Intensive Caring Read online

“You want me to take over in here so you can head home?” Joanne had toddlers, Lillianna and Benjamin, adorable three-year-old twins with jade-green eyes, curly black hair and formidable energy.

  “No rush. I’ve actually got the day to myself. Lillian and Bud are visiting. They’ve taken the kids to the park for the afternoon, and Spence is making dinner for everyone. I’ll stick around until Mr. Gregory goes up to the OR.”

  Lillian was Joanne’s mother-in-law, one of the most vibrant older women Portia had ever met.

  “Tell Lillian I said hi. If it stays this quiet, maybe you and I can grab a coffee before you leave?”

  “I’d like that. I want to hear about the funeral.”

  Portia blew out a breath and shook her head, but before she could say anything, the door behind them swung open and Olivia stuck her head in. “Doc Bailey, could you come and have a look at this patient? Kid’s fourteen. Looks to me like she’s having a grand mal seizure. Her mother says there’s no history, though.”

  “I’ll be right there. See you later, Joanne.” Portia hurried off to begin her twelve-hour shift.

  NELSON WAS AWARE that she’d left the room. Other voices buzzed around him like a swarm of friendly bees, but hers, clear, confident and soothing, was missing.

  They’d given him something to dull the agonizing pain in his lower body, but it hadn’t made him sleepy yet. Instead, he was hyperconscious, intensely aware of everything that was happening.

  He’d blacked out after the crash, then woken to a cacophony of frightened voices and the ongoing scream of powerful engines still circling the track. The foul odor of burning rubber and the acrid stench of foam had assaulted him as firemen and first-aid attendants surrounded him. At first, he’d had no sensation except stunned surprise that he was still alive. And then red-hot pain consumed him, the most intense pain he’d ever known. He couldn’t get his breath. His lungs were on fire. He’d needed every ounce of self-control to keep from weeping, before, mercifully, he’d lost consciousness again.

  When he’d awoke in the ambulance, strapped to a board, an oxygen mask covering his nose and making it marginally easier to breathe, the indescribable torment in his legs was nearly beyond bearing. That was when it came to him that he must have hopelessly mangled his feet; he knew that jamming the legs against the floorboards of a race car caused extreme injuries. Would his lower legs have to be amputated? The suspicion had sent icy fear through every cell.

  He’d tried to ask the young medic in the ambulance, but his voice wouldn’t work. He couldn’t get enough air in his lungs to produce more than a garbled moan. In abject terror and unspeakable agony, he’d endured the transfer from the ambulance to this room. He’d thought so often the past few years that death would be a friend if it came quickly and unexpectedly. But living with no feet was a horror beyond imagining.

  Dr. Mathews had taken charge the moment he’d arrived at St. Joe’s. She’d asked questions, explained each procedure as it was performed and reassured him when he gasped out his concern about his feet.

  There was no question of amputation, she’d said, but his heels were badly fractured, along with the long outer bone on his lower right leg. His right hip was also dislocated. The fact that he was feeling so much pain was a good sign, she’d told him, but not a guarantee that the accident hadn’t damaged his spinal column.

  Damaged his spine? The relief over his legs gave way to a renewed panic as the medical team inserted needles into his arms, asked him still more questions, rolled machines into place and positioned his limbs for X rays. His body seemed to have a capacity for pain he’d never dreamed possible.

  And then he’d heard Dr. Mathews talking to someone she called Portia, obviously also a doctor. He heard the swift recitation of his injuries, the note of concern in Mathews’s tone when she mentioned his spine, the relief in her voice when Portia assured her there was no permanent damage.

  He didn’t question how the woman called Portia knew. She had such confidence that he simply believed what she said, and his own relief was overwhelming. Even through the paroxysms of pain he was able to relax marginally. When the owner of the voice came close enough for him to see her, he wanted to thank her, as though she’d given him an invaluable gift with her assurances.

  He still couldn’t speak clearly, but he looked up at her, and as if taking a mental snapshot, he memorized the unusual angularity of her face, the opaque grayness of her eyes, the wild spikiness of her short black hair.

