His Healing Touch, page 4
He had a feeling he was going to. And it was going to hurt when he finally had to say goodbye to a patient.
That was a very strange feeling for the nurse. He was used to being detached, but in a short conversation, he had found his mind stuck on this guy, curious about what was going to happen in the future and if there was any hope of a future.
He knew he couldn’t think about that. He couldn’t consider anything like that. This guy was a patient, someone he appreciated the attention from but he wasn’t ever going to let it go anywhere.
“Hey, Earth to Mr. Nurse.” The other man was speaking again.
“Oh, sorry.” Trenton turned back toward the guy, pulling his mind back to reality. “I got distracted.”
“You looked like you had something on your mind.”
“You could say that.”
“Wanna talk about it?”
Trenton shook his head. “That wouldn’t be appropriate.”
“Because this is your job?”
“Yeah, that’s exactly why.” Trenton nodded. It was only a partial truth. He didn’t want his little crush revealed.
Griffin smiled. “Hey, you’re doing a great job.”
“I try to.” Trenton laughed. “And you’re just trying to butter me up.” He decided to flirt back a little.
“Maybe I just want a little bit of special treatment.”
“There are better ways to get special treatment, you know. I accept tips.”
“I didn’t know you tipped nurses these days. I would have brought some cash with me.”
Trenton laughed. “Well, that’s just too bad, isn’t it? I’m going to have to treat you just the same as any other patient.”
“You’re this friendly with all of your patients?”
“Most of them don’t make eyes at me quite like you do, but yes.”
“Then you’re one of the best nurses I’ve ever met. A lot of people owe you thanks.”
“I don’t do it for the thanks.”
“Really? What do you do it for?”
“All the overtime and a solid hourly wage.” Trenton laughed.
“So, you’re one of those that save lives for the money?”
“I work in a post-op ward; I don’t spend a lot of time saving lives anymore. Surgery is pretty safe these days.”
“Didn’t the doctor say something about infection?”
“Those are rarely life-threatening.”
“Unless they’re left to linger. So, I would say that's saving a lot of lives by treating people before things get life-threatening.”
“I guess so.” Trenton nodded. “But I need to see more patients.”
“I guess that means I have to let you go.”
“You never had a hold of me to begin me.”
“Be still my aching heart.” Griffin put a hand on his chest. “It hurts a man to hear you say that.”
“I’ll be sure to make it up next time.” Trenton leaned over Griffin to tuck the covers back around him.
The closeness sent electric shocks between them, and they paused, locked in each other’s gaze again. Griffin’s breath caught in his chest. “Any chance I could get your number?”
Trenton smiled. “I wish I could, but work has some pretty specific rules about that.”
“I’ll have to come back when I’m not a patient then.”
“Sure, give me your number then.” Trenton offered. He didn’t think that it would actually happen. People didn’t come back to give numbers to the people that they met in the hospital. Most people stayed away from them as much as they possibly could.
Chapter Six
Griffin woke up still looking toward the door. Trenton was long gone, and he knew that, but still somehow was disappointed by that fact. After the hot nurse had left, he had found himself exhausted. The man made him tired and excited at the same time, and it was definitely something that he needed to sleep off.
So that’s what he had done. But when he woke up things felt a little fuzzy and he could feel a throbbing in his knee. He shifted the blankets to the side, revealing the bandages on his leg.
He couldn’t see underneath the bandages, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t right. There was no way to say why it felt so odd, but it did.
Another nurse came into the room. “How are you feeling today?”
“Uh.” The contractor looked down at his leg.
“Is there something wrong?”
“I’m not sure.” He shook his head.
“Can you explain what the problem is?”
“I don’t know if I can.”
This caused a nervous look to cross the nurse’s face. “Do you still feel fuzzy from the drugs?”
“I don’t think so?” He sighed. “This is something else, I think.”
“What?” She started to scan his body with her eyes.
Griffin shrugged. “Something feels weird.”
“What kind of weird?”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head.
“Can I take a look at it?”
“I would really like that. It’s probably nothing, but I feel kinda weird and would feel better if someone who knew would take a look at it too.”
She touched his forehead for a second and frowned, pulling out a thermometer. “Let’s get your temp, all right?”
Griffin opened his mouth to have the plastic-covered metal part of the thermometer placed under his tongue.
The machine beeped and hummed as the woman near him frowned. “You’ve got a bit of a fever.”
“Is that normal?”
“That’s possible, but I’d rather be safe than sorry.” She looked at her machine again as she held the machine over a trash can and hit the button to release the plastic covering into the receptacle. “I’m going to call the doctor in here.”
“You’re going to wake someone up?”
“We have an on-call doctor.” She shook her head. “I won’t be waking anyone up.”
“Are you sure?”
