One Tiny Miracle... Read Free Page B

really immerse herself in this emergency programme, and though she hoped to when she came back from maternity leave, Celeste was also realistic enough to know that her head would be full of other things by then, and that she’d be exhausted for other reasons, namely the baby who was kicking at her diaphragm right now. Still, it wasn’t Fleur’s problem.
    ‘Hello, Mrs Edwards.’
    ‘Fleur.’ Fleur smiled.
    ‘I’m Celeste—I’ll be looking after you this shift.’
    ‘You should be the one being looked after.’ Fleur clucked. She really was gorgeous. Widowed for twenty years, she was an independent old lady, and she had cut her hand peeling an orange for her morning snack, Celeste found out as she took her history.
    ‘Well, for now we’ll get you into a gown and into bed, so that we can elevate your hand on an IV pole. You’ve had something for pain—has that helped?’
    ‘I can hardly feel it, the bandage is so tight.’ Fleur said. ‘Would you mind taking me over to the ladies’ before I get into bed?’
    ‘Of course.’ Only at that moment Matthew sat up, with that anxious, frantic look Celeste knew all too well, and with a quick ‘Won’t be a moment’ to Fleur she raced over, locating a kidney dish just in time and pulling the curtain around him.
    ‘It’s okay, Matthew,’ she soothed. ‘I’ll just fetch you a wet cloth…’ And run another set of obs, Celeste thought. He really was terribly pale.
    ‘I’ve got to get work,’ Matthew muttered. He wasn’ta particularly large 18-year-old, but none the less he was trying to climb out of bed and he resisted as Celeste tried to guide him to lie back down. ‘I have to get to work, I’m going to be late…’
    ‘You’re in hospital, Matthew,’ Celeste said. ‘You’ve had a bang on your head, remember?’
    She was trying to reach for the call bell to summon help, worried that if he became agitated he might fall if he did get out of bed and hurt himself further, but as quickly as it had happened, Matthew seemed to remember where he was and stopped trying to climb out of bed and instead lay back down. ‘Sorry.’ He gave a wan smile and said it again. ‘Sorry. I’m fine now.’ And he seemed so, except, like Ben, Celeste was now worried.
    ‘Matthew. Do you know where you are?’
    ‘Hospital.’
    She went through his obs—they were the same as before, his blood pressure a smudge higher, but his momentary confusion still troubled Celeste and she buzzed on the intercom. ‘Can you send a doctor round to the observation ward?’
    ‘Is it urgent?’ Meg checked. ‘They’re just assessing a multi-trauma.’ Celeste looked over at Matthew’s pale but relaxed face and wavered for a moment. He seemed absolutely fine now and his obs were stable but, still, she just wasn’t sure.
    ‘I need the head injury assessed again,’ she said, thinking it was likely Meg was rolling her eyes now. ‘Let Ben know—he saw him.’ She headed back to Matthew and Fleur gave a worried nod when Celeste said, ‘I’ll be with you soon.’
    ‘Look after him!’ the old lady said. ‘Don’t worry about me.’
    Of course, by the time Ben arrived Matthew was sitting up and joking about his moment of confusion and refusing the oxygen that Celeste was trying to give him. ‘Look, I’m sorry to pull you away,’ she told Ben.
    ‘No problem. The trauma team is with the patient and he’s actually not that bad. So what’s going on with Matthew?’
    ‘Nothing!’ Matthew said and it certainly looked that way.
    ‘He was fine,’ Celeste explained. ‘In fact, he seems fine now, but he had a vomit a little earlier and was certainly confused and restless for a moment. He didn’t look at all well—’ She was trying to think up reasons to justify pulling a registrar out from an emergency, but Ben quickly interrupted.
    ‘I agree.’
    He didn’t seem remotely annoyed that she had called him. Instead, he was checking Matthew’s pupils and his blood pressure for himself