  She smiled and winked at him, then told him firmly that he would be fine.

  Her utter confidence calmed him as he was taken to the operating room. His last thought before the anesthesia guided him down to a dark and timeless space was of the woman named Portia.

  “IT GOT BUSY THERE for a while, but it’s slacked off again.” Portia stirred a heaping spoonful of sugar into her mug of tea and sank back into the rumpsprung sofa. “How’s your Indy driver doing?”

  The staff lounge was empty except for her and Joanne, and the two women slumped comfortably side by side, feet up on the battered coffee table.

  “He’s still in surgery. Before it goes nuts again out there, tell me about the funeral this morning,” Joanne said. “What the heck happened? You looked as if you’d been whipped when you got back.”

  Portia shuddered at the memory. She took a gulp of hot tea and swore when it burned her mouth. Then she carefully described the painful scene with Betty’s mother.

  “She screamed at me with everyone listening, ordered me to leave, said I had no right to be there. She believes I was totally responsible for her daughter’s death.”

  “That’s absolutely ridiculous.” Joanne snorted. “I’ve never understood why people have to blame someone when a loved one dies. Particularly a doctor who’d done everything in her power to keep the patient alive.”

  “Maybe so, but Mrs. Hegard isn’t alone in thinking I made a mistake with Betty,” Portia commented. “The hospital review board reprimanded me, as well, remember.”

  “Yeah, well, in my opinion you oughta demand an apology from them. Betty Hegard was an asthmatic who relied totally on inhalers and was doing herself serious damage by overusing them,” Joanne reminded Portia forcefully. “We all know that inhalers are effective for flare-ups. Using them the way Betty did worsens the asthma and increases the possibility of death from an attack. All you did was sensibly suggest she cut down on them and try some alternative therapies for controlling her disease, right?”

  Portia sighed. “Yes, but that wasn’t all of it.” What a relief it was to unburden herself to Joanne. “When I looked at Betty, I could clearly see the reasons for her chronic asthma. I used my intuitive abilities instead of following standard medical procedure, and I suggested she explore the underlying emotional components of her physical illness—an early abortion that Betty never stopped grieving for or feeling guilty about.”

  “How did you know? Did she tell you?”

  Portia nodded. “I could see that the energy in her pelvis was blocked, and one day she broke down and told me why. It revealed so much about her, about the reasons behind her ups and downs. I suggested she talk to someone. I knew that her emotions were keeping her sick, making her attacks more frequent and more severe. And yes, I suggested she cut back on the puffers, explaining that they were highly addictive.” Portia frowned, trying to remember the exact sequence of events.

  “I’m sure I told her to do it slowly. I never dreamed she’d interpret what I said to mean she should stop using them overnight. She’d been on them long enough to know all the risks. I’m pretty sure she did it deliberately, and that’s what I feel the worst about—not recognizing that she was suicidal.”

  “Stop it.” Joanne’s voice was stern. “The girl was clearly far more disturbed than anyone realized,” she declared. “You weren’t the only doctor treating her. Her family physician had as much or more responsibility for her welfare as you did.”

  “Betty idolized me, Joanne.” Portia struggled
to keep the ready tears at bay. “She was in Emerg so many times this past six months I got to know her really well. I knew she was emotionally unstable and I did suggest she get psychiatric help—some counseling, at the very least—but maybe I wasn’t as insistent as I should have been.”

  “We can’t always force patients to do what’s best for them,” Joanne reminded her. “She certainly wasn’t psychotic enough to be admitted. And you told me Betty’s mother tore a strip off you that time you advised counseling for her daughter. Which is probably why the woman was so abusive to you today—she knows now she should have listened. Guilt is what made her turn on you. It’s easier to blame you than to accept some of that blame herself.”

  Joanne looked at Portia and her voice softened. “But none of this really helps, does it? The simple fact is you lost a patient and you feel horrible about it. I know all about that. Nothing anyone says makes it easier.”

  Portia felt tears start to flow, and she swiped at them with the back of her hand. “We both know what the real issue is, Joanne.”