“You may be developing a minor infection. If that’s the case, we need to make sure to get you on the right antibiotics as soon as we can.”
“Ok, sure.” Griffin nodded. “I would rather be safe than sorry.”
“I think we all would. Don’t worry, most infections are rather minor. It’s probably nothing to worry about.”
“I try to stay healthy anyway.”
“Which is going to help you fight this.”
“Sure.” He nodded.
The nurse walked out of the room and he was alone again. He hoped that his mother was going to show up again, but he was pretty confident that she wasn’t going to be back, not after having spent so long with him at the hospital.
Her husband wasn’t going to allow that, and it frustrated him. He wished that his mother was there to care for him. He was sick and he wanted his mother.
He shook his head. It wouldn’t do him a damn bit of good to worry about his mother, to want her. She wasn’t going to come; she was too cowed to do what she wanted to do if it went against the wishes of her husband.
Instead, he waited patiently for the doctor to arrive. Knowing the way that hospital worked he would have to wait for a bit. So, he laid back down and closed his eyes.
Sleep didn’t come easily to him. He tossed and turned, pulling and shifting his knee. Each time the leg jostled pain shot through his body and he was nearly in tears. It made sleep take much longer to achieve. But eventually, it did.
But there wasn’t much sleep to have. It wasn’t long until the door opened and it woke him. “Huh?” He rubbed the sleep from his eyes.
“How are you feeling?” The young surgeon spoke with a gentle voice.
“I feel pretty bad.” Griffin pulled himself up to a sitting position. “Something is just off.”
“The nurse said you’re running a fever. That might mean that you have an infection.”
“All business. All right, what do you need?”
“I’m going to start by checking on your leg.” The doctor offered a soft smile.
“Ok.”
The blanket was shifted out of the way and the bandages unwrapped. The young doctor stopped and looked at the stitches that were holding the inside of his knee on the inside and frowned again. “It looks like you must have picked up some sort of infection in that leg.”
“How bad?”
“I’m going to take a culture and get you started on some antibiotics. It doesn’t look like it’s too bad.” She shook her head. “I’ll get that done for you. You’re in good hands.”
Griffin felt a little worry starting to rise in his brain. “Is this going to extend my stay here?”
“It may, but probably not for long unless something goes terribly wrong.”
“How much of a possibility is that?”
“I don’t know, but most people who pick up these infections get out of the hospital right on time.”
“So, it’s a good chance of me being just fine?”
“That’s what the odds say, but we would rather be safe than sorry.”
He nods. “I’ve said that before.”
“It’s a common phrase around here. That wouldn’t surprise me at all.” She still had that comforting smile, the one that told him this woman had to be one of the nicest doctors in the hospital.
He tried to be patient as she examined his stitches, cleaning the wound out. “Be careful down there.”
“I will be.” She smiled up at him again. “Is there anyone that I can call?”
“My mother would just worry, so unless it’s important let’s just wait on that.”
“Okay. So, everything looks good. I’ve got some samples and I’ll send a nurse in with some new meds for you. We want to be safe.”
“Sure. Sounds good. It’s my job to just sit and wait, right?”
“It’s your job to heal.”
“I’ll get on that right away, ma’am.”
She laughed. “You better, because you’ve already charmed some of my nurses and I don’t want to answer for this to them.”
“I’ll do my best; you have my word on the matter.”
“That’s what I need. You keep getting better and we’ll have you on your feet in no time.”
“I can’t wait to be on my feet again.” Griffin groaned as he shifted his leg slightly to try to get more comfortable.
“I’m sure you can’t.” She leaned over to take a look at him. “How are you doing being here?”
“I don’t think anyone in their right mind wants to be in the hospital.”
“It’s not exactly the most pleasant place for someone to be.”
“That’s probably a bigger truth than anything else here.”
She laughed. “It makes a lot of people grumpy.”
“I have to make a real effort not to be.”
“And we are all grateful for that, but don’t let it stop you from letting us know if there’s a problem.”
“I just couldn’t put my finger on it.”
“The fever maybe.”
“It was hard to pinpoint what the problem was.”
“That’s not a problem. What’s important is that you let someone know.”
“I still don’t want to be a bother.”
“You’re not one. I, for one, enjoy getting paid. And dead people don’t pay medical bills.”
She smiled again as she made her way out.
And once again he was left to wait.
He was never very good at waiting. Griffin liked to do things. To move. Activity sustained him and it had been a singular form of torture the entire time he had been injured and it was going to last at least a little longer.
His mind wandered to the worst possibilities, losing his leg or his life. Those thoughts terrified him. Being injured so much that his life would never be the same.
He knew that it was possible to live a normal life with a missing leg, but it wouldn’t be the same. He would have some sort of device strapped to his body so that he could walk and he would have to stop working.
