Tanya
O'Toole is a radiologist who works wicked hours at the hospital.
She's recently ended her marriage, and lost her grandmother. She
needs something in her life, but right now, she has no idea what that
is. Luckily for her, that's about to change.
Tanya
O'Toole walked briskly down the hall to the semi-dark room where a
wall full of X-rays and MRI's awaited her. Slipping her reading
glasses unobtrusively onto her nose, she shoved the door open with a
tired sigh. She'd worked a double shift, covering for another of the
doctors who was recovering for an emergency appendectomy. She was
exhausted, but doing her best to remain alert.
"It's
what I get for changing my emphasis at my advanced age," she
mumbled as she straddled a stool and examined the images before her.
She
was hardly old, but she felt it when she had to keep pace with her
younger peers. Sometimes she felt more like a babysitter than a
colleague. Putting a microphone up to her full lips, she dictated her
findings on the set of films in front of her.
"The
patient is a fourteen year old male. Radiographs of the left wrist
with comparison views of the right wrist are submitted for
evaluation." She took her glasses off, wiped them on her blouse
and rubbed the bridge of her nose. Stifling a sigh, she continued.
"Multiple views of the left wrist show that the distal radius
and ulna are intact and are unremarkable. There is normal bony
development." She continued in a bored tone of voice giving the
pertinent information to the transcriptionist.
Her
readings would be typed up and filed with copies sent to the
physicians. Their office staff would call and give the news, in this
case, good. The bones were not broken, just a nasty sprain. She
wondered how the teenager had injured his wrist, but knew she would
never find out. That was the only thing she missed, the interaction
with the patients. However, since her grandmother's death, she felt
compelled to become a radiologist, rather than the family practice
doctor she had initially trained to be.
Gran's
death was unexpected. A healthy woman of seventy-five, she'd
developed a rare form of Cancer which had gone undetected and
untreated until it was too late to save her. Taking action was
something Tanya did well and she had promptly changed the emphasis of
her residency. It meant more training, but she didn't regret the
decision. If she helped even one person catch a problem before it
progressed too far, she would feel validated.
Her
dedication and passion about her work encompassed her life. She did
nothing social, attended no parties, except for those required by her
position. She didn't even date much anymore, though she would go out
in small groups occasionally. She even watched episodes of Grey's
Anatomy and laughed. There was no hot humping in the on-call
rooms or supply cupboards. Those people obviously didn't work for a
living.
"Honey,
you need to relax," her mother fussed the last time she'd been
home. "You're exhausted. You know you aren't as young as you
were."
"Thanks,
Mom. You always make me feel so good about myself," she'd
snapped.
That
was two weeks ago, and she hadn't even called her mother since. It
was on her list of things to do, but she was too tired for the
inevitable arguments that seemed to enter into every call. She knew
her mother spoke out of concern, but it still annoyed her to have her
age pointed out to her like a frailty. She was thirty-two, not sixty.
She
examined the last set of X-rays and left the room, dragging her feet
on the linoleum floor. Even the best shoes did not keep her from
having sore feet by the end of a sixteen hour shift. She shuffled
into the staff lounge and collapsed into the nearest easy chair,
putting her feet up on the coffee table.
The
room was empty except for another doctor dressed in surgical scrubs.
He looked absorbed in the science-fiction book he was reading, so she
leaned back and closed her eyes. Before she knew it, she'd fallen
asleep. A sound startled her and she jerked awake. She blushed as she
realized the sound that had woken her was her own snoring. Mortified,
she glanced at the doctor, but he hadn't raised his head from his
book. She shifted in her chair, straightened her shirt and closed her
eyes again.
"You
should head home if you're that tired," the man said without
looking up from his book.
"I
know," she sighed. "I'm just too exhausted to drive. I'm
afraid I'd have an accident, and end up back here, taking up bed
space."
He
chuckled, setting his book aside. "You'd get some rest anyway."
"No,
I wouldn't, I'd have all you bloody doctors poking me to see what
made me tick," she managed a soft chuckle and nestled further
into her chair.
"We'd
save special tests just for you. The most intrusive possible, with
blood drawn every hour. I'm sure we could find ways to occupy your
time."
"No
doubt," she said, starting to get annoyed now by the
conversation. She wanted to rest and she wanted to be left alone,
neither of which was happening. "Look," she said, sitting
up in her chair. "I don't really mean to be rude...."
"Sure
you do," he smiled, looking up from his book for the first time.
He was quite attractive, but had a smug expression on his face as he
clasped his hands together between his knees. "You say that so I
won't think that you think I'm being intrusive. But whenever
someone starts a sentence with things like, I don't mean to be
rude, or with all due respect, they mean just the
opposite."
Tanya
pressed her lips in a tight line. She glared at him for no reason
other than he happened to be in the line of her stare. He smiled at
her, his teeth flashing white in his well tanned face. When did he
have time to get a tan? Tanya was pale from all the extra hours she
spent indoors in dimly lit rooms. It was bad enough he was gorgeous
and tall, with dark hair and dancing blue eyes, but he was tanned,
muscular and had on a cologne that smelled so good, it made her
dizzy.
©
2020 Dellani Oakes
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