Vengeance is Mine

Chapter 4: The ED Assignment

Julianna

It was time to go back to work.  I pulled on my ugly ceil blue scrubs and scraped my hair back away from my face, pulling it into a bun tight enough to make my scalp hurt.  I stared at myself in the mirror for a long time.  “Talk to me, Melayia,” I whispered into the mirror.  I waited a long minute, and then I turned, and headed out to my car.

James was there, as usual, with his coffee and his news paper.  He looked up at me as I backed out the door, and locked it after me.  “You are going back to work, already?”

I took a deep breath and nodded.  I could feel his frown on my back.  “Its so soon… I thought you would wait, take some time to grieve.”

I shook my head, and hauled my bag higher on my shoulder.  I couldn’t grieve yet.  There was work to be done.  I headed down the porch steps.  I heard him say, “Try to have a good night, Jules.”  I didn’t answer.  I wasn’t in the mood for small talk today.  It was a short ten minute commute to the community hospital.  I pulled into my usual spot in the employee parking lot, and took a moment to collect myself.  After a minute I took the glasses out of console.  Fake glasses that made me look even more unattractive and invisible.  I clipped my name tag to my collar, and pushed open the door.

I had a plan.  I stopped at the time clock to punch in, and then headed to the women’s locker room.  A few of my workmates were at their lockers, sitting on the bench changing their shoes.  Most of them had pictures, stickers, and funny quotes taped to the doors of their lockers.  My locker had nothing but my name.  I dialed up the combination and stuck my bag inside, but my phone and a set of earbuds went into the pocket of my scrubs.  I shut the door, and looked for my target.  I felt my heart thumping in my ears as I walked toward the little Hispanic woman.  I wasn’t as good at this as Melayia was.  I closed my eyes and placed my hand on her shoulder, close to her collar so that I could make skin-to-skin contact.

Diana stiffened under my hand, and looked up at me in surprise.  Her mouth opened as if she was about to say something… and then her eyes got a little vacant and flat, and her mouth went slack.  My head began to pound something fierce, my focus was so intent.  This had to work.  I had to do this right.

“Hey Potter, you got a little something… oh your nose is bleeding!”  Another co-worker jerked me out of my concentration.  Nancy opened up her purse and pulled out some tissues, wadded them up and shoved them at me.  “Quick, before it drips on your uniform!”

I took the tissues and dabbed at my nose, just as the dribble of blood reached my upper lip.  I swore silently and went into the rest room to wash my face.  I heard someone yell, “Its time, ladies!” and the women began to file out of the locker room.  Diana had stood and was filing out with everyone else.  Across the hall, the male employees were also emerging from the men’s room, to converge on the conference room we used for our “lift off” meeting.

We all took a place at the conference table, and Mike the manager sat at the head.  He was an aging giant of a man, with kind smiling eyes and a neatly trimmed greying beard.  When he looked at me, his eyes got a little cloudy… after all this time, the thoughts Melayia had planted in his brain were still running like a video loop.  She’s the best employee I’ve ever hired.  I gave him my usual tight lipped smile.  When everyone was seated, he picked up his clipboard and started going over the announcements.  “We’ve got a possible TB case in the negative pressure room on fifth floor… not confirmed yet.  Probably won’t get discharged tonight, but in case of a transfer, make sure you use the TBcide quat, that’s in my office.  Bert, you’re on floors tonight, make sure you get the patient care areas on surgical before eight PM.  Marly you are in DI tonight, there are tap bottles to be red-boxed in the intervention room… Diana, you are in emergency--”

Diana’s hand shot in the air like a puppet had pulled a string.  I held my breath.

“I no want to do ED.” She said in broken English.

Mike looked a little taken aback.  “What?”

“I no do ED.”

“But… why?”

Diana started spouting off something in Spanish.

Mike’s  mouth sagged…”Uh…?”

