“Saved again by the pain nurse.” Cheryl Beth saw the heavy brown hand on her shoulder and turned to smile at Denise, a large woman in green scrubs who had worked on this floor for the past two years. Tonight she was the RN in charge.
“I don’t know what we would have done without you,” she said.
“You guys did the hard work.” Cheryl Beth had a pleasing, musical voice with a hint of the Kentucky drawl she had worked hard to lose. “I just helped.”
“You always share the credit. I know how you work.” Denise smiled at her fondly. “Pizza?” She indicated an open box in the adjoining storeroom.
“That’s a big no-no. Don’t let Stephanie Ott catch you.” Cheryl Beth walked back and took a small piece, holding it on a paper towel and taking a bite. She needed something in her stomach besides liquor.
“I don’t have to worry about that,” Denise said. “Ott doesn’t even come to the floors, much less at this time of night. If the suits don’t like it, they shouldn’t close the cafeteria at eight. They can’t close things fast enough at this old place. At least you helped poor Mrs. Dahl.”
Cheryl Beth spoke between bites. “The woman’s been in pain every night. Then when her doc comes by in the morning, she’s finally fallen asleep. He says, ‘What’s the problem? She’s sleeping.’ He didn’t see how bad it had been the night before.”
“Did Dr. Miller enjoy you calling him during his Christmas party?”
“I’m lovable. It just pisses me off when people suffer. We had a nice chat. He hadn’t wanted to adjust her meds.” She washed and sanitized her hands. “But he didn’t like her lung sounds. I gently reminded him it was because she was too exhausted to try sitting up and walking. So I finally convinced him to change her meds and he signed the order to use a fentanyl patch. We’ll have to monitor the dose carefully.”
“Well, he wouldn’t have done it for me,” Denise said. “No wonder you were Nurse of the Year. Thanks, baby girl.”
Denise had called her that for years. At forty-four, Cheryl Beth felt far from being a baby girl. She was older than many of the docs now. She had watched as more patients turned up who were her age or younger. It was a battle now to keep weight off her average build, keep her hair something approximating the light brown she had been born with. On close inspection, a net of wrinkles was etching its way around the edges of her eyes. When she was younger, people had told her she looked like Jodie Foster, and she had sometimes believed there was a passing resemblance. But that was a long time ago.
