The Greek Doctor's Proposal

Even in simple green scrubs and a tied hair cover, Miklo would have commanded the attention of every woman in the area.

The simplicity of his attire peeled away everything except the man. He didn’t draw attention to himself intentionally, but something about him drew her to him, and she shivered, trying to resist the whisper of attraction that swept over her.

As if sensing her gaze, Miklo turned toward her. His dark brown gaze met hers and she held her breath for a second, startled at the intensity of his stare. He was serious, intense and focused. Only a nod acknowledged her, but that simple gesture released her…

Albuquerque, NM, USA

S
O MANY
times Jeannine Carlyle had walked into a hospital as a nurse. Then for a time she had been a patient. This time as she entered the pediatric ICU of a large teaching hospital, she was going to put the last six months behind her and put her life back together. So much about her had been changed, but being a nurse and wanting to help people had not. Lying flat on her back after a life-threatening miscarriage and months of rehab hadn’t changed that, but had only made her conviction stronger.

After entering the ICU, she approached the nurse manager. “Hi, Arlene.”

“Jeannine, glad to see you here bright and early.” Arlene glanced over Jeannine, assessing her attire. “You found the right color scrubs, I see.”

“Sure did,” Jeannine said, and looked down at her royal blue outfit. “Slightly different than the last place I worked, but I needed new scrubs anyway.” The weight
loss she had suffered recently had made her previous scrubs entirely too large. Though spring had blossomed and the weather was warming, she wore a longsleeved T-shirt beneath the scrubs to cover the healing marks on her arms. Trying not to be overly conscious of them, she tried to ignore them, hoping that if she didn’t draw attention to them no one else would notice her disfigurement. There were no scars on her face, but she felt every one of them as if they were all visible. She knew they would heal, but the inside of her that hurt the most might never recover.

“Well, glad to have you on board.” Arlene began to walk down the hall further into the PICU. “We’ll be having grand rounds soon. Our medical director, Dr. Kyriakides, will be presenting a very interesting case we had a few months back. I can introduce you to some of the staff first.”

“Sounds great.” A good way to get to know some of the staff without having to jump in with both feet on her first day on the job. What a relief.

Arlene hesitated outside a large conference-room door. “Are you sure you’re ready for this? Coming back to work, I mean?”

Jeannine felt her stomach slide. “Are you having reservations about me being here?”

“No, I’m not. Your résumé and references more than proved you’re a very capable nurse. It’s just that the pediatric ICU can be a very emotionally difficult place to work at times.” Arlene’s compassionate gaze searched Jeannine’s face.

“Yes, I know,” Jeannine said, and hoped the redness she felt in her face wasn’t too visible. “But I have to start somewhere sometime, don’t I?” No place was going to be easy, but with her finances having dwindled to next to nothing, she couldn’t afford to be off from work any longer. She needed this job to keep her life going.

“You’re right. But please let me know when you need a break. Look at the schedule and make sure you give yourself adequate time off, not too many days in a row, okay?” Arlene gave her a sad smile. “You’re a strong woman to have survived your ordeal, so I know coming back to work must seem a piece of cake after that.”

Jeannine gave a small laugh. “Maybe not quite a piece of cake, but something I have to do. Starting over, starting fresh, is what I need right now.”

During the interview process she had had to disclose why she had been out of work for so many months. She hadn’t been on vacation for months at a time and she hadn’t been terminated from her last job. A life threatening miscarriage had forced her to quit her job. Being a patient had given her a whole new perspective on life.

“There is a certain amount of difference between the ER and the ICU, so it may take some adjustment for you. Don’t expect to learn everything at once.”

“I won’t. Moving from ER to ICU will hopefully give me a buffer. Never knowing what was coming through the doors in the ER was always stressful. I didn’t realize how stressful until I left there.”

“Well, in any case, I’m glad you’re here.” She nodded
toward the conference room. “Let’s get in there before all the bagels are gone.”

