Torn (GXG)

Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Charlie's POV

"So this is the blood gas of the chap down stairs." I thrust a piece of paper in front of Ben's face and let him read it. "His hospital number is there too, want to have a look at his clinic letters."

Ben's face scrunched up in concentration as I watched him read the digits on the paper, then moved over to the computer to type in the patient's hospital details. I watched in slight disinterest. I had already done this myself five minutes before. I knew Mr Swan, who was currently downstairs in Resus in type two respiratory failure and being set up on a non-invasive ventilator. Ben, being relatively new hadn't met him yet. Mr Swan had been a regular for the last few years and had NIV more than once with us. I knew he was a good candidate and would accept him on the ward straight away. Ben, being new was still learning how to look after the NIV patients, he was getting reasonably good at it and I wanted him to lead the assessment.

"So he has been here with us before. And he is known to Doctor Winters COPD clinic." Ben looked at me with a thoughtful expression. "So it looks like he is a good one for us, and we do have a male ring-fenced bed for him too."

Yawning I nodded and gestured for him to follow me. "Wait till we see him first. You don't know what else might be going on. Just because he has been here for COPD doesn't mean he is going to be appropriate again." As we walked out of the ward and through the hospital to the emergency department I continued to tell Ben about other patients. "A few weeks ago me and Jenn went to asses someone who we had had a few times on the ward before, only this time when we went down she was in total metabolic acidosis but because her pCO2 was eight they decided to put her on NIV."

Ben looked confused as we stopped by the lift. "But that's high isn't it. Below six is normal."

I shot him a grin as we stepped in, "Yeah that's right but as she had bad COPD and on all her recent clinic letters her pCO2 sat between eight and eight point five. Her acidosis was caused by the bicarb being seventeen. She had a chronic respiratory failure but the acute problem wasn't the respiratory side."

"So that's why you don't just accept people over the phone then? I get it." He nodded and pushed through the door to resus. I followed behind him and as we walked through I heard the bleep go off in my pocket announcing a trauma alert to be admitted to resus ETA five minutes. Musing about how busy it would soon be considering how empty Resus currently was. There was just the one patient in here, which was surreal considering it was usually half full at the minimum. We walked over and were greeted by the ED sister. Ben took the lead as I had instructed him and started going the notes and introducing himself to Mr Swan who watched us behind the mask he had on.

"Hey so this is Mark Broody he is a twenty six year old guy who has been in an R.T.C." Hearing the familiar voice I span and watched as my brother pushed a man on a stretcher through the doors accompanied by another paramedic helping to push the young guy who appeared to be on a spinal board. I stayed quiet through their exchange as doctors and nurses surrounded their new patient and took the handover from Lewis. As they finished and turned to walk back the way they had come I reached out and grabbed his arm.

"Lewis." I bit my lip and looked up at him, his blue eyes narrowing when they saw me, clearly he was still annoyed by our argument. Taking a breath I spoke in a rush. "I'm sorry. I was an asshole. Can we talk about it please? After work? I miss you and I feel terrible."

Lewis sighed and ran a hand through his dark brown hair a smile appearing on his face. "You have no idea how glad I am to hear you say that." He laughed. "You are an asshole. I'll be round later yeah? You can cook me dinner! I think I deserve it." He glanced at his crew mate who was looking a little confused. "We should go. It's been busy this morning. Oh and I told Mum you'd break first." He turned and laughed on the way out leaving me slightly annoyed. Of course he would see it that way, our Mother had been bugging us both to make up as she hated it when we fell out.