Charlotte Delaney has sworn off men. After one relationship disaster after another- including turning a guy gay!- Charlotte is so over the male species.
Isaac Fletcher had his heart cruelly broken. Yes, it was years ago. No, he never got over it. I...
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WARNING! This update may be a little upsetting. Please grab some tissues now. I cried whilst writing this, so be warned! Otherwise, enjoy and I'll see you on the flip side.
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There are days when I hate being a doctor. Working with poorly babies and young children on a day-to-day basis, week in week out is challenging at the best of times but when you have a patient that you know has very little chance of survival, it makes you question why you're in this job.
My eyes darted across the MRI scan I held in my hand and I sighed heavily, gaining the attention of a fellow doctor as I did so. He peered over my shoulder and frowned. "Ah, shit," was all he said, vocalising my thoughts. Lewis runs a hand down his face and shakes his head as he processes the image before us. "I was hoping that we were both wrong."
"Me too," I agree. Setting the scan down on the desk, I throw myself down onto the sofa that we have in the staff room and look upwards towards the ceiling. "I'll be the one to talk to the parents. No offence, but I think it will be better coming from me."
Lewis smiled sadly at me. As much as I liked him, he was severely lacking in the empathy department when it came to discussing matters with parents; with the patients, he was great and you wouldn't want anyone better than Lewis to treat your child but when delivering bad news, I was the man for the job.
And how I hated it.
Our patient was a seven-month-old little girl named Marina and she was utterly adorable. She had been referred to us by a doctor in another hospital, asking us to take a look at Marina's case. Her symptoms weren't consistent with anything her previous doctor was familiar with so he sent her to see us, hoping we could provide answers. Lewis had been the first to see Marina but after meeting the parents, he brought me in on the case, too.
I had to agree that the symptoms were vague- fevers and vomiting, problems feeding and crying incessantly, seizures and muscle spasms... it could be a number of things, which is why it took us the better part of three days to come to a diagnosis. Even then, I prayed that we were wrong. If we were right, there was nothing we could do.
Nothing we could do is my most hated phrase in the world. Used in any combination, it was proof that we had failed in our duty to heal a patient and I often struggle to reconcile the fact that I want to be able to do everything in my power to treat my patients and knowing that, despite everything, there really is nothing that I can do.
