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“What happened?” one of the nurses asked me.
“I saw her collapse in the garden after she stood up a little too quickly,” I told her. “I think it’s orthostatic hypotension but I’m not familiar with her pertinent history. We will have to wait until her granddaughter gets here to get all the details.”
The nurse looked at me suspiciously for a moment. “You’re a doctor?”
“Yes, but I’m based in London. I’m just here on vacation.”
She nodded and got moving, taking Grandma Margaret’s vitals, while I stood a little off to the side. The laws dictated that I couldn’t yet practice medicine here in Georgetown, but I could at least make sure she was okay and they didn’t miss anything.
As I watched the nurses scurrying about, taking her blood sugar and doing an initial physical exam, everything came rushing back to me. The scent of disinfectant heavy in the air, the lights a little too bright for comfort, the austere walls plastered with various medical information—it all reminded me of my life back in London.
I immersed in the atmosphere of my busy practice and my senses were instantly attuned to the plight of the patients around me, my doctor’s senses kicking in almost immediately. It was mostly the same here, except that this time, I was not really allowed to manage Grandma Margaret’s case, and it really frustrated me.
It’s the same thing in London, I thought to myself.I would never hand my patients over to another doctor. I would never be able to rest well if what happened to Miranda happened again on my watch…
It was very difficult for me to entrust my patients to other doctors, even though I knew full well that they had exceptional capabilities.
Being a cardiologist—and a good one at that—encompassed all that I was and it was very difficult for me to detach from that particular aspect of myself.
What was astounding was that for the past few days, I had not exactly thought of how my patients were doing back in London. I had never before imagined I could ever go a day without itching to go back to my practice, to make my rounds, and extend the best possible care for my patients.
“Oliver!”
The breathless voice snapped me out of my thoughts and I looked up to find sea green eyes looking back at me anxiously. Amanda’s braid was thrown over her shoulder and it seemed like she had been running to get into the ER. She craned her neck over to the examination room with a worried look. She moved to go in but one of the nurses stopped her.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but you’re not allowed to enter the examination room at this moment,” she told Amanda. “Rest assured, we are doing everything we can for the patient.”
She wrung her hands nervously and turned to look at me with tears brimming in her sea goddess eyes.
“Thank you so much,” she choked out. “Thank you so much for being there at the right time, Oliver. If anything—” she gulped. “If anything happened to Grandma, I wouldn’t know how to get through it!”
She rushed to me and my arms went around her reflexively, holding her trembling form close to my own. I held her close as she buried her nose into my chest, until her shaking subsided and she was steadier on her feet, rubbing soothing circles on her back.
Where she is falling apart, I will give her my strength,I thought to myself.
“Grandma Margaret is going to be okay,” I reassured her. “I did a brief exam on her when she fell and as far as I could tell, she didn’t have broken bones or any injuries of the sort.”
“Why do you think she collapsed?” she murmured. “She seemed perfectly fine when I left for the kindergarten this morning!”
I shook my head. “The bodies of the elderly are not like ours and it will be difficult for them to regulate or cope with certain things. My guess is that her blood pressure dropped when she stood up suddenly, which caused her to collapse.”
“Is that a dangerous thing?”
“Right now, not really,” I told her. “But they would need to do certain tests to figure out the reason behind the sudden drop and to prevent it from happening again. They might ask you for her maintenance medications and other details about her history to reach a complete diagnosis.”
She nodded her head and took a deep breath. “I’m just glad you were there when she fell. If it was me, I wouldn’t know what to do…”
“You shouldn’t beat yourself up for it,” I told her gently. “I’ve had training for this and several years of experience.Thatis how I managed not to run around like a headless chicken, flapping my arms around.”
She laughed bleakly. “I probably would have acted like a headless chicken,” she admitted.
I continued to hold her as she leaned into me for strength. We were still standing that way outside the examination room when the doctor in charge of Grandma Margaret emerged.
“Mr. and Mrs. Ross?”
We both looked up in surprise. I glanced at Amanda but she seemed too distraught to correct the doctor.
“Is my grandmother alright, doctor?” she asked him anxiously.
