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Miranda swiped on another coat of red lipstick and pressed her lips together. Butterflies of excitement danced in her belly. Tonight, she’d meet her blind date; they were accompanying Trisha and Shane to dinner. Maybe he would be The One. Trisha had pre-screened him after all, as she said. And maybe the idea of using a sperm donor before her ovaries carked it could be excluded from her list of options.
‘Miranda!’ Trisha called. ‘Simon’s here!’
Miranda took one last glance in the mirror and stepped out of Trisha’s room; chin-raised in confidence, and feeling sexy in her new Leona Edmiston dress and glossy heels. Well, the glossy heels were a thirty-dollar bargain from Target, but with the stunning dress to capture all the attention, who would ever know? The red satin with beaded lace overlay hugged her body like a lover and she took small, shuffled steps along the hall due to its tight fit. Thank goodness for the TrimTummy briefs. Although feeling firmer in the abdominal region after the gazillion crunches Naomi had her doing every second day, for now she was more than happy to take advantage of patented spiral technology.
It’s only the first date, there’s no way he’ll be seeing these.
She stopped at the top of the stairs, her heart beating briskly, and glimpsed Simon in Trisha’s living room. Not bad at all, a little shorter than expected, but nicely dressed and well groomed. A good start. Miranda stepped onto the curved staircase and nodded a hello to Simon as he looked up from his conversation with Shane and Trisha. She took another step but her ankle faltered, rolling outward andpropelling her sideways. She reached for the railing but missed, tumbling down the stairs until the cold hard tiles on the floor met with her head, and sharp pain led to blackness.
‘Miranda?Miranda? Oh, thank God ... she’s coming around.’ Trisha’s voice was faint but recognisable.
‘The ambulance will be here in five,’ called Shane from what sounded like further away.
‘Miranda, honey, don’t move, okay?’ Trisha ordered, her voice louder. ‘Just keep still, help will be here soon. You’ll be okay.’ Her warm hands comforted Miranda’s face yet held it firm.
‘Hurts ... when I ... breathe,’ Miranda managed. She had a splitting headache, and her stomach was doing somersaults to join in the party.
‘I know, I know, just try to keep calm.’
Out the corner of her eye, Miranda noticed a slightly blurry but shell-shocked Simon standing awkwardly nearby. This was one date he sure wouldn’t forget.
‘How bad isthe pain on a scale of one to ten, Miranda?’ asked the rosy-cheeked paramedic who looked about fourteen.
‘Eight ... no, maybe nine ... oh, I don’t ... it just ... hurts bad!’
‘Okay, try not to worry. We’ll give you some pain relief and you should feel a bit better soon. Do you have any drug allergies?’
‘Yes, I do have dog allergies,’ Miranda replied, and even through her pain she realised how silly her answer was.Drugs,not dogs, duh!
‘Okay, morphine going in,’ said another paramedic who looked slightly older than the other one, maybe sixteen.
The sharp edges of pain became fuzzy and Miranda’s eyelids drooped.
‘Miranda Sheppard,twenty-nine, fell down the stairs. Head meets tiled floor. Unconscious briefly at the scene according to her friends, and GCS is twelve. Complaining of pain on inspiration, mild dyspnoea, headache, blurry vision, nausea...’
‘Ow! Lights ... too ... bright!’ Miranda exclaimed as she was wheeled into the Emergency Department.
‘...and light sensitivity,’ the paramedic added to the list.
‘Hi there, Miranda, I’m Jeanette, one of the doctors. We’re going to take good care of you.’
Oh, sure, nice to meet you too, Jeanette. What’s with the introductions? Don’t waste time talking, just bloody fix me!
There appeared to be four or five people around her, all moving busily and speaking in what seemed like a foreign language. The brace around her neck gripped her chin, and hands prodded and poked her.
‘Miranda, we’ll have to cut through this dress, I’m afraid,’ someone said. ‘We need to examine you properly and assess your injuries without having to move you around too much.’
‘My dress, no! Please ... I’ll take it ... off ... myself. It has a zip ... at the back, see?’ She tried to roll over but someone held her head firmly in place. She was trapped. Trapped ina strange place, with strange people, unable to move. And to top it off, a nurse, amalenurse at that, was cutting off her beloved six-hundred-dollar dress that she hadn’t worn until tonight! There should be such a thing as fashion insurance.
‘We’ll have to cut these off too, Miranda,’ he said.
Oh no!She’d forgotten about the support briefs! With a few snips they were off, and she was covered loosely in a sheet as the team continued their examination.
‘Right,let’s get this brace off your neck,’ the doctor said after scans had ruled out spinal injury. ‘You’ve sustained three broken ribs, Miranda,’ she said. ‘That’s why it hurts to breathe. There’s also slight bruising around your brain, so we’ll need to keep you here and monitor that. You’ll have a headache for several days, but we can treat the pain.’
Bruising? Brain? Who knew you could get a bruise on your brain, bruises are for knees, aren’t they?Confusion and fear bounced around her mind and the pain intensified. ‘Oh no, I think I’m going to ...’ Before she could say ‘vomit’, a bowl appeared in front of her, and just as quickly she filled it up, although some missed the target and splashed onto the nurse holding the bowl.
‘Sorry!’ Miranda said, wiping the side of her mouth.