  She had to struggle to keep her voice from trembling. “I used my psychic ability with Betty. I did it again just now with your racing driver, even though I vowed when Betty died I’d never do it again. I can shut the ability off if I choose. It’s hard, but I can do it. Yet when I’m confronted with severely injured or desperately ill individuals, it’s so tempting to read their auras. I can see where things are going wrong, how bad they are.”

  “And you always do the scientific tests to back up what you intuit,” Joanne pointed out quickly.

  Portia nodded. She was scrupulous about that. “Still, using my psychic talents with Betty was a huge mistake. I can’t stop thinking that if I’d just followed standard procedures and left things at that, she might still be alive.”

  “Hindsight’s always twenty-twenty.” Joanne reached over and with a soothing hand rubbed the younger woman’s shoulder. “I’ve relied on your psychic ability more often than I can count, and I’ve never known you to be wrong. You’ve got to think of all the lives you’ve saved by trusting your gift.”

  Portia realized that Joanne was doing everything in her power to make her feel better. She wouldn’t for the world hurt her friend by admitting it wasn’t helping, despite the unforgiving knot in the pit of her stomach that just wouldn’t go away.

  So she made a concerted effort to lighten the atmosphere.

  “I know how often I’ve told you I’m staying single, but I have to confess that at times like this I wish to God I had a partner, Joanne. Just some sweet, undemanding, caring guy who wouldn’t freak when he found out I saw rainbows around everybody.”

  “He’s at the end of a rainbow waiting for you to find him,” Joanne teased. “It’s like real estate—location, location, location. He’s probably right under your nose, waiting to be noticed.”

  “I’d laugh at that if it hadn’t happened to you.” Joanne had met Spence right here at St. Joe’s. He’d been a security guard. Now he owned and operated the largest security company in Vancouver. Their romance had given Portia much-needed reassurance about love and marriage.

  “I feel blessed to have Spence in my life.” Joanne grinned. “Although at moments I feel both blessed and beleaguered, what with the twins and my job and his business. Remember, too, he didn’t come along until I was forty-one. You’ve got a lot bigger window of opportunity than I had to locate Mr. Right. For heaven’s sake, you’re still a girl, my friend.”

  “Some girl.” Portia rolled her eyes. “Twenty-eight, turning twenty-nine in a couple months, and great guys sure aren’t lining up to date me.” Portia sighed dramatically. “Sometimes I think I must have been born without the romance gene. My mother can’t understand what’s wrong with me. She keeps reminding me she’d been married twice by the time she was my age.”

  “Quality, Portia. Think quality. With all due respect to your mother, marriage isn’t about quantity. By the way, what happened to that hunk of a radiologist you were seeing? Tom…was that his name?”

  “Todd.” Portia shrugged. “I got tired of hearing about the legal battles he went through with his ex. He was hanging on to the anger and resentment as though they were annuities, for cripes’ sake. I started sympathizing out loud with her instead of him. For some strange reason he got upset about that. So I had to fire him.”

  Joanne was still laughing when the intercom blared, “Dr. Bailey, please report to Emerg—stat. Dr. Bailey to Emerg.”

  Portia drained her tea and got to her feet. “Back to the battleground. Give those little angels of yours kisses from me.”

  “Shall do, although angels isn’t the term I’d use for them,” Joanne said, but she couldn’t disguise the pride in her tone.

  “See you soon, Joanne. You working next week?”

  “Tuesday and Friday.” Since the birth of the twins, Joanne had given up her position as senior ER physician. She came in now on a casual basis, so she could spend as much time as possible with her babies and her husband.

  “I’m on shift both days.” Portia hurried back to the ER, where the triage nurse informed her a teenage male with severe gunshot wounds would be arriving in seven minutes.

  Portia pulled on protective clothing, sterile gloves and glasses, and as the attendants hurried through the outside port to trauma room one with a stretcher bearing a screaming and bloody young boy named Saul, every personal thought disappeared.

