8.

What does a hot dog use for protection?

Condoments

Text from Tama'i to Amethyst

A METHYST

"I've tried everything I can think of, and I'm not sure what else to do," the concerned mom said as she urged her toddler to take a sip from the cup in her hand. "He's been this way for a few hours now."

"He seems very lethargic," I mused as I used the stethoscope to listen to his breathing. "His heart rate is slower than normal, but his breathing is fine and his lungs sound clear. You said this has happened before?"

"Yes. He was slow like this Sunday evening and went right to sleep without eating dinner. When he woke up Monday morning, he was fine. I didn't notice anything unusual again until . . . well . . . until I picked him up this morning."

"Picked him up from the sitter or . . ."

"His father. He gets him every other weekend and Thursday nights on his off weeks."

"Did he mention anything about his lethargy?"

"He was already at work, so I didn't talk to him. His girlfriend said that he slept all evening yesterday and then all through the night, which is weird. He's usually up and running around until he drops from exhaustion. I've never known him to sleep all evening and then all night unless he was sick."

"And you brought him right in this morning?" I asked.

"Yes," she said as tears filled her eyes. "He's not acting like himself, and I just . . . I'm worried."

I could hear her phone buzzing in her purse but noticed that she didn't seem to care. Her focus was on her child and nothing else. I could feel her concern from the second I walked into the room, and after examining her son, I shared it. He was clean and well-kept. His nails were trimmed, and his hair was freshly cut. All in all, he looked like a healthy boy except for his glassy-eyed gaze and obvious lethargy.

"He doesn't seem hungry at all, but he's thirsty," she said as she lifted the cup to check the contents. "He's almost out, though. Do you have any ice? I have a bottle of water in my purse, but I'm sure it's warm."

"It looks like there's juice in there now. Let me take it to the breakroom and rinse it out. I'll send the nurse in to get some blood and have them rush it at the lab. It might take some time, so . . ."

"Do whatever you need to do," she said as tears streamed down her cheeks. "Something's wrong with him, Dr. Hamilton. This isn't my little boy."

I asked her a few more questions about his usual eating habits and activity level. Even though she was still distracted, she was able to answer me with what I considered normal responses. I couldn't find a single thing wrong with the child other than the visible signs I observed during my exam.

"I will draw some blood and then reassess after I get the results back," I told her as I ran my hands over the boy's fine hair. "I'd like for you to stay here while I wait on his labs. Hopefully, I'll be able to come up with an answer as to why he is behaving this way."

"We can stay as long as we need to."

"We'll figure it out," I reassured her. I took the cup from her and handed her a box of tissues before I promised that someone would be in as soon as they were free.

As I was walking toward the breakroom, I opened the sippy cup and looked down at the contents mindlessly as I mulled over what could be wrong. I stopped in my tracks when I caught a whiff of something I shouldn't have smelled and was taken aback when someone bumped into me from behind.

"Move it or lose it, Hamilton," Jewel said as she nudged me with her shoulder. "I almost ran you . . ." She stopped mid-sentence as she sniffed the air and asked, "Do we need to have a talk, Amy?"

"No. Why do you ask?"

"Honey, come with me," Jewel said as she took my elbow and ushered me to her office. She pushed me inside and then shut the door behind her. She leaned against it and took a deep breath before she said, "I know our job is stressful, babe, but I can't have you drinking while . . ."

"You can smell it too."

"Of course I can smell it. It's faint but obvious."

I thrust the sippy cup at her and said, "This has alcohol in it."

"Okay."

"My patient's mother brought this in, and he's been drinking out of it." Jewel's eyebrows rose as her mouth dropped open, and I said, "She said she just picked him up from his father's girlfriend after he spent the night. He's not acting like himself, and he was the same way the last time she picked him up. He's lethargic, and his heart rate is slow."

"The child is drunk?"

"I think so," I answered. "Who would do such a thing?"

"You need to make the call. I'll stay with you and watch the cup, although, at this point, I'm not sure it can be used as evidence." Jewel ran her hand over her mouth and said, "I'll call my contact at DCFS and go from there."

As Jewel pulled her phone out, I nudged her aside and opened the door. Jovi, one of our RNs, was the only person in the hall, so I called out for her to come into the office. She had her hands full and was obviously on her way to help a patient but put everything down on the desk as I said, "I need an immediate blood draw in Exam Five. Order a BAC, sCr, and liver panel. When you've got the draw, give it to me and I'll walk it down to the lab myself."

"Exam Five is that little boy . . . you want a BAC on your patient?"

"Immediately, Jovi. Drop what you're doing, and go take the draw."

"Yes, doctor," Jovi said as she glanced at the desk and then out into the hallway. "Will you let Terran know I was redirected?"

"Not a problem," I assured her. "Get what you need, and I'll find someone to go into the room with you for the draw."

"Okay," Jovi said as she walked toward the supply station.

I walked around Jewel's desk and logged in to her computer with my password and sent a message to the assignment board calling all available nursing staff and doctors to Jewel's office immediately. Within seconds, Wren appeared in the doorway followed by True, another of our RNs.

"True, please accompany Jovi into Exam Five and witness her draw and then I want you to stay in the exam room with the patient and his mother until one of us comes to relieve you."

"Okay," True said without question before she turned around and walked back out into the hall.

