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Brett
To say I was exhausted was an understatement. I still had two hours left in my shift, and I was dragging. I came to work already tired and that was after sleeping ten hours straight. No matter how much I slept lately, I couldn’t get enough.
It was a slow night, which didn’t help. I learned early on that the fewer patients we had, the slower time ticked by. On nights when we were overworked and filled to the brim, it was almost as if we started our shift only to be done. That was very much not tonight.
I went to grab a cup of coffee from the nurses’ station, hoping it would help me wake up. I’d poured three already today, but kept forgetting about them until they were chilled and yuck. Three steps before I reached it, my stomach started to lurch, and I froze, hoping it would settle, but realizing very quickly that wasn’t going to happen. I bolted for the bathroom, barely reaching the toilet in time to empty my entire stomach.
Great.
I’d caught whatever was going around the ER, which had apparently been full of people needing to be rehydrated thanks to some sort of GI bug going around. It wasn’t as serious as some viruses and most of the people were sent home with some medication, and so far, none had ended up on my unit. Those poor doctors and nurses down there tonight. If they avoided catching it, it would be a miracle.
Grabbing some paper towels, I cleaned myself up, not loving the face that was looking back at me in the mirror. My eyes were sunken in and my skin wasn’t quite the right color. Not awful, but anyone looking would know that I was unwell.
Feeling oddly better just from being sick and a quick wash, I went back out to see who was next for medication. I nearly knocked over the doctor on the floor for the night, Dr. Lawson. He was a nice older doctor and didn’t deserve to be pushed over by my sorry butt.
“You don’t look good,” he said.
“Nah, I’m okay. I just think I caught what’s going around the ER.” Which was probably not the best thing to say.
He flinched. He’d been there the night before and knew how bad it was. Rumor had it, today was worse.
“Well, let’s get you checked out, then, because you might need to leave.” Most shifts I wouldn’t be able to leave without a replacement, but given how late into the shift it was and how slow we were, it would be easy enough to get coverage from the floor. It was far better than spreading the stomach bug around.
“Okay.”
He led me back to the nurses’ station.
“You don’t have a temperature,” he said after zapping my forehead with the thermometer.
“No, I didn’t think I did.” He didn’t know I was a unicorn or he wouldn’t have been surprised by that. Shifters could get sick, sure. But as a rule, we rarely did.
“Everybody who has this bug runs a high one.” He set the thermometer down.
“Maybe I just don’t run a fever?” I wasn’t exactly going to tell him I was a unicorn, but if I could get him to take the fever out of the equation, that would be great.
“Which end is it coming out?” It was one thing to go to the doctor and have these kinds of questions, but when it was a colleague—doctor or not—it was a little awkward.
“I threw up once, that’s all.”
He gave me some serious side-eye.
“And I’m tired, just so, so tired.”
“Oh.” He turned around and grabbed a pee cup from the ledge. “Do me a favor, go fill this up.”
“I don’t do drugs.” Which I thought was a given.
“It’s not for that, it’s for something else.” He could ask me what end I was sick at, but telling me why he wanted me to pee in a cup was his frustration?
“Protein?”
“No, more like a little parasite.” On my list of things he might be testing me for, that one didn’t even make the top 100.
“A what?” Parasites were gross.
“Don’t worry, it’ll be out of your system in—I don’t know, about nine months.” He looked straight to my belly.
“I see.” Not really, but I snatched the cup anyway, and then he handed me a test strip, one I recognized. “Wait, you think I’m pregnant?” Which made sense based on the hints he’d just given, and somehow, I still missed it.