Jeannine grabbed half a bagel and found a seat in the back of the small room crammed with chairs. She nodded to staff members entering the room, but focused on the pastry in her hand.

When an amazingly handsome man entered the room, she nearly dropped her bagel on the floor. Tawny skin and dark hair that fell past his collar, he was broad shouldered and trim in the hips. She didn’t know who he was, but he certainly commanded the attention of everyone in the room. With the long white labcoat, he was identifiable as a high-ranking physician at the hospital. Probably an attending physician or senior resident. She was too far away to read his name badge and several people shuffled past, blocking her view.

“Attention, everyone,” Arlene said, and raised a hand. “Let’s get started. You all know Dr. Kyriakides, I believe. But I want to introduce our newest staff member, Jeannine Carlyle. Jeannine, would you stand up?”

Reluctantly, Jeannine stood and choked down a bite of bagel that was suddenly lodged in her throat. “Hi, everyone,” was all she could think of to say.

How lame is that? she asked herself, and sat again, wishing she could slide under the chair in front of her. But she soon forgot her embarrassment as the physician began his presentation of a pediatric case from a remote Indian reservation in New Mexico. Watching him, listening to the case history and the problems the patient had
experienced during his hospitalization, Jeannine forgot for a short time that she was starting a new job, that her life had been completely uprooted, and simply lost herself in Dr. Kyriakides’ voice and the slide presentation.

At the end of the presentation, staff members grabbed the remainder of the pastries and returned to their patients. Jeannine was the last to leave the room as the doctor packed up his computer. “Thanks for the presentation. It was very informative,” she said.

“You’re welcome. You’re the new nurse, right?” he asked, and shook her hand.

The faint smell of his cologne drifted toward her, and she took a step back. “New at this job, but not a new nurse.” Definitely not new to this game.

“Did you just move here or have you been in Albuquerque a while?” He finished rolling up the cables and stowed them in a black computer case.

“No, I worked across town. I needed a new start.”

“That sounds serious. Starting over isn’t very easy, is it?”

“No. It’s not.” Trying to avoid his piercing gaze was impossible. The dark hair and tawny skin gave him away as being of Mediterranean descent, but there was something else to him. Jeannine shrugged. He was none of her business except in a professional way. Beautifully exotic men were off limits to her. Relationships period were off limits to her, since the last one had almost killed her. “I…had a serious injury that took me out of work for a while, but I’m back in action now. Don’t
worry, Doctor, I’m up to it.” Was she being defensive already? She didn’t need to tell her life story to everyone she met today, did she?

“Worrying is wasted energy, as far as I’m concerned. And please call me Miklo. I know they like to toss the medical director title around a lot, but I’m a doctor just like the rest. I simply have more paperwork.”

His engaging smile managed to pull her lips into an answering response.

“I’ll try. I’m not accustomed to addressing physicians by their first names. Usually just the residents.”

Miklo looked down at her and smiled. “Then just think of me as a really old resident.”

Against her will, Jeannine laughed at the small joke. But laughing was something she hadn’t done in some time and to be joyful on her first day at work was an unexpected gift. She’d learned to find those gifts in unusual places. “Thank you, Miklo.” She stepped toward the door. “Guess I’ll be seeing you later.”

“Yes, well, welcome to University Hospital.”

“Thanks,” Jeannine said, and left the conference room.

Miklo watched the new nurse go. She was a trim, pretty woman with long blonde hair and blue-green eyes that were filled with pain. She’d said she was starting over, and he knew from his own painful experience that starting over was never easy, no matter the reason.

Life as he had known it had been changed by the death of his wife. Pregnant with their child, they had both died in a tragic car accident three years ago. He’d
been working instead of taking Darlene to a baby shower. The grief, the guilt, burned within him still at unexpected times. Like now. Clenching his jaw, he shouldered the heavy computer case and left the PICU. With a quick glance down the hall, he saw Jeannine at the nurses’ station with her head bent over a chart, a pair of reading glasses perched on her nose.

