I was taller. The ears just stuck, and now they make the kids smile.
I introduce myself as Dr. Giraffe and tell him the story behind my fabulous giraffe ears and name, and I can see his body relax a bit on the stretcher.
Once I’m closer to him, his eyes strike me. Not because they are different, but because they are familiar. A pale green that I don’t seeall that often. I tilt my head and assess him. I am looking at him, and it's like looking in a mirror. His skin is a little darker than mine, like he spent some time in the sun recently, even though it's mid-February and twenty-six degrees outside. His blond hair is curly atop his head. It falls forward into his eyes and is cut short on the sides. Just like my own. His lips are full, and he has a constellation of freckles across the bridge of his nose that spill onto his cheeks. Before I even realize what I am doing, my eyes draw an invisible line, connecting freckle to freckle, seeing how many different constellations I can find on his cute face.
Just like I used to do with her. She always hated that I was staring, but I was counting the stars.
