Angels on the Night Shift (5 page)

Darren and I both jerked our heads in her direction.

“The spray?” I repeated, surprised by this answer. Maybe this—

“Good Lord!” Sherry exclaimed, pointing down to her son’s arm. The methylene blue had filled the IV tubing and was starting to flow in. I understood her reaction. It was unusual and unexpected, and actually pretty bizarre. But it was necessary and would save her son. I explained all of this to her, and then Darren asked, “What ‘spray’ are you talking about?”

Sherry had relaxed a little, and looked up into Darren’s face.

“It was some spray Jupiter had. He said it was for sore throats.”

Darren and I looked at each other, and then he turned to Sherry again.

“What did it look like—the container, I mean?” he pursued.

She had a puzzled look on her face as she tried to remember.

“It was yellow, I think, with some thin metal tube comin’ out the top. It was bent over, and when Jupiter pushed down on it, the spray would come out the end. Why? Was that somethin’ bad? It seemed to help Tyler, at least for a while, so we kept usin’ it.”

Cetacaine—must be!
I thought. That would explain it. Cetacaine was a topical spray we used to numb up someone’s mouth or throat for an oral procedure we might be doing. And it could be used for pain relief. It contained a chemical, benzocaine, that was safe in small amounts. But used in excess, it could cause methemoglobinemia, probably especially so in small children.

“Where did he get the Cetacaine?” Darren asked her.

Sherry blushed and lowered her eyes. It wasn’t critical to know this, but now I was curious. I didn’t think you could get this stuff at the drugstore, and we always tried to keep a handle on it in the ER. I wondered how Jupiter happened to have it in his bathroom.

“Sherry?” Darren prodded gently.

She looked up at me and then at the nurse.

“He…he told me that it was good stuff, that they had used it on him one time in the ER when he had his mouth busted, and that he…he…”

She stopped, and we waited.

“He said that when the doctor and nurse left the room, he put it in his pocket.”

There. She had said it, and now she visibly relaxed.

I shook my head, but wondered why I was surprised. This kind of thing happened all the time in the ER—surgical instruments, sterile gloves, medications, even a thermometer once.

“We’ve been missing a wheelchair…” the nurse whispered in my ear.

“Darren,” I corrected him, chuckling.

Tyler had responded quickly to our treatment. He was much more alert and no longer had that dusky blue color when we sent him upstairs to the pediatric ICU. He would be discharged from the hospital in a few days, completely normal, active, and back to himself.

“What made you check out that blood?” I asked Darren while we stood together in the trauma room.

“I don’t know, Doc. Something just seemed a little odd about all of this. And when I caught a glimpse of one of those vials, I knew something was up. Wasn’t sure what, but it just wasn’t right.”

“Well, I’m sure glad you did,” I told him as we walked back to the nurses’ station. “I was really struggling with that one.”

“Sounds like Darren Adler saved your bacon,” Virginia said, once more peering over her glasses at me.

“I’ll be the first to admit it,” I said, standing up again, this time determined to make it back out to the department.

“I want to keep him down here,” she said again. “I know you like him, but that will make it difficult for you to remain objective. Just keep your eyes open.”

There was a faint knock on the door and I turned around.

Lori Davidson stuck her head in the room and said, “Have you got a minute, Ms. Granger? And you too, Dr. Lesslie?”

I looked back at Virginia and then down at my watch. I had been here for a while.

“The ER’s quiet right now,” Lori said, noticing me glancing past her shoulder. “This will just take a second.”

“Sure, Lori,” Virginia told her. Then motioning to one of the chairs, “Have a seat.”

Lori walked over and took one of the chairs. Once again, I sat down and folded my hands.

“What is it?” Virginia asked.

“It may be nothing,” she began quietly, clearly troubled. She was not an alarmist, and not one to cause a stir when there was no need for one. She had some good reason for concern.

She reached into the pocket of her jacket and took out three medicine vials. Their tops had been broken off and they were empty.

She leaned forward and put them down on the desk. Virginia reached over, picked up one of the vials, and studied its label.

