Pensington Nursing Home

Part One

Today was my first day working at the Pensington Nursing Home. I walked through the doors and went to the check-in window.

"Hello, welcome to Pensington Nursing Home. How may I assist you today?"

"It's my first day, and I need my patient file," I asked. The secretary typed something down, and went to a file cabinet.

"Name?"

"Nora Wejik," I said.

"Could you spell your last name?"

"W, E, J, I, K."

"Alright! Here you go!" she said, handing me a folder.

Name: Thomson, Mickeal G.
Sex: Male
Birthday: November 3, 1973
Age: 46
Height: 6' 4"
Weight: 204 lbs.
Injuries: Stabbed in the back of the head after a drunken knife fight with his brother
Room: 27
Notes:
-Prefers to be addressed as 'Mick'
-Abandoned by 7 different nurses

"He seems to be interesting!" I chuckled to myself as I walked down the hallway. I stopped at his door, and took a deep breath before entering. "Hello? Does this room belong to Mick Thomson?"

"Yeah. Please don't leave," he said. I got a good look at his face as I closed the door. He had a round face with a stubbly dark mustache and a small beard. He had long black hair and piercing blue eyes. He was sitting in a chair reading.

"I won't leave you until you're ready for me to leave," I said. I noticed how gentle he acted, contradictory to his appearance. "I'm Nora, your new nurse. Could you tell me anything about your injury?"

"I'll tell you everything I know about what happened, which is incredibly limited knowledge to say the least. I was really down in the dumps one day, and ended up drunk. My brother came in, also drunk. We started shouting at each other, which escalated into a knife fight, and he stabbed me in the back of the head," he said. I let a small gasp escape my lips and looked at him comfortingly.

"That's not very good. I'm here to make you feel better, physically and emotionally," I said. "First thing's first. On a scale of one to ten, ten being unbearable and one being nothing, how much physical pain are you experiencing?" I said, pulling out my checklist.

"I'm feeling a nice, solid, six. Hurts like a bitch, but not unbearable," he said, carefully caressing the stitches on the back of his head. I nodded and scribbled it down on my notepad. "I really hope you don't leave, I've been abandoned seven times."

"Well, I won't be the eighth nurse to abandon you. Why do you think they might have left?" I asked.

"I don't know. Fear, maybe? Intimidation? Mistrust? Most of them walked in and walked right back out," he said solemnly. "You know, we would have named our little girl Nora..."

"What happened?"

"Stacy and I always wanted children, and one day we found out that we had a little girl on the way. We were so excited. We wanted to name her Nora, but Stacy... went into labor 3 months early. She miscarried, and died later." Mick leaned back against the chair, looking at the ceiling. I gasped and grabbed his hand.

"If she had made it, I bet she would have been the kindest sweetheart just like her dad," I said, our eyes locked in place. He blushed slightly. "Not to awkwardly change the subject, but I need to check your vitals." I sat closer to him, and checked his heartbeat. He watched as I scribbled into my notepad. I placed the stethoscope onto his chest.

"Alright, breathe in," I said, breathing with him. "Annnnnd, out through your mouth." We exhaled in synchrony and I repeated the process. "Sorry if I act a little weird, I'm used to working with children." Mick said nothing and quietly giggled. I got out my blood pressure cuff and wrapped it around his arm.

"It's fine. I'm just... nobody has ever been this kind to me before. I'm just not used to it," he said.

"Well I'm glad to be a reliable source of gentility," I said. I packed up my cuff and wrote his blood pressure down. I looked at the clock. 11:44. "Do you want lunch? I brought my own, but I'll get you something."

"I'm not really that hungry. I might be later, though."