Broken Doctor | Connor Rhodes 'discontinued'

Part 4; The bad lung.

I walk into treatment 1, still looking at the iPad then look up at my patient.

"Mr. Dolan, I'm going to be your doctor today" I tell him "So you have nasal congestion and discharge, cough, sore throat and fatigue?

"Yeah, I also have a tightness in my chest"

"Okay, is it okay if I take a look?"

"Yes, of course Doctor"

I take my stethoscope and listen to his left lung, seems okay, then I listen to his right lung, there are decreased breathing sounds, which leads me to think it's not upper respiratory infection. I check his stomach, a little discolouration, I check the monitor to see his BP and heart rate, his BP is lower than normal and had a rapid heart rate. Hmm.. collapsed lung maybe.

"Okay, Sir, I'm going to have a few tests first before I diagnose anything, okay?"

"Yes that's fine" He says with a smile

I smile back at him then walk over to Maggie, "I need a CT scan, blood test and a electrocardiogram for treatment 2"

"On it" she replies back with serious face, and turns to her magical phone, what wonderful things it does.

I check my watch, it's about lunch time so I should meet Conor. I walk to the cafeteria in the hospital and see Conor looking at the menu, I take this opportunity to scare the shit out of him. I walk up behind him, and place my mouth as close to his ear without him noticing, and whisper seductively, "Hey Doctor, I think I need and examination". He the jumps with the fright and shakes, and I start bawling my eyes out with laughter.

"Alex, you scared the daylights out of me" He answers with a fake frown.

"Dr? Do you need some Botox? I know a good plastic surgeon"

"Haha, very funny Alex, well what are you getting? I'm getting the chicken wrap"

"I'll just go for the same thing as you"

We walk over to the counter and order our food. I take out my purse, but he touches my hand and pushes it back into my, old, fake, Michael Kors bag, "No, no, no, I'm paying" he tells me with a firm voice

"Oh Conor it's no bother" I inform him, but he just took out his money and paid the cashier.

"Conor, I could of paid"

"I know, I know, but can't a trauma surgeon by a beautiful Emergency Medical resident a chicken wrap?"

"Well, when you put it that way, maybe" I laugh with a slight blush.

We sit down and just talk about where we did med school and stuff like that.

"So if your free now, I'd like to check to see if your wound it healing correctly and clean it" He queries.

"Sure, I have one patient and his labs aren't due for a while so I got time"

We put our rubbish into the bins and walk back to the ED. We walk into a empty room and I get up on the bed.

"So tell me if it feels sore when I touch"

He touches around my scar, until one spot, I let out a little twitch, it was really sore but I can't say it is or I will have to go off.

"On a scale of 1-10 how sore was that" he asks me

"2" I say lying it was probably a 5 or 6 but I can't admit it.

"Okay, it think it's just because of the operation, it should go away, I'll up your meds and just let me do and ultrasound to see if everything's good"

I nod, then I hear, "Code blue, treatment one" and again "Code blue, treatment one". I jump out of my bed and rush to treatment one, I see April and Doris beside him. Getting everything ready, and putting his bed down flat

"Okay give him 5 milligrams of epi" I say rushing over to his face.

"Left lung collapsed, going to have to intubate" I say putting he laryngoscope into his mouth. "Maggie results back?" I say nearly finished.

"Yes, here they are Doctor Williams" I get the bag in and I tell April to do it. Then I hear a beep.

"Heart beats normal, blood pressure 80/40" April says

"Get him on a bypass machine"

I take the scans from Maggie, oh my god, a large pneumothorax. "Page Dr. Rhodes immediately"

He walks into the room putting his gloves on, and says, "What's the problem?".

"A large bit of pneumothorax in the lung, I believe he has COPD, we need a chest tube now"

"Okay, give him 1 mg of lidocaine" he says

We put on masks and I say "Scalpel"

The nurse hands me the scalpel and I make a 2cm incision over the rib below the pneumothorax. I cut the muscle to make a tunnel to the pneumothorax and Rhodes spreads it with a Kelly clamp. He inserts the chest tube and secured it with a seal.

"He will need a CT scan to see if it's removing well, send him up there now" Conor says.

The nurses take him up and Conor looks at me, "You did a good job today"

"You didn't do to bad yourself" I say smiling at him. "So he will need a lung transplant or lung volume reduction surgery?"

"Yes most likely, I'd say the LVRS is better, we have a good surgeons here, and I'm sure they'd have it done in no time"

"Great, I think we should get back to that check up now" I say walking back to the room I had my tests done in, with Conor filling behind me.

(Okay so I probably won't have any done tomorrow because I'm away and have homework but I'll try my best 💙🙌🏻)