Night Shift [h.s]

thirty

"Okay" I nod my head, keeping a straight face whilst I calculate what needs to be done. "So it's a pain in your heart?" I ask for clarification whilst I lean in a little closer, swinging the stethoscope off from around my neck to just take a listen.

"I keep having these weird twinges and- and my dad had a heart attack earlier on in the year and I don't know if it's hereditary but he died and- and I've been running around cooking and being there for the kids all day and all day I've felt this weirdness in my chest and- and- and-"

"Diane" I stop her when her eyes glaze over and she's near enough hyperventilating just trying to talk to me.

Her heart sounded fine if you asked me. It was slightly elevated and I'd have to carry out more tests before I give her the all clear and send her on her way. But I don't think this was a heart attack at all.

"You said your dad passed away earlier on in the year?" I ask her, keeping my voice gentle so I didn't upset her. It must've been a hard subject for her if she was close to tears right now, or perhaps that pain in her heart really was bothering her and I needed to run some test urgently.

She sniffles before she nods, her hands fidgeting with one another in her lap whilst she tries to distract herself from the thought. I probably wasn't much help bringing it up, but I needed to get some things clear.

"Is this your first Christmas without him?" I lower my head a little to try and meet her eye line, my own heart aching a little.

I can remember the first Christmas without my step dad after he had passed away, it felt a little bit too much to bear but we had gotten through it as a family and I think that was the most important thing to do this time of year. Families just needed to be there for one another, though I appreciate it was hard after a loss, especially a loss as significant as your father, there were members of the family that'd hide away from it and pretend it never happened, you had family members who looked just like him to the point where you could hardly look them in the eyes anymore, you had people who wanted to talk about them constantly and then you had the people like me, the ones who were still trying to figure out how things went missed and how perhaps if we had acted faster then we wouldn't still be experiencing this hurt.

"I'm fine- it's fine- can someone please just check my heart? My daughter will be wondering where I got to, I told her I had burnt my hand and I'd only be an hour, I just don't want her to worry" she brushes off my attempts to dig a little deeper to see if perhaps this was more of a mental issue rather than an actual cardiovascular problem.

"Your heart rate sounded a little elevated but that could just be down to stress or anxiety, I'll go and get a nurse to run some thorough tests and we'll get some blood work drawn up" I tell her, though I think what she really needed was just someone to talk to, someone to make the load feel a little less heavier.

"How long will it take? I know you're busy and I know you've got a lot going on but.. my kids just worry and I don't want them to think that something bad has happened" she asks in a hushed tone as if they were in the room with us. She was the one in need of help right now and still she was worrying incessantly about her children. She reminded me of Lana in a way, but I suppose that was just a mothers instinct.

"We'll run monitors on your heart for a little while and it might take an hour or so for your blood results to come back, and then it depends on what happens from there, but I'd say you're looking at about three hours" I give her a rough estimate, trying to be as precise as possible though you could never be too sure. "I can try and rush the tests if you're that desperate to get home to your kids, I know what it's like" I pull a favour for her though I wasn't entirely happy about doing so, I liked to run thorough tests on everybody that came into my hands to make sure nothing was missed, but I was almost certain that in this case, it was all psychological rather than medical.