One of the things that no one prepares you for when you start work in the emergency room, is how many things people are willing to shove up their butt.
I'm not judgemental, but as I gawp at the x-ray of an eggplant, fully inserted into a person's asshole, my mind runs wild. The textbooks hadn't mentioned the sheer capabilities of a human rectum.
The textbooks hadn't mentioned the majority of things I'd witnessed this past week; to be completely honest, I felt as though I'd been living underneath a gigantic rock before I witnessed the on-goings of the ER. I still felt so naïve and wide eyed and all I'd done was follow the doctors around and tried not to forget how to speak when they asked questions, expecting answers.
Simmons hadn't been messing around when he said it was going to be a learning experience; it was an incredible team, the doctors and nurses were a well oiled machine, effective despite the chaos. I'd never heard so many different alarms or sirens, they blasted through the department and people just ran in one way or another.
Thankfully I wasn't alone in my fear or incompetence; there were three other Michigan students on this placement, and we moved like a small flock of penguins, wearing borrowed ill-fitting scrubs, waddling after our guardians, too junior to be left alone and desperately trying to not get in the way.
"Once an object of this particular shape, has passed the anal verge, it has the tendency to scoot further away." Tim, the senior radiologist, explains with a completely straight face. In this moment, I can't decide what's more impressive: the size of the eggplant or the fact that Tim wasn't cracking up.
"You're acting like you've never seen this before." A low, deep voice speaks beside me, I startle and snap my mouth shut, looking over my right shoulder to find an extremely attractive man, in dark blue scrubs, smiling at me. Even in the reduced light of the x-ray viewing room, his handsomeness was obvious. An inch taller than me, with black hair cut short at the sides and slightly longer and gelled at the top, his smile wide and easy. I couldn't quite make out the colour of his eyes, but they were fixed on mine, and I was still staring. He blinks a couple of times and I realise I haven't responded yet.
"Funnily enough, no." I keep my voice low, Tim was still talking at the front of the room, stood beneath the x-ray films.
"It's not the first time he's done this you know, last time it was an avocado." I put my focus on Tim's face as he talks, trying not to laugh and disrupt the group.
"I think I'm going to decline his invitation to dinner." The handsome stranger coughs into his hand to disguise his laugh in the stuffy, quiet viewing room.
He grins at me before moving towards the front, I simply watch in confusion as he moves to stand beside Tim, who welcomes him by shaking his hand.
"In some cases, smaller items will leave the body naturally, with or without the help of prescription laxatives or enemas." The brunette student, Maggie, in front of me makes furious notes in her notepad as Tim speaks, whereas I just watch as Tim gestures to the dark haired man in scrubs. "Or, in more difficult cases, there'll be a referral to surgeons. This is Luke Jennings, one of our brilliant surgical interns who's agreed to speak with you."
The man in the dark blue scrubs was surgical, of course. Luke Jennings. An internship lasted a couple of years, I'd have placed him around his mid to late twenties. It explained his body language, the easy confidence and perfect posture.
"Thanks Tim. Not all referrals are as clear cut as our friend here." He gestures towards the film, the giant eggplant staring back at us on the screen. "Patient's may choose not to disclose that they've inserted a foreign body, they may simply present with abdominal pain or nausea and leave us to figure it out. This can be extremely dangerous and sometimes emergency surgeries are required, where blood loss and gastrointestinal perforation can be a real serious concern. He's going to be going under the knife this afternoon and you're all welcome in the viewing gallery."
Holy shit. We were going to watch an actual surgery. Sure, it was a butt surgery, but it was a surgery, nonetheless.
"I understand that not all of you have interest in surgery, if your specialism lies elsewhere then rest assured we won't be offended, but I'll argue it's a good learning opportunity." He crosses his arms across his chest, and I don't miss how Maggie has slowed down in her scribbling whilst Luke's been speaking. "I just need to take a head count of which of you will be attending the viewing gallery."
I raise my hand, assuming that's what he'd meant by head count. Luke spots me and smiles, Maggie's hand raises too and as does another student in our group, Tom. The last member of the Michigan group doesn't raise her hand and keeps her gaze on her feet, uncomfortable; I study her face, remembering her sharing in class once that she had a phobia of the operating theatre. Luke doesn't seem annoyed in the slightest, he claps his hands together and nods once.
"Great, I'll see the three of you later. The OR is arranged for five pm, so long as no emergencies alter our schedule. I'd suggest doing some reading, so you have an idea what you're going to be looking at."
