Pulse

FOUR

FOUR

He can't, for the life of him, remember how long it has been since he sat at the doctor's lounge room nursing a mug of then warm liquid.

"A penny for your thoughts," he heard a voice from a distance grow louder as the subject approached him and walked straight towards the pantry, attacking the last slice of cake from the whole cheesecake that a patient's mother from paeds had baked.

Julien remained silent as he finished off what was left in his mug and Kelsey promptly refreshed it with piping hot coffee from the kitchen counter.

He silently wished that he was nursing a mug of alcohol instead but coffee would have to do for now.

"This, this is good," Kelsey said of the cake, washing her hands with peach-scented hand soap and proceeding to take a seat right across from Julien.

"You okay?" she asked when he didn't let up, hands interlocked behind his mug as he brought it to his lips and took a sip.

"It's Jo's death anniversary today," he finally said, placing the empty mug in front of him. As the words left him, the raw pain of it all hit him again. He had spent several consecutive sleepless nights tossing and turning, dreading this date every year.

"I'm sorry, honey," she said, instinctively reaching out and squeezing his hands which were warm from the hot mug of coffee.

"Go home and get some rest," she urged but deep down inside, she was worried sick. She knew that the monsters came out to play when he was alone. "Have you been drinking?" she asked slowly, not quite sure how to approach the subject.

He remained silent once more but when she asked a second time, he quietly mentioned that he never drinks when he's at work and it's just the occasional drink these days, nothing more than a couple of glasses every other night. He lied.

"Julien, those add up. And you know it. You can't keep relying on it as your coping mechanism," Kelsey said gently, choosing her words carefully and then regretting them the moment the words left her lips when she saw how defensive her boyfriend got from her remark.

"You're starting to sound like my mom, Kels," he brushed her off, standing up and gathering his lanyard, phone and keys. "I'll be okay, alright? Don't worry about me," he said, kissing her on the cheek and squeezing her hands reassuringly.

Kelsey leaned back in her chair. It was a tall order for her not to worry, not when she knew that he was going to drive home and head straight to the drawer where he kept Jose Cuervo, Johnnie Walker and Jack Daniels locked away, and they would be his company for the night.

-

Damien Fortin looked almost peaceful in his forever slumber as Chase gently grazed his fingers over the one-year-old's cold hand which had been hooked up to a thin sterile plastic tube slowly dripping meds into his bloodstream.

Siobhan watched Chase silently right outside of Damien's ward, knowing for certain that he did not notice her standing there as his sole focus was on Damien.

She noticed that Chase had the same look in his eyes, the same one he had when his last terminally-ill patient was declared brain dead. His girlfriend used to worry that he was becoming far too attached to his patients but she also figured that that was what made Chase the doctor that he is today.

Chase hadn't realized that he had been holding his breath and when he breathed out, a sigh came with it.

Damien had been in the intensive care unit for the past week and within the first few days here, Chase knew that there was no chance that the tiny child could survive what he had been through.

Chase pulled a chair close and sat next to Damien, watching as his chest rose and fell with the help of a ventilator, silently wondering if his agonizing final moments of consciousness in the hot vehicle had been erased from his memory forever now.

The worst part of that thought was the fact that this wasn't the first child a parent had forgotten in the backseat of their car. In his years at Montreal General Hospital, Chase had treated 13 of such cases and only 2 little ones made it through, albeit with serious repercussions.

Chase touched the forgotten child's fingers and curled his around them, the involuntary twitch which meant nothing medically still giving the paediatrician an ounce of comfort.

He realized that there will never be a day when losing a patient won't hurt but in spite of his devastation, he was somewhat glad that Damien Fortin's organs could at the very least be salvaged and continue to live on through more of his patients on the transplant list.

"You ready?" Chase heard a familiar voice and he was transported back to the operating theatre with Kelsey holding a scalpel and staring right at him, lost in his own thoughts. "I need you to be here now. Completely here, Chase," Kelsey reminded him and he nodded.

"I'm here," he said, his voice slightly muffled behind the surgical mask wrapped around the lower half of his face.

"This is Damien Fortin, he's 13 months old. He was declared brain dead on 4 March 2020 and has been on life support throughout his entire time here. With parental consent, he has given up his organs for donation. Today, we will be performing an organ procurement surgery with a total of 6 viable organs which are the liver, cornea, heart, kidney, pancreas and lung. The surgery will take an estimated time of 13 hours and we have 4 surgeons and 4 nurses on the team today. Let's make this count, guys," Kelsey said.

"We're starting with the harvesting of the heart which will be going to an 18-month-old girl from Calgary. Her name is Charlotte Landry and she has been on the pacemaker as a result of a congenital heart defect. Charlotte's scheduled in for a surgery this evening and we're hoping to get her off that pacemaker for good," Chase said.

He turned to look at the child who did not open his eyes once during this past week; the child whose mother would grieve for the rest of her life over that one dire mistake and amidst it all, as he watched the heart still beating in the little boy's chest, knew that there was good in all of this.

-

Dylan gently closed the door, afraid that he would wake his sleeping wife but she had been a light sleeper even before the pregnancy. She rolled over, groggily asking for the time.

"It's about 11," he whispered though she was now fully awake, struggling to sit up and he quickly placed a pillow behind her back.

"They're kicking," his wife said excitedly and he could see the tiny movements on her expanded belly.

He placed a hand over her belly and felt one of the girls kick.

"Any minute now, they'd both be out and you'll have two extra players on your soccer team," Alexie laughed.

"Any minute now," Dylan repeated, smiling as he planted a kiss on her belly.