heal// 5SOS

26

Calum

"I feel better, dad,"

"You're staying here today," I said, tucking Sage into a blanket, "I think some time off school will have helped,"

"I miss my friends,"

"You can go back tomorrow,"

"Fine,"

"Hey," I said, poking their cheek, "I'm doing this to make sure you're well,"

"Well I wanna go to school,"

"Tomorrow,"

"Now,"

"Tomorrow," I said firmly, "I have a consult now, and I have to tell the parents some shitty news, so please don't make this harder than it has to be,"

"I'm not,"

I kissed their head and passed them my ipad, then left the room and headed to my consultation. It was in the NICU, so it was always either the happiest news, or the worst news.

Today it was the worst.

"Good morning," I said, shaking hands with the parents, "Thank you for being so patient with us while we ran some tests on Charlotte. How have you been?"

"It's hard to have gone home without her,"

"Yeah. I'm so sorry, but you are both doing all the right things. Unfortunately, our tests show that Charlotte has a slight heart defect which is meaning less blood can flow through,"

"What can we do?"

"I am going to pass her into the care of our surgeons, who will make sure that we can get as much blood flowing through as possible. They will talk you through the risks, but I genuinely believe this is the best thing we can do to make sure Charlotte can live a normal life,"

"It will fix her?"

"It will, but she will need regular follow ups throughout her life. I'm sorry I couldn't come with better news, but now we know the problem we can try our best to help,"

"No, thank you so much,"

"A surgeon should be down shortly,"

Her mum nodded, but her eyes were watering as she shook my hand again.

"If you need any support, that can be organised. Everyone here knows how scary it can be, but you are in the best hands, I promise,"

"Thank you,"

I nodded and left them alone, heading to a computer to mark off the consultation. I hated it.

I hated this job so much sometimes.

"Er, Dr Hood?"

"Mhm?"

"I er... I need to put an IV in and the kid won't stop crying. I can't get them to calm down,"

"Let's see what we can do," I said, "Dr Kelley, right?"

"Yeah,"

"Aha! Sorry, I'm usually pretty rusty at learning itern names,"

"It's er, it's this room,"

I opened the door and walked in, followed by Dr Kelley. On the bed was a young boy, and I picked up his chart to get his information.

"Good morning Jacob, I'm Dr Calum,"

He sniffled and rubbed his eyes, shaking his head.

"Have you had a nice breakfast yet?"