"What's going on?"

"I've got a patient who ingested an unknown amount of alcohol. He's lethargic and . . ."

"DCFS has been notified, and they have someone on the way. I'm calling 911," Jewel interrupted.

"Oh, no. It's a baby?"

"Toddler. He's almost three."

Wren put her hand over her mouth and sighed as she slowly shook her head. "Who would do such a thing?"

"She said she picked him up from Dad's girlfriend, and he had the sippy cup with him at the time. She brought him directly here because she knew something was wrong with him. I can't believe that Dad and his girlfriend would be so . . . so . . . I just . . ."

"That's what she says happened, but it's not up to us to investigate or place blame," Jewel reminded us. "Our job is to protect our patient."

"When will your contact be here?" I asked.

"She's on her way, and so are the cops."

"Gamma is right," Wren said sadly.

"What do you mean?" Jewel asked.

"Some people just need killin'."

It had been one thing after another all day, but I saw a light at the end of the tunnel when I realized that I was about to see my last patient on the schedule. Of course, I was supposed to be off by lunch today as each doctor rotated through a half-day Friday schedule, but it rarely happened. I was so close to being done that I could hear the bubble bath calling my name.

I signed a few papers for one of the nurses, called and spoke to an ENT about a consult, and then made my way into the exam room and found one of my favorite patients crying softly on his mom's lap.

"What's going on, Zachary?" I asked as I sat down on the stool and rolled closer to my patient. I reached out and took his hand and then laughed when he launched himself toward me. I caught him easily and smiled as he wrapped his arms and legs around me like a koala before I looked at his mother and raised my eyebrows in question.

"We were eating lunch at a restaurant downtown, and he shoved something up his nose."

"Food or . . ."

"It was a piece of gum he pulled off the bottom of the table," the mom admitted with a grimace. "The restaurant was busy, and they had run out of high chairs, so he was sitting next to me in the booth. I saw him looking under the table and distracted him a few times when he started to touch something under there, but I looked away for just a second and then . . ." The mom gagged silently and then swallowed hard before she continued, "I looked back just in time to see him shove something pink up his nose. I tried to stop him . . ."

"He shoved it all the way up there," Dawn, the mother's best friend, who had been here several times with Zachary and his mom, said with an exaggerated shudder. "I tried to see if I could get it out but realized I was probably making things worse."

"I even tried the trick my granny taught me after the bean incident, but it didn't work," Alison admitted.

"What trick is that?" I asked as I rolled over to the exam table and lifted Zachary to sit in front of me. Luckily, he was just high enough that I could see up his nose. Using my pen light, I easily spotted the pink blob his mom had described.

"I plugged the free side of his nose and blew air into his mouth," Alison said with a shrug. "It did bring the gum down a little bit, but I don't think I could have gotten it all the way out that way."

"It probably wasn't very pliable when he stuck it up there, but now it's warm and moist, so it's gonna be very stretchy," I said as I smiled at the little boy. His eyes filled with tears and I said, "Your mom is going to have a funny story to tell people, and she'll probably even use it to embarrass you when you're older."

"Do you think you can get it out, or should I take him to the emergency room?"

"They'd just try the same tactics I'm going to use before they refer you to an ear, nose, and throat doctor," I told her. "He seems pretty worked up, so I'll give him something to help him relax before we start."

"Can I have a double shot of whatever it is you're giving him?" Alison asked.

"That would make things easier, wouldn't it?"

I took my shoes off and put them in their place by the doorway as the garage door came down behind me. As I walked through the doorway into the laundry room, I stripped off my clothes, letting out an audible sigh as I unhooked my bra before taking it off and adding it to the washer along with my scrubs, socks, and underwear. I put the detergent in the machine but didn't turn it on. Instead, I stepped into the shower I'd had installed in the corner of the room and did a quick but thorough wash and then turned the washing machine on as I was drying off.

Since this was my daily routine, I had a basket of comfortable clothes on the shelf nearby and pulled out a pair of leggings and a T-shirt to wear before I applied my lotion and face cream. As soon as I was dressed, I walked into the kitchen and pondered what to do first: nap or start dinner.

Since dinner included a trip to the grocery store, that meant the agenda for this afternoon was a nap because dinner would be takeout or pizza. I knew that after the day I had, there wasn't a chance I'd make it out of the grocery store without an assault charge and a viral video labeled ‘crazy woman loses it in the produce section' blasting my face all over the internet.

I could probably handle the assault charge and didn't care a whistle about what people on the internet thought about me, so the grocery store might be an option if I didn't want a nap so badly.

When I walked into my living room, I realized that my nap wasn't going to happen because there were already two women sleeping on my couch and another sleeping in my recliner. Since those someones just happened to be my best friends, that took the sting out of it but not by much considering they were sleeping and I was not. Today was Zoey's normal day off, but it wasn't usual for Cydney or Bella to take the day off since they were as driven and structured as me. However, the empty bottle of wine sitting next to a half-full one let me know that it wasn't just any day off. Obviously, it had been crappy for everyone, and I was a bottle of wine behind.

I picked the half-empty bottle up from the coffee table and walked towards the stairs. It wouldn't hurt to kill two birds with one stone - get my buzz on and enjoy the bubble bath I'd been dreaming about all day while I waited for my friends to rouse themselves and get started on round two.