Font Size:  

“Not as such,” Melanie says. “Last year he started working at the hospital as a volunteer.”

“Oh wow,” I say. “Someone definitely wanted him to live.”

“Didn’t they though,” Melanie says.

“Mine would be the guy who was shot point blank in the head,” Jason says. I turn to him, my eyes opening wide in shock. “The guy was in a bank, and it got robbed. Wrong place, wrong time. One of the robbers grabbed him to use him as a human shield and a hostage. He had a gun to the guys’ temple and was using that fact to get the bank tellers to do what he wanted them to do. Things got out of hand, and he ended up pulling the trigger, whether by accident or with intent isn’t for me to work out.

“I don’t know what the hell his victim’s skull is made of, but that bullet went in, ricocheted off his skull, went up over and burst back out of the top of his head. He had two nasty holes that needed stitching, especially the exit wound, and he lost a lot of blood, so he was touch and go for a while, but the bullet itself did absolutely no damage at all except to his flesh and skin. From his skull, you would never have known what happened to him.”

“Wow,” I said. “His bones must be made of titanium or something.”

The conversation takes a small lull and I turn to Summer.

“Are you ok?” I ask.

“Yeah why?” she says with a smile.

“You’re being really quiet,” I reply.

“Oh, I’ve heard all of these stories before that’s all. But it’s nice seeing the shock on people’s faces when they hear my parents’ stories for the first time,” she tells me with a laugh.

I’m loving these stories and if Summer is loving watching me hearing them, then what’s the harm in asking for some more.

“What’s been your weirdest case?” I ask.

“Mine would have been really early in my career. I had just finished my internship and I was working in a hospital that required each of its surgeons to volunteer once a week at a clinic for people with no insurance. I was at the clinic, and I had just taken out the appendix of a man who would have died if he’d waited another hour to come for treatment. I just wanted to grab a coffee and chill for a few minutes, but as I made my way to the break-room, I heard a woman screaming in reception. She was shouting that her baby needed help, that he was going to die just because she had no insurance. Naturally I rushed out into the waiting area shouting that I could help and for her to come straight through.

“She was clutching this tiny bundle to her chest and I’m running her down the hall to the examination room wondering what sort of an absolute bastard of a doctor could turn away a baby this tiny for lack of insurance.”

Melanie pauses and takes a drink of her wine. She grins.

“And that’s how I ended up performing heart surgery on a Jack Russell,” she finishes. “It wasn’t a baby in the blanket, it was a damned dog. And her vet wouldn’t do the surgery the dog needed without her having insurance or an up-front payment, neither of which she had. I suppose I could have turned her away when I saw it was a dog. The rules would say I should have.

“But the way she had lit up when I said I would help her, I didn’t have the heart to turn her away. Plus, I could see the love she had for that dog, and I would like to think that by saving her dog’s life that day, I might also have saved her mental health.

“My boss wasn’t too happy when he found out, but I was pretty pleased with myself.”

“I would have been too,” I say, and I mean it.

The dog deserved a chance and I instantly hate the vet that wouldn’t save his life without getting the money up front.

“My weirdest one was a woman that came to the ER originally because she felt ill at work,” Jason began when it was his turn. “Her boss brought her to the ER because she lived alone, and he didn’t want to risk her being alone without being seen as she was saying she felt sick and dizzy and like she might pass out.

“To be honest, when I read over the chart before calling her in, I expected to find she was dehydrated. I went to the waiting room to call her name. I called her and she stood up and then she collapsed onto the ground. I rushed over, still sure she was dehydrated, and it had caused her to faint.

“That woman had no pulse, and she wasn’t breathing. She had literally just dropped down dead on the ER waiting room floor. I called for a crash cart, and we managed to resuscitate her. Within half an hour, all of her vitals were fine and you wouldn’t know anything had been wrong with her. She wasn’t dehydrated, she wasn’t anything. Every test we did came back normal. To this day I can’t explain what happened.”

“Wow. She was lucky that she was in the ER when it happened. Imagine if her boss had just told her to go home and get some rest or whatever,” I say.

“Yes, she definitely had a guardian angel looking down on her that day,” Jason agrees.

“Tell us some of your stories,” Melanie says.

“Oh, mine are all boring compared to these,” I say. “Like my weirdest client would be someone who wanted a glass walled bathroom, that kind of thing.”

We all laugh but Melanie insists so Summer and I spend some time regaling them with stories about our work, none of which match up to their stories, but to give them their dues, they listen intently, and they seem genuinely interested.

Somewhere along the way, a dessert of toffee and strawberry flavored cheesecake comes out and more wine is poured. Then the cocktails come out and we go back through to the living room and chat and laugh and drink the cocktails. Somewhere during the course of the night, my nerves have well and truly gone. I really like Summer’s parents and either they like me, or they should have gone into acting rather than medicine.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
Articles you may like