“Vistaril,” she said flatly, then waited for Lori to explain.

“Yes, it’s Vistaril. And I found them behind a glove box on one of the shelves in the GYN room.”

She didn’t say anything more, but just looked at her head nurse.

“What in the world would they be doing back there?” Virginia asked. I was wondering the same thing, and then I remembered the medicine vials that had fallen on the counter the other day in cardiac.

“It might be a simple mistake,” Lori replied. “Someone not thinking. But we don’t use much Vistaril with our GYN patients, and with the vials I found in cardiac—”

“The what?” Virginia interrupted her.

Lori told us about the used vials of Vistaril she had found in the cardiac room.

“I don’t remember anything like this ever happening in our ER,” the young nurse said quietly.

This was troubling. Vistaril wasn’t a significant “drug of abuse,” yet we had seen far stranger things happen. And where there was smoke, there was usually fire. It was possible that someone in the department had a problem and was somehow abusing this drug.
Something
was going on, and whatever it was, we needed to figure it out.

I had been looking intently at Lori, and now my eyes moved over to the desk in front of me and down to the personnel file lying there. When I looked up, Virginia’s eyes were fixed on mine.

Thursday, 3:30 a.m.
Amy Connors sat in her chair at the nurses’ station, organizing the patients’ charts from the past evening. We had seen a bunch of people, and the stack in front of her was thick. But she had been doing this for a while, and seemingly without effort she filed each record in its proper place.

Jeff Ryan and I sat on each side of her, drinking coffee, catching our breaths, and silently watching her. We had emptied the department and were waiting for whatever might find its way through the doors.

Then Jeff said, “Doc, you know, I just love watchin’ people work.”

Without looking up, Amy replied, “Aren’t you supposed to be doin’ something? Or at least be somewhere else?”

“Nope,” he answered, leaning back further in his chair and smiling over at me. “I’m supposed to be right here watchin’ you.”

The two had worked together for more than ten years and were good friends. They were both in their late thirties, and at first, I had thought it a bit of an odd relationship. Jeff Ryan was a big, strong, quiet man. He didn’t have a lot to say, but when he did, it was usually something important. A lot of people were intimidated by his size and by the seriousness with which he approached his work. With Amy it was different, and with her he seemed to let his hair down. He talked with her more than with anyone else in the department.

That part was understandable. Amy Connors was wide open, gregarious, completely unassuming. You knew where you stood with
her, and if she thought you didn’t—well, she would quickly explain it. Maybe what they say about opposites is true after all. Whatever the reason for their friendship, it was always comfortable working with the two of them.

Amy shifted her chair, facing more toward me now, with her back toward Jeff. Without a word, she just kept filing.

“I’m just watchin’ too, Amy,” I told her, nodding my head.

She jerked up and looked straight at me.

“What the…Why do I have to put up with
both
of you tonight? What have I done?”

I laughed, then looking down I noticed a colorful, shiny brochure beside her stack of papers. On the cover was a GM Silverado truck, the big one, with an extended cab.

“What’s this?” I asked her, pointing to the brochure.

“None of your business,” she snapped impishly, turning over the brochure. “We just bought a new truck and I was goin’ to take you guys outside and let you see it, but you can forget that!”

Clara Adams walked up just in time to hear this last exchange. She was a recent graduate from the nursing program in Columbia and had been working in the ER for a few weeks. I was afraid she might be too young and naïve to handle these two.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“We’re just making sure Amy gets her work done,” I told her. “And she seems to be taking it personally. Have a seat while you can,” I added, motioning to one of the empty chairs on the other side of Jeff. “And tell us how you like working the night shift.”

Clara walked around the counter and sat down. Jeff scooted his chair back, giving her more room. She was still in her mid-twenties—pretty, bright, and really animated. Her enthusiasm was contagious, except maybe for Jeff. He leaned back in his chair again, folded his arms across his chest, and slowly began rocking back and forth.