As he left the hospital and went about his day, the image of Jeannine at the desk stayed with him. She seemed to be a lovely woman, and he hoped that her transition was going to be a good one.

J
EANNINE
entered the PICU on her second morning to pure chaos. Eyes wide, she watched as Dr. Kyriakides argued with Arlene at the nurses’ station.

“I need someone now.”

“No one wants to go, and I won’t force anyone,” Arlene said. “You can’t drag an unqualified nurse off to such a critical situation. It’s just not safe.”

“So you’re going to let an injured child lie in an ambulance outside and do nothing about it?” Miklo asked. “Any nurse will do in this situation.”

Arlene gasped. “That’s not fair, Miklo. The ER is on divert. All the hospitals are on divert.”

Jeannine stepped forward, uncomfortable but digging deep within herself, challenging the fear that always seemed to live in her lately. “What’s the situation? I have ER experience.” The lump remained in her throat, but she had to conquer her fear some time.

Miklo turned his blazing amber eyes on her. “Put your stuff down and come with me right now.”

Jeannine handed her backpack to Arlene. “Will you hold this for me?”

“Jeannine, wait! I’m not sure you’re up to this your second day here,” Arlene said. “I know you wanted to get back into it, but it’s too soon.”

Miklo hesitated, looking between the two women. “Is she qualified or not?” he asked Arlene.

“Yes, but—”

He turned from Arlene and placed a gentle hand on Jeannine’s back, propelling her forward with him. “Let’s go. There’s a child that needs us.”

Barreling down the stairs together, they burst into the ER where staff raced back and forth, the intercom paged a physician, and the sound of muffled crying came from behind a curtain. “Where is—?”

“Let’s try the ambulance bay. They were going to try to take him somewhere else, but in between the other hospitals went on divert, too.” Miklo led the way to the ambulance bay.

Jeannine’s attention was completely taken by the small, motionless patient on the gurney beside an ambulance. Miklo reached for the stethoscope that hung from his neck and listened to the little chest with a nod. “Chest seems okay.” He looked at the paramedic, named Charlie, who stood on the other side of the gurney. “What do we have?”

“Male, approximately six years old, involved in an MVA with his mother, who is in the next ambulance.” He looked at Jeannine. “You’re in the wrong hospital, aren’t you?” he asked.

Jeannine swallowed and gave him what she hoped
was a confident smile. “Oh, hi, Charlie. Nope. Moved over to the University Hospital just yesterday.” One day on the job and she’d already been caught like a deer in headlights. Nothing used to stop her in her tracks, so this shouldn’t either.

“Well, it’s good to see you again,” he said, and gave a quick grin. “The kid seems stable right now, but there’s no telling what’s under the dressings. There were so many abrasions and lacerations that we just put saline-soaked gauze on him.”

“Good call,” Miklo said.

Jeannine checked the IV bag to ensure the fluids dripped quickly through the line in his small arm. “Unwrapping his face is not going to be good, I’m suspecting,” Jeannine said as she snapped on a pair of gloves and handed a pair to Miklo.

Sheree, the EMT at the head of the gurney, made a facial grimace. “I didn’t want to try to intubate him in the truck, but he may need it.” She squeezed the ambubag over the boy’s face. “Right now he’s breathing on his own, I’m just giving him extra puffs of oxygen.”

“So far his oxygen level is okay,” Jeannine said after a quick look at the monitor. “Heart rate is high, but not unexpected. Fluids are going in well.”

“As long as his airway is stable, I’ll hold off the intubation until he’s under anesthesia. Let’s have a look at him, and if he’s stable enough we’ll do X-rays and see what’s going on under the wraps.” Miklo reached for the blood-soaked bandages, then hesitated. “Can you get some sedation going?” Dr. Kyriakides asked Jeannine.

“Should we take him inside before we get started?” she asked. “I feel so helpless outside.”

“There’s no trauma room available yet, but there’s a spare treatment room I know of down the hall,” Charlie said.