Stuck behind a desk was no way to live. At least not for him. He wanted more than that out of life. His mind flitted around to the pictures of those men and women with lost legs that went on to run marathons. He didn’t know if that would be something that he was capable of or not. To put that much work into surviving.
Maybe he was just panicking over nothing. He probably wouldn’t lose his leg over this. The hospital was good. The best one in the area and it took his insurance. He was going to be fine. He had to keep convincing himself of that fact.
He had to keep his hopes up. The only thing he could do was let them help him and then work hard to keep his mindset where it needed to be. He needed to stay positive. Mind over matter. Science had proven that it would help along with medicine.
“Positive attitudes are important.” He reminded himself of that fact. “Positive attitude. Don’t let yourself panic.”
Chapter Seven
She was pacing when he walked up to the waiting room. Her graying hair actually looked a little grayer than it had a day before. Her shoulders were stooped. The woman looked even more exhausted than before. Her body language was closed off, everything about it screamed that even more was wrong than it was before.
She didn’t notice him walk past her. He turned and examined her. The woman was wringing her hands. All the work he had spent to make her more comfortable seemed to have failed to do any good.
He frowned as he watched her moving back and forth. She was muttering to herself, but he wasn’t going to move close enough to try to hear it
“You’re still here.”
“Not still here.”
“Then you came back?”
“Yeah, I had to come back.”
He looked at her carefully. “You look more worried than you did last time. Did something happen with your son?”
“They wouldn’t say for sure. But when I came in, they wouldn’t let me see him. Some sort of complication.”
“What kind of complication?”
“I don’t know. They came to talk to me, but I didn’t understand what they were saying.”
He sighed. “A lot of medical speak, I assume?”
“Yeah, I don’t really know anything.” She shrugged.
“I’m sorry about that. I’m sure if it was something really serious, they would have let you know.”
“I’m supposed to make decisions for him.”
“If he can’t make decisions on his own, then they are going to come to you to make them.” Trenton was trying to be comforting.
“Does that mean that he’s going to be all right?”
“I couldn’t tell you that for sure. I’m just coming onto shift.”
She sighed heavily and she appeared to age before his eyes again. “Nobody is telling me anything. I don’t know what to do.”
“They’re not allowed to share any medical information with you without him telling them it’s all right.”
“And he would tell them not to because he wouldn’t want to worry me.”
“Which of course is just worrying you more.” Trenton finished the thought.
“Yeah, that’s the truth. I wish someone would tell me something. At least that everything is all right.” She rubbed her face. “I’m sorry. This isn’t your fault. I’m just upset.”
“You aren’t doing anything wrong. The people here are going to make the best decisions they can, but maybe I can try to talk to him.”
“Can you try at least?”
“I’ll do my best, but I can’t make any promises. Our patients need to come first.”
“Yeah, I know. But thank you anyway.” She pulled down her sleeve.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. I promise.” She shook her head. “Griffin needs to be your main focus.”
“He’s in good hands. The staff here is absolutely amazing, I promise.” Trenton made the closest thing he could make to a promise again.
“Why do you keep saying that?”
“Because it’s the truth. The hospital here is absolutely amazing. The equipment is state of the art and rigorously maintained by professionals. On top of that, they only hire the best doctors.”
“I know. I know that, but I don’t feel like that’s going to help at all.”
“What can I do to make you feel any better?”
“I don’t know if there’s anything that can help with that.” She shook her head.
He wanted to ask more questions about her, to see about her. From the way she moved she seemed to be in pain, frustrated and angry about something. But she was so meek she wasn’t going to do anything about it. And Trenton knew that look. He had seen it before in patients under his care. And perhaps a time or two in his outside life. There was nothing that he could do about the woman and he had to get in and to work. “I’ll go check on him and see if he could let me give you some information, but I can’t make any promises.”
“You probably have to get to work.”
“I really do, I’m sorry.” Trenton sighed. There had to be a better way to handle this. The woman was obviously near breaking.
“Go. Bring back any information you can.”
Trenton walked on into his job, ready to get stuff done. Martha was there, loading up one of the carts with the stuff they needed for the shift. “Working with you again, I see?”
“Yep, looks that way.” She smirked at the younger man. “Someone has been asking for you.”
“For me?”
“Yeah, one of the new patients. Apparently, you made a good impression on him.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“I don’t. He’s got a hell of a fever that made him so much more willing to discuss your ass.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, I totally am. It’s the talk of the entire floor. Your ass.”
Trenton groaned. That sounded like a special level of hell to him. He didn’t really like it when patients acted like that even if it wasn’t their fault. “I think I should avoid that room.”
“I don’t know. It might be funny to watch him flirt with you while we try to treat him.”
