A Healer's War

Chapter 4: Birth of a Stain

Chapter 4: Birth of a Stain

It is nearly impossible to say precisely when a Stain forms because its birth occurs in secret. This has mostly to do with the cocktail of hormones the body releases in traumatic moments. One of these hormones, adrenaline, is the body's fight, flight, or freeze response, responsible for ensuring we survive an unpredictable world. Combined with the other hormones, this slurry drives us to forget in favor of survival, letting us temporarily ignore pain and imprints the searing moment deep into our hearts, and influencing the patterns of our behavior, ensuring we never feel this way again. During Octavia's code, that's what happened inside Rory.

After the time of death was called, he sat on a stool in the hallway. His heart still raced, beating as it cemented the moment into his tissue. Because of the hormones, he could only remember bits and pieces of the fight for Octavia's life. He remembered the alarms and the now deafening silence. He remembered shaking as he rotated off chest compressions, another nurse taking his place, and watched Octavia's heartbeat limp across the monitor's screen. He remembered rotating back in and choking back the bile as her ribs cracked beneath his bloody gloved hands. Octavia said nothing. Purpling and swollen, she was eerily silent in the surrounding chaos, like the grisly eye of a hurricane. Rory pushed down again and again and again, each time keeping the girl's blood pumping one moment longer.

If he had the presence of mind, he might have thanked adrenaline, as there were long stretches he didn't remember. It was like something shielded him. He didn't remember how many rounds of compressions he did. Ten? Twenty? He knew at the end he was soaked in sweat. At some point, Bell put her hand on his arm mid-compression and gently told him that the attending had already called it. But he wasn't done fighting yet.

We can do more! He wanted to keep going—had to keep going. They couldn't leave her alone. No, not yet. Octavia deserved a second chance, too.

He didn't remember being walked to a stool in the hall outside and sat down as a wary line of practitioners exited the room. If Rory had the presence of mind, he might have seen the fresh wound they too carried in their downcast eyes. But he didn't—couldn't. Heartache and anger froze him solid.

They had failed... No, he'd failed. He could have done more. It didn't matter the odds were stacked against them. It didn't matter they'd tried to move a mountain with shovels; it didn't matter why she was there in the first place or who had put her there. They'd lost, which meant they could have done more... He could have done more. He doubled over and heaved as something gave way inside him. Unknown to him, right there on that stool, a new Stain took root.

Most Stains are small and can heal quickly if addressed. Others are larger and take longer. Rory's broadest Stain had been festering since he was ten—old enough to comprehend but not wise enough yet to understand. And while the mind often tries to forget, the body always keeps the tab.

Rory looked down at his shaking hands. Eight... in eight weeks. How can so many be forgotten?

While death was familiar in healthcare, those eight deaths were all the result of other people's choices. Every one of them is a tragedy. In his bones, Rory knew that they could have prevented those deaths. Should have been prevented. There were laws designed to prevent them even. Making each one feel like a hammer blow into his well-crafted suit of armor. The first blow just leaves a dent, and the second drives it deeper—but the armor holds. By the eighth, the armor cracks, gashing the flesh beneath.

Left to fester, a Stain can destroy a person. Its use of shame is a potent deterrent. In time, whether seconds or years, the mind will be so thoroughly soaked with shame and its chronic friend resentment that the entire body will seethe with wrath. Eventually, that wrath boils out, and the Stain spreads violently to others.

But all is not lost. With Stains, Frost had it right: the best way out is always through. And through hurts. But from that pain comes growth—a slow, cramping expansion that generates power. It's that power - no matter how insignificant or silly we tell ourselves it is - that generates hope and carries us through. Unfortunately, not all who suffer make the journey.

Sitting on that stool, gloved fists clenched, Rory's hope splintered as pieces of him struggled desperately to keep from shattering. He clung to himself, holding on to a thread of hope that perhaps somehow, in some way, help would come before he fell apart.