“Let’s move him there. Jeannine, I’ll count on you to get the medications going.”

“Okay. What do you like to start with?” Jeannine knew her heart was beating about as fast as the boy’s, but adrenaline always flowed quickly during a crisis.

“Morphine.” Dr. Kyriakides gave a quick visual scan of the boy, his gaze serious. “Looks about twenty-five kilos, so give him a morphine dose now with some mid-azolam for amnesia. We don’t want him to remember any of this, if possible.”

“I’ll have to find the charge nurse first. I don’t know where the medications are kept here,” Jeannine said, and dashed toward the main desk. Minutes later she returned to the small room. With trembling fingers she began to push the meds into the IV tubing. “That ought to do it.” Memories of those particular medications flowing through her own veins tried to push to the surface, but she held the memories at bay. In the midst of a crisis was not the time to remember her own recent trauma. She stroked the hair back from the boy’s forehead. “Just be calm, we’re going to take good care of you,” she said to the unconscious child.

“Okay. Let’s see what we have.” Miklo’s large hands gently peeled away the layers of bandages from the child’s face. Fresh blood oozed from a multitude of cuts and abra
sions on the boy’s face and neck. Gently, Dr. Kyriakides opened the boy’s eyelids and flashed a light into them.

“Pupils okay?” Jeannine asked as she went through the neuro checklist.

“Yes. I was looking for glass, but thankfully I don’t see any,” Dr. Kyriakides said. “Until we get X-rays, let’s just leave the gauze on him.”

“Okay. Do you think we should try Radiology right now or do you think they are as slammed as the ER is?” she asked. “He seems stable enough to transport, but I don’t want to sit in X-Ray for an hour, waiting.”

“Let me find out,” Miklo said, and grabbed the phone in the room. After a brief conversation he hung up the phone. “They’ll take us in ten minutes.”

“Great. By the time we get him down the hall, they’ll be ready,” Jeanine said.

Miklo’s strong jaw was tightly clenched and his firm lips compressed into a straight line.

“Doctor? Are you okay?” she asked, wondering if she was intruding on his thoughts.

Miklo turned to her and gave a slight smile. “I’m okay. Waiting for X-Ray makes me crazy sometimes.”

“I know what you mean.” She touched his sleeve, hoping to impart some comfort to him. Though he had said he was okay, she wasn’t sure that was the complete truth. But, having just met him, she was not one to judge.

After multiple facial X-rays and a CAT scan to check for a brain injury, which was negative, the group took the patient straight up to the PICU since the ER had no space.

The boy started to wake up, and Jeannine took his hand. “Hi, there.” With her other hand she stroked his hair. All that was peeking out from beneath the bandages were frightened brown eyes that became wider with each breath he drew.

Miklo stepped away from the x-ray light box and returned to the gurney. “Hi. What’s your name?”

The boy glanced back and forth between Jeannine and Miklo without answering.

“Do you think he’s hearing impaired?” she asked with a frown. “I hadn’t thought of that.” Perhaps they had overlooked an injury to the middle ear, or maybe the boy was hearing impaired. Jeannine chewed on her lower lip, trying to think of all of the ways to communicate with him. “I didn’t see any ear injuries, but I suppose he could have sustained something in the wreck.”

“Let me try something first.
Ola. ¿cuál es su nombre?
” Miklo asked in Spanish.

Jeannine watched as the boy nodded and tried to speak. Her heart ached as he struggled to communicate, and remembered struggling with the same problem when she had woken up in a hospital bed unsure what had happened to her.

As she remembered her situation, an idea came to her. She rummaged around in a storage cabinet for a moment and returned with a paper printed with the alphabet. “Are you fluent in Spanish, Miklo?” she asked as sudden energy swirled within her.

“Yes.”

“Ask him if he can spell his name, and I’ll hold up the chart.”