“It’s been great!” she answered, smiling and leaning forward in her chair. “The night-shift staff people have been really helpful, and I’ve been able to sleep during the day. I wondered a little about that, but it’s been fine. And the patients that come in during the middle of the
night have been…” She stopped mid-sentence, a perplexed look on her face. She seemed to be struggling for just the right word. “Well, they’ve been very interesting.”

Jeff continued to rock in his chair and didn’t say anything. Amy had finished her filing and leaned back in her chair, folding her hands behind her head.

“Whatcha mean by that?” she asked the young nurse.

Clara took a deep breath and looked over at the secretary. Then she quickly glanced at Jeff and then at me.

“Well, it just seems that the people who come in during the middle of the night are really sick, or they are…they are…”

“Peculiar.” Jeff finished the sentence for her.

“Yes. I suppose that’s as good a word as any,” she said, smiling and nodding her head. “They do seem to be a little…peculiar. I mean, they have some really odd problems, and some different personalities. You almost want to take some of them home with you.”

“Now
you’re
the one who’s peculiar,” Jeff said, his face expressionless.

“Well, if anybody should know peculiar, that would be
you
,” Amy said, looking over at him.

As if she hadn’t heard this, Clara took a deep breath and said, “Just the other night, I was taking care of a man in cardiac. He was having a heart attack and Dr. Kennick was taking care of him. One time when she went out of the room, the man looked up at me and asked if I believed in heaven. Now that made me stop what I was doing and pay attention.”

Jeff stopped rocking and cocked his head in Clara’s direction.

“Of course I told him I did,” she went on. “And I said, ‘What about you?’” She paused and looked over at me. “I hope it was alright to do that.”

I nodded my head without saying anything.

“Well, he told me that he did too, and then he started telling me about his wife, and how just before she died, she told him that she could see a light. And she said that the light was something good, and not frightening. And she asked him if he could see it. Then he asked me what I thought about all of that.”

“What did you tell him?” Amy asked her, listening intently.

“Before I could say anything, Dr. Kennick came back in the room, and we never had a chance to talk about it anymore. I wanted to find out more of what his wife had been talking about, but we didn’t have the chance.”

Clara grew quiet and we all just sat there.

“Peculiar,” Jeff said, finally breaking the silence.

“No it’s not peculiar,” Amy scolded him. “If you believe in heaven, then you’d think there might be some sign…some sort of evidence or experience or something like that. You hear all the time about people who have passed over and come back. There was a special on TV not too long ago about that. But I don’t know what to make of it, not havin’ experienced it myself. What do you think, Dr. Lesslie?”

I was deep in thought, listening to the conversation and wondering about this phenomenon myself. All of my years in the ER had convinced me that life is a mystery and is truly fleeting. And I believe that our existence after we “cross the bar” will be beyond anything we can imagine. After all, as my wife frequently reminds me, once we are absent from this body
we will be present with the Lord. Yet that moment of passage from this world to the next is another mystery. We have some rough blueprints maybe, but there are no videos or recordings, no soundtracks or DVDs. And that’s probably the way it should be—a mystery.

“Dr. Lesslie,” Amy persisted, interrupting my thoughts. “What do you think about this?”

They were all looking at me, and I sat up a little straighter and cleared my throat.

“Well, these near-death experiences are fascinating,” I began. “And I’m not sure that until the ‘final trumpet’ blows, any of us will have the right answer. But there are some interesting stories out there, and some that are hard to argue with.”

“Can’t prove ’em though, can you?” Jeff interjected. “I mean, there’s just no solid evidence about any of this, the lights and all.”

I looked at him and said, “I really don’t know what to make of most of it. But I can tell you about one instance I know of, and that
still
seems real to me, even after more than fifteen years. Maybe
more
so because of those years.”

“What do you mean ‘more so’?” Amy asked.

“Well, like I said, this happened fifteen, twenty years ago,” I began. “Right here in this ER. Johnny Gee was working in the ER that day, and he told me—”

“See!” Jeff interrupted. “You got this secondhand. I thought this was going to be something
you
experienced,” he said doubtfully.