Surrounded But Alone

Prolong

The minute I walked in through the door, a familiar feeling came upon me. It could have been the lighting but more likely the eyes of the head nurse, Stella, whom I once worked closely with glaring at me. She glanced momentarily at her watch as I walked over to the front desk table and sighed heavily.

I expected this reaction from her but I found it weary for me to explain myself.

"Doctor Harrison, how come you're here so early? Your supervised discharge with Mr. Qiaodi isn't for another three hours," she said. It wasn't usual for me to come this early but the patient whose progress I was asked to oversee wasn't a usual one either.

"And glad to see you just as obsessed with time as you always were. Can't I just pop in to say hello to my old friends?" I teased her as I always had done through our many years of practice together. It was a habit of hers that I had learned to deal with.

"Not since you moved on to that fancy university uptown and took up counselling. I had hoped that you would have stayed there," she said with a smirk and I chuckled. She always had a quick tongue when it came to our banter but I wanted to get straight to the point of my early visit.

"Well sorry to disappoint, I wanted to visit two days ago but one of the other nurses said that he had to be isolated. I want to see what frame of mine he's in before I take him anywhere later today," I said hoping she would give a brief description of how he was to have earned him isolation. She simply nodded and typed on the desk computer.

"He came out of isolation yesterday evening and we put him in room twenty-four with Pedro to keep a closer eye on him. Doctor Dillion thought the time out would help the patient think clearly and get ready to talk,"  she said as she skimmed through the file and I just shook my head seemingly in agreement with the statement.

Dillon is a good doctor and it may have worked if the patient didn't already have a quiet personality. Some patients may be overreacting and need time alone because that's the ones people recognize need help. The few like Presely Qiaodi rarely ever see and few doctors have learned the needed flexible approach when it comes to trauma therapy. 

"Ok then, let's see if it worked," I said as I walked away from the desk.

"Fingers crossed, he rarely says anything to anyone, even you, and you've been with him before they transferred him out of the medical ward. We can't force him to talk," she said as she took up a clipboard from the desk.

"Oh, I know I can't, he's more of a listener so it's time I start working with that. Later Stella," I said walking into the first room leaving her with a questioning expression. I was now in the recreational part of the hospital where the inpatients could watch television and play board games. Of course, I didn't expect to find him out here, he was too sensitive for that according to the interviews and observations from his roommate and friends.

The hospital hadn't changed much since I stopped working here seven years ago as a Psychologist, so his room should be on the left at the far back. As I walked through the halls watching some of the patients ages seven to seventeen going to the counselling rooms I remembered why I left to start counselling in schools. Young ones like Presley who were still teenagers were really commonly seen in and out of these rooms. Each seemed more troubled than the other and on the verge of giving up. When an opening became available at HIDCA University, I thought I could at least make contact with troubled young adults early to help them before they get here.

Presley fell through the cracks and as I've learned through my many years of experience the one you suspect the least can be the most damaged. He is a very quiet, disciplined, and brilliant student. He had to be to get into that university and his name came up in my office so frequently by other students who he had personally helped. He was and still is admired by all who came in contact with him and he did so much to help the school itself.