The Pregnant Registrar. Carol Marinelli

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СКАЧАТЬ in Corey’s voice wasn’t aimed at her and Lydia didn’t have to look up to realise that. Babies this sick and this small were a constant juggling act: drop one ball and the whole lot came tumbling down. To survive, Patrick needed his heart defects corrected, but for his tiny body to make it through the complex surgery he desperately needed to gain some weight and stabilise medically if he was to stand a chance. ‘Twenty-four hours after admission his mother became agitated, and was finally diagnosed as suffering with alcohol withdrawal. Valium was given and the drug and alcohol liaison service notified.’

      ‘Patrick has foetal alcohol syndrome?’ As Corey nodded, Lydia looked back at the small babe. Foetal alcohol syndrome was one of the few completely preventable causes of congenital anomalies. The babies suffered various levels of handicap, from mild learning difficulties and facial deformities to cardiac problems and marked retardation, but from Lydia’s brief assessment of Patrick, his visible anomalies didn’t entirely fit the picture. Heading to the wash basin, she scrubbed her hands before examining the babe more thoroughly.

      ‘Have we sent off for a DNA work-up?’ Lydia asked, examining Patrick’s hand and feet, peering closely at his face and taking in the almond-shaped eyes and low-set ears.

      ‘We have,’ Corey responded, and for a second as she looked up Lydia thought she saw a flicker of admiration in those guarded green eyes. ‘What do you think?’

      Lydia gave a brief shrug but it was far from dismissive. ‘He looks like a trisomy baby; of course Down’s syndrome is a far more palatable diagnosis title than foetal alcohol syndrome, but in this case I think it could be both.’

      ‘It’s a tough call,’ Corey said thoughtfully, ‘but I’m actually glad to hear someone say it. As soon as Jenny, the mother, started to show signs of alcohol withdrawal Patrick was basically labelled as an FAS baby, but I think it might be a touch more complicated, I guess we’ll have to wait for the labs, and on current form we could be waiting another couple of weeks.’

      ‘How is his mother coping with the news?’

      ‘She won’t come and see him. Apparently Jenny’s admitted she has a problem with alcohol and has agreed to rehab, but to date she’s refused to come and visit Patrick. She’s talking about putting him up for adoption.’

      Which was far easier said than done. The world seemed to be crying out for healthy pink babies but a handicapped child with special needs would take months, years even to place.

      If ever.

      ‘What about the father?’

      Again Corey hesitated. Handing her a wad of notes, he gave a small shrug.

      ‘What father?’

      His two words said it all.

      Glancing down at the patient notes, she read quietly for a moment. Patrick really had had a difficult start to life. Not only was he born eight weeks before nature intended, with major health problems, he had succumbed to several of the obstacles premature babies faced. His immature lungs had meant he had required forty-eight hours on a ventilator but he had been weaned off that now and was breathing with the help of continuous positive air pressure, a direct, measured flow of oxygen, commonly known as CPAP, but his marked jaundice was still proving to be a major problem and Lydia rummaged through the unfamiliar order of this hospital’s files, trying to verse herself on Patrick’s relevant issues.

      ‘Here.’ Taking the notes, Corey turned to the back of the folder, locating the blood results for her in a second, not even acknowledging the quiet murmur of thanks Lydia imparted as she studied the blood-work closely. Despite the intensive phototherapy to correct his jaundice, Patrick’s serum bilirubin was still rising and her forehead puckered in concentration as she plotted his results on the graph before her. If they couldn’t get the levels down, Patrick would need an exchange transfusion to remove the toxic blood and replace it, which would hopefully prevent organ damage.

      Corey was obviously thinking along the same lines. ‘It’s an uphill battle at the moment, but we’ll get another blood result around midday and hopefully there will be some improvement.’ His eyes moved back to the little baby and they stared for a solemn moment at their small charge, watching the almost transparent abdomen rising painfully up and down with each rapid, exhausting breath, his face grimacing with the pain and effort of merely staying alive.

      ‘Do you ever just want to take them home?’

      ‘Heavens, no!’ Her response was immediate, a sort of knee-jerk reaction, an instant erection of the barriers Lydia created just to survive her work. But even as the words left her lips Lydia realised how awful she must have sounded, watching the tiny headway they had made disappear in a puff of smoke. As Corey’s eyes narrowed, she realised he hadn’t actually expected an answer, that he had been talking more to himself than to her. ‘I mean…’ Swallowing hard, Lydia gave a helpless shrug. How could she tell him she was having enough trouble getting her head around the fact she’d be bringing her own child home from hospital in a few short months, let alone someone else’s? ‘I just try not to get too involved.’

      When he didn’t respond she pushed on regardless, trying to somehow rewind, to wipe the slate clean without revealing too much of herself. ‘It’s sad and everything, awful actually…’ Her voice trailed off, realising how awful she was sounding, as if she had a plum in her mouth, hating the sound of her own voice as she reeled off a few more platitudes while knowing it was useless.

      Unfeeling bitch.

      She could almost feel him punching out the letters as he labelled and pigeonholed her, but as Dr Browne and his entourage swept into the ward the rather uncomfortable conversation was left behind as Corey gave a small eye roll. ‘Ready for the off?’

      The ward round took for ever. Dr Browne was rather old school and even Lydia was slightly taken aback by the in-depth discussions at the cots, sure the barrage of scenarios he detailed wouldn’t be very comforting for the anxious parents. After a rather gruelling hour it was a rather washed-out Lydia who finally sat down at the nurses’ station, simultaneously clicking away at the computer and wrestling with a mountain of notes to write up the ward round findings and formally prescribe new courses of treatment as the junior doctors set to work on the barrage of tests and drug charts that needed completing. Looking up, Lydia noted Corey quietly making his way around the unit, talking in turn to each of the parents, presumably answering the multitude of questions the ward round would have thrown up and hopefully clarifying a few issues.

      He was good, she had to admit it. Most NUMs would be dashing off to a meeting or holing themselves up in the office by now, but Corey had barely left the shop floor all morning.

      He was good-looking. too.

      Where that thought had appeared from Lydia had no idea. For the last few months she had wandered the world in a curiously asexual state, too focused on her own troubles to register irrelevancies like looks, gender, emotions. Now suddenly here she was, five months into the most nauseous pregnancy in history, sworn off men for the next millennium at the very least, staring across the ward at a man she knew absolutely nothing about and who, more to the point, was probably gay! Giving herself a mental shake, Lydia dragged her eyes back to her notes, trying to cross-reference some lab results on the computer as she filled in the patients’ history in her vibrant purple scrawl. Even though she was a registrar, even though she probably wrote the blessed word five times a working day, as she stumbled through the mental block that the spelling of the word ‘diarrhoea’ eternally produced she found her eyes drifting back to him.

      Very good-looking, she mentally reiterated, in a rugged sort of way. Dark СКАЧАТЬ