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17
Amber put a medical file behind the counter. Preacher Girl was working on the computer and answering phones. It was busy at the clinic today. It seemed several of the people of Turnabout needed a check-up. What was going on? Was it the limited staff, the fact Preacher Girl was bouncing between the front desk and lab? Or did they really have more patients than what she’d seen in Berrington.
Trying to get used to the place on her first day of work seemed to be going okay. It was easy to work with Red and Roadkill they were a trip to work for. As a couple, they were close and knew each other’s thoughts before they spoke.
“Can I have the Martindale’s file?” she asked Preacher Girl. “Maude is coming in at two and I have to have get the room ready for her. She has a boil she needs Red to check.”
Preacher Girl spun in her chair and expertly flipped through the files to pull out the manila folder.
“Here you go. By the way, Maude is MRSA positive. How is your first day going so far?” Preacher Girl smiled gently.
“It’s going well.” Amber took the file and scanned to see due to the bacteria in MRSA, the poor woman’s boil began to form a carbuncle. “I think I got the functions of the clinic down pat. It’s a little easier than the clinic in Berrington for sure. How Red keeps the safeguards in place without the seventy-five intermediate steps is a Godsend in my mind. I think more clinics should run like this.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Preacher Girl said. “First clinic I ever worked in or even went to.”
“You didn’t go to a clinic for vaccinations or anything growing up?” Amber questioned, thinking it to be odd. “I thought Red just opened this place a few years ago.”
“He did,” Preacher Girl replied. “You know the club helps women and children out right?”
“Yeah, Mountain told me a bit about it.”
“I was raised in a cult. Didn’t get a vaccination until I came here, but having already survived a few things like chicken pox and measles, Red said I only needed some of them,” she replied. “Depending on what we got when we got sick, we either all went around the person so God could choose our fate or avoided them fully and kept their health in our prayers.”
“Cult?”
“Yeah, I know now my father’s prayer verses fate method was actually giving us the pox, so we got the immunity or avoiding the kid with polio who would spend the rest of their life with a permanent limp.” She shook her head. “Here we thought he was divine and not someone who actually understood what he was doing.”
“You’re with Hack right?”
Preacher Girl beamed and held her left hand up, admiring her wedding ring. “Married this spring. I needed a few years to settle into life in the real world before actually taking the plunge. Choosing over being assigned a husband is the way to go.”
“I agree,” Amber replied with a laugh.
The bells over the front door rang out as a familiar face stepped inside. “Mrs. Nelson?” Amber said.
The former patient from Berrington’s eyes widened as she stepped inside with a face full of fear as if she’d been caught. “Amber, you work here now?”
For a moment, Amber worried the woman would bolt or at least act like she took a wrong turn. “Just started,” Amber replied. “I wondered what had happened to you. I’m glad you’re seeing a doctor still.”
“Well, this clinic is more convenient for me to come to,” the chronically ill patient said as she stepped inside fully and moved toward the desk to sign her name on Preacher Girl’s log.
“Really? I thought you lived just outside Berrington,” Amber asked, though she didn’t want to accuse the woman of anything.
“Yes, well Dr. Luke and I have a better understanding when it comes to managing my issues.”
Dr. Harris and Dr. Monroe in Berrington both treated her as a drug seeker, making claims of her exaggerating symptoms and Amber wondered if she should warn Red. Or did this clinic get those who were in search of the Oxys and heavy drugs because they were so lenient? The whole moving around the red tape now made Amber wonder.
“Here’s Mrs. Nelson’s file,” Preacher Girl said, handing a second file to Amber. “You can put her in four. I’ll be in to do your blood draw in five okay?”
Mrs. Nelson gave Preacher Girl a small smile.
“If you want to follow me,” Amber said.
Mrs. Nelson tucked her head and followed Amber to the room.
Quickly, Amber did a weight and height, all measuring exactly what had been there the time before and then once in the room, she took her blood pressure. “So, how are we doing today, Mrs. Nelson?” Amber asked. Ready to jot down the increase in pain the woman complained of constantly.
“Better,” she said with a sigh. “The diet Dr. Luke put me on is really helping and the hydro chloroquine must be doing its job.”