  Here was someone needing everything Portia could give. And in that total giving was solace, because there was neither time nor energy to think about anything except keeping a foolish sixteen-year-old from bleeding out. She did, however, make a conscious effort to avoid studying his aura. She’d promised herself she’d stop using it with her patients, and from now on, she was, by God, going to do her best to keep that promise.

  CHAPTER THREE

  PORTIA WAS ON DUTY AGAIN two afternoons later when one of the nurses from the surgical ward on the fourth floor sought her out in Emerg.

  “Dr. Bailey, do you have a minute? I’m Bridget Reiss. I have a patient who’s asking for you. His name’s Nelson Gregory. I told him I’d pass along the message.”

  In spite of the dozens of patients she’d seen in the past forty-eight hours, Portia remembered him well.

  “The race car driver.”

  “Right. He’s very insistent.”

  “Did he say why?”

  Bridget shook her blond head and shrugged. “He probably just wants to thank you for caring for him in Emerg.”

  “I didn’t treat him. He was Doc Mathews’s patient. How’s he doing, anyway?”

  “Came through surgery fine—he’s really physically fit, which always helps. The bone scan confirmed that his spine is uninjured, which is a real blessing. His feet are in casts. He’s also in a hip brace. Pretty major injuries, but I guess you’ve gotta be suicidal in the first place to drive one of those racing cars.”

  “Isn’t that the truth. Well, he’s looking at a long convalescence,” Portia remarked. “Hospital at least a couple of weeks, in a wheelchair for about six. Then it’ll take months before he’s really mobile again.”

  Bridget nodded. “Extensive physio, too. That type of injury is pretty debilitating. He seems like an okay guy, although you can tell he’s used to getting what he wants when he wants it. Or doesn’t want it—apparently a young woman came to visit him yesterday and he had Security escort her out. She was pretty upset…caused quite an uproar. She sure had an interesting vocabulary.” Bridget grinned.

  “Gregory sounds like a prima donna to me.”

  “I guess money’ll do that. He told one of the nurses he’s a commodities broker—the racing is just a sideline. But those cars cost a fortune. You gotta be loaded to get into racing. That’s what my boyfriend says. Anyway, Doctor, I’ll tell him I passed the message along.”

  “Thanks.” Portia smiled and went off to find her next patient.

  It was Cedric Vencouer, a man she’d gotten to know well over
the years and for whom she had a great deal of affection. He was a street person, and he’d been coming in every few months ever since she was an intern. Over the years Portia had treated him for complications related to drinking. For the past year, he’d fought to stop using drugs. He’d been successful, and he’d told her the last time she’d seen him that he’d also cut down on alcohol.

  As a result, his complaints now were usually minor, sometimes real, sometimes imagined. His devotion to Portia had caused much amusement among the staff; they teased her for attracting unusual groupies.

  Cedric had been friends with another skid-row derelict named Abner, who’d also refused to have any doctor care for him but Portia. Abner had died a year ago from a drug overdose, and that sad event had impelled Cedric’s sobriety.

  The nurses all knew Cedric. They knew he’d wait patiently, sometimes for hours, until Portia was free. Today he sat perched on an examination table in one of the curtained cubicles. He always had a distinctive scent about him, which the nurses labeled eau de skid row. He usually wore layers of sweaters and shirts, with a battered ski jacket overtop, no matter the season. His jeans were clean, but worn paper thin.

  Chronologically, he was young, but the years on the streets had taken their toll. Many of his teeth were gone, and he looked years older than thirty-eight, with deep trenches carved into hollow cheeks. When he saw her, a wide blissful smile transformed his rugged face, and his deep-set green eyes danced with pleasure.

  “Cedric.” Portia smiled back at him. She so much admired his struggle to stay free of drugs and remain sober. In spite of his lifestyle, he had something innocent and endearing about him that had always touched her heart.

  “Hello, my friend.” She took his right hand in hers the way she always did, noting that today his fingers didn’t curl around her own. She felt him make the effort, but the hand didn’t cooperate. “I haven’t seen you for a while. How are you?”

  “‘She is too fair, too wise; wisely too fair.’” He always greeted her with a line of poetry, always different, always flattering, but today his voice was slurred and barely above a whisper.