“You want me to translate?” Maureen offered from her seat by the door.  Maureen was a heavy, quiet woman who mostly kept to herself.  But she spoke several languages, and Spanish was one of them.

“Please.”

“She says she is getting too old to work in the ED.  There is too much risk of infection and the nurses don’t use the proper precautions.  She says she’s done it long enough, and its someone elses turn.”  Diana said something else, and Maureen listened before she translated.  “She says if she has to work in the ED tonight, she quits.”

“Wow.  Ok.  Well, I didn’t know you felt so strongly about it… wish you’d said something sooner.”  Mike stared at his clipboard, looking dazed and confused.  “Well I’m sure we can work something out… um… who else is trained in the ED?”

I silently raised my hand.  Alec, who was sitting in the back also piped up, “I could do it.”

Fuck.

Mike looked between me and Alec.  I knew what he was thinking.  Alec would be better for the Emergency Department assignment because he could talk. 

Diana piped up, “Julianna can do ED.  I do Dialysis for Juliana.  We trade.”

I let out the breath I didn’t know I was holding and looked at Mike.  I couldn’t influence him without touching him.  He had to make the final decision himself.  In the end it made his life easier if he just swapped out Diana’s assignment with mine.  If he put Alec in the ED, he’d have to move several people around in order to cover Alec’s original assignment.  “Ok, Julianna in the ED.  We are at max capacity, so there are two floor holds in the ED—” He went on, rattling off the nights assignments and the specific details that each person needed to know.  After a couple other random announcements, he dismissed us.

It was done.  I’d gotten into the ED assignment.  I didn’t feel good about manipulating Diana.  And manipulating Diana hadn’t felt good.  I had a pounding headache and I was feeling a little nauseated.  I assured myself that Diana would be fine.  She was a veteran employee at the hospital, Mike wouldn’t fire her… and she’d be perfectly fine working in the dialysis unit.  I’d probably done her a favor, after all she was a grandmother, and the ED was a dangerous and demanding assignment.  It was fine.  It was all good. I had no reason to feel guilty.  I picked up my keys and radio, and headed for the elevators.

The Rutberg Emergency Department was the second largest in the state, and arguably one of the best.  We had a helicopter pad to accept emergency choppers, we had four state of the art trauma rooms, we had a special wing to accommodate psychiatric emergencies.  And we had a double door ambulance bay to transfer incoming patients from the ambulance straight to a room.  My job was to clean the rooms between patients, as well as stay on top of any other spills and messes.  I picked up an earpiece and connected it to my radio.  I would hear all the inter-communication between the nursing staff, the secretary, and registration.  When they needed a room clean, they would inform me over the radio as well.  I would also know when an ambulance was coming in. 

In case I didn’t hear it, there was also an electronic sign board which showed all the rooms in the ED, and the board would indicate when I room was vacant and ready to be cleaned.  I grabbed my cart and my supplies and promptly got to work.  In order for this to work, I had to keep my cover as the invisible janitor, so I would have to keep up with the rooms, even as I was trying to get a handle on the staff.  Most of the nurses were young, pretty, recent graduates, with a few crusty old-timers thrown in to keep it sane.  The charge nurse was a middle aged man called Dave.  The board indicated that Dr. Lobello was the doctor on duty, along with a female PA, but they were not at the nurse’s station.  Either they were in with patients, or hiding out in their back offices.

I disinfected rooms quickly and efficiently, and tried not to be distracted by all the people and all the patients.  Especially the patients.  I tried not to pass too close to their rooms, I avoided all eye contact.  I stuck an earbud in my free ear so that I couldn’t hear anything except the radio transmissions, and some quiet classical music.  I wasn’t used to being around so many people.  When I cleaned the dialysis unit, the unit was closed, and it was just me and the hospital ghosts.  The hustle and bustle of the busy emergency department was making me feel dizzy and overwhelmed.  I took a deep breath and tried to clear my mind.

Talk to me Melayia.  Show me where to start.