Miklo relayed the information. The boy raised his hand and pointed to a series of letters on the communication board.
“¿Roberto? Su nombre es Roberto?”
Miklo asked, his voice soft as he spoke to the frightened child.

The boy gave a slight nod to verify his name. Jeannine grinned and was relieved to see the small smile Miklo gave her. “Brilliant. Now ask him if he can point out his phone number.” With the mother still unconscious, they needed to find another immediate family member right away.

As Roberto pointed to the numbers, Jeannine wrote them down. “Chances are, whoever answers that number isn’t going to speak English either. Do you want to make the call?” she asked Miklo.

“Sure. Why don’t you go ahead and give him a little more sedation? He’s probably wondering what’s going on and right now I don’t think we can tell him.” Miklo’s serious eyes continued to observe the boy.

Jeannine dialed the number and handed the phone to Miklo. While she listened to the rapid Spanish conversation, she added a few milligrams more medication. This sort of sedation ideally was figured in milligrams per kilogram of the child’s weight. Right now they were giving a low dose, enough to keep him quiet but not enough to put him under completely.

Miklo hung up the phone. “The father’s coming in.” He bent over Roberto and relayed the information in a calm voice.

Jeannine watched as the man made soft eye contact with the boy. This was a man who cared about people. When she’d been hospitalized so many doctors and nurses had taken care of her that she’d lost track of their names and faces over the months. The sense of caring was one she carried with her to this day and motivated her to get out of bed every morning, hoping that she could give that gift to someone else.

Jeannine spoke to Roberto. “I know you can’t understand me, but I’m going to take good care of you.”

Miklo turned and translated softly as she spoke.

“I’m going to stay with you the whole way, okay?” she said, and gave him a smile.

Miklo watched as Jeannine spoke to the boy. She connected with her patients, that was obvious. But there was something about the way she spoke, the way her long fingers stroked Roberto’s hair, and her gentle manner that spoke of compassion running deep in her veins. As if she understood what it meant to be on the other side of the gurney.

“I’m going to have to take him to surgery as soon as the dad signs the operative consent.”

“I thought you were the medical director,” she said.

“I am, but I’m also a maxo-facial surgeon.” Miklo hesitated until Jeannine looked up at him. “I’m wondering if you would be able to accompany Roberto to the OR.”

Jeannine blinked in surprise. “Me?” she squeaked. “I’m not an OR nurse.”

“I know this is out of the ordinary, but I’m not ask
ing you to perform the operation.” Miklo gave a sideways smile. “He hasn’t let go of your hand even under the sedation. Having a friendly face in the OR will go a long way to keeping his stress level down and my repairs in place.”

Jeannine looked down at Roberto’s gauze-covered face and then at the intensity in Miklo’s. Could she refuse to help either one of them? “You’re right. I know that having staff who care about you helps you heal faster.” She was living testament to that. When her fiancé had fled in the face of her tragic illness, she had looked to her family, friends, and the nurses who had cared for her to get her through the worst of her crisis. She gripped the metal side rail with one hand. With her other hand, she touched the neck of her uniform.

“You sound like you have some personal experience in that arena,” Miklo said, watching her with those dark, dark eyes.

Before she could answer, she was interrupted by frantic, rapid Spanish being yelled down the hallway. “I think the father’s here,” Jeannine said with a cringe.

“I’ll get him.” Miklo left the room and returned shortly with a hysterical man who spoke non-stop between sobs.

Miklo explained the situation to him, pointing out the problems of the facial injuries, the IV, and what the plan was. Jeannine produced a clipboard with the Spanish consent form, and the father signed it with a trembling hand. After returning the clipboard, he took a handful of tissues that Jeannine offered him.
“Estoy
apesadumbrado,”
she said, one of the few Spanish phrases she knew, and she was sorry for his pain.

Miklo squeezed the man’s shoulder in a gesture of support as he wiped his tears from his face.
“Gracias,”
he said, and shook Miklo’s hand as well as Jeannine’s. Tears gathered in her eyes as he struggled to control himself.