A shit stained eggplant was the last thing in my mind before we broke for lunch.
***
It had gone ten pm when we made our usual route to the storage cupboard where they'd told us to leave our belongings, the staff rooms hadn't had space. Not that we'd minded, the cupboard had become a solace of sorts, from the frenzy of the department.
The surgery did get postponed, and the three of us were given the opportunity to leave; but we'd all declined. We'd been reading about foreign body removals since lunchtime, and we wanted to see it in action. It was a quarter to eight at night when we'd finally taken our seats in the viewing gallery, the excitement between us palpable.
Turns out Luke was still pretty junior despite his infallible confidence in the x-ray viewing room; he was observing to begin with before he was invited to assist the resident. However, I didn't miss the feel of his eyes on my face a couple of times whilst I gawped from the viewing gallery, I don't know how I resisted pressing my face against the glass.
The OR was everything I'd dreamed of and more; Grey's Anatomy didn't have shit on the real thing.
Honestly, they were so fucking cool, and I fangirled hard. I was looking down at my future. Yes, I guess I could live without the eggplant extraction but hey, I wasn't picky.
There was an undoubted spring in my step as the three of us exited the gallery, Tom smiled at me knowingly, the same spring in his own long gait. Maggie was a shade greener than when we'd first sat down, but in fairness, she hadn't looked away, she'd simply gripped the notepad tighter in her lap, I'd almost felt sorry for it.
Witnessing that surgery was the reminder that I'd needed, that this was what I was working towards, what my dad wanted me to be; what he knew I could become. This wasn't the distraction from Carter. Carter was the distraction from this, and it wouldn't happen again.
The people working in the OR wouldn't give a single shit about my boy problems or lack of sexual experience, all they'd care about was if I could be trusted to hold a scalpel and whether I knew what the fuck I was doing.
At this time and in this area of the hospital, the corridors were eerily quiet, so the squeak of sneakers on linoleum caught our attention as we walked towards the elevator, we turned to see Luke making his way towards us, slightly out of breath as if he'd ran to catch up.
"So, you guys have any questions?" He smiles that easy smile again, looking like something off a dental campaign despite being on his feet, inhaling chlorhexidine, and holding surgical equipment for the past couple of hours.
The three of us sheepishly glanced at one another, I think we were still a little overwhelmed from the surgery and exhausted from our placement. We'd been in the hospital since six thirty this morning and we'd found that when people here asked us whether we had any questions, they usually wanted an educated one. Therefore, I don't think Luke would have been best pleased if I asked him what they'd done with the eggplant.
"What's the usual follow-up for the procedure, and what's the typical recovery time?" Tom saves us all by asking a much less ridiculous question, but I don't miss the small flash of disappointment on Luke's face as he notes my silence.
He enters the elevator with us as he answers Tom's question, the OR is on the third floor of the building and the ER, and our belongings were on the ground floor. The doors open as Maggie asks another question.
"Is there any psychiatric follow up for this patient?" Luke just smiles and shakes his head.
"It's an incredibly sensitive area and we want patient's to feel comfortable to come to the hospital, should something go wrong; and that's assuming that the patient will admit whether it was intentional or accidental." He shrugs and looks at me before he continues. "Also, who are we to judge people's sexual desires?"
The answering blush on my face is instant, I look anywhere I can to avoid eye contact; scared an eggplant is about to jump up my butt.
I glance into the rooms we pass, some empty, some with patient's and family members; people potentially having the worst day of their lives. We finally pass the canteen before we near the storage room, I'm desperate to get home, change out of these borrowed scrubs that are one size too big, and have a hot shower.
Brown messy curls and a chiselled jawline stop me in my tracks.
Carter?
Surely, despite my exhaustion, I wasn't imagining him right now; I stop walking and blink a couple of times.
Nope, there he was. All six foot four of him, stood staring at a vending machine, looking far too attractive in the clinical luminescence of the hospital canteen. Like I said, I tried to be non-judgemental but even I knew this was a strange place to come for a night time snack.
Seeing him in the flesh for the first time since I'd slammed the car door in his face, had my heart careening into a strange rhythm.
I told myself I wasn't ever going to look at him again, or pay him even the slightest ounce of attention, but there was something in the slump of his toned shoulders that had me worried; even from the doorway of the canteen I could see the tension rolling off of him in waves.
Call it naivety, cluelessness, or just sheer fucking stupidity, but I didn't think twice before I made my way over to him. I just had to know he was alright.