Back to the Dream Page
A siren blared, bringing Jamie's head snapping up from the late lunch she had just sat down to have, her morning rounds having run grossly overtime.
"Medical staff," a voice sounded over the speaker system. "Please report to surgery. Incoming wounded in twenty minutes."
With a sigh, Jamie stuffed her mouth with some food before she stood up and carried her tray over to the garbage can to throw the rest away.
"Some lunch, huh?" an aide asked as she joined Jamie for the short walk over to the temp building that served as the surgery area to start prepping.
"A mouthful is better than nothing at all. I remember a time during residency when I was able to get that much in a day. At least I was able to get breakfast this morning."
"That busy of a base?"
Jamie nodded. "And being here, it seems like I'm doing my residency all over again only this time, the only one grading me is myself."
"It must be a lot of pressure knowing that when lives hang on the balance, you have the ability to determine life or death for these people."
She gave a shrug. "I do what I can and hope it's enough. The rest is up to the patient."
The other woman nodded her head in agreement as the two entered the building. Jamie waved bye to the other woman as she made her way to the right to scrub in at the sink.
"Good, you're here. Dr. Bass, you'll be at station two. I have Devin and Janine helping you out there."
"Sounds good sir. What's the case history?"
"Your soldier is a twenty-four year old male, name Louis Moreno. Sounds like his truck got hit with a roadside blast."
"So I've got burns and foreign body removal to look out for, great!" she said in a cheery voice before sobering. "It never ends, does it?"
Dr. Taff gave her a sympathetic smile. "Chin up Jamie," he said as he took his turn at the sink. "It'll be over soon enough."
"You're scrubbing in too?"
"The incoming helicopter has plenty of wounded needing attention today, your patient wasn't alone. Besides us, I've called in Drs. Fong, Olsen, and Gross as well."
"It'll be nice and cozy in that surgery room that's for sure," she smiled as she headed into the next room where the energy level was already high as everyone got ready.
Jamie walked over to the second table and smiled. "Devin, Janine, are we all set?"
"Yes doctor," came the reply from the Asian woman across the table from her.
"Good. Were we able to pull up any paperwork on Moreno?"
"Right here," said the other person as he held up the freshly printed sheet with the patient's basic health history.
A quick scan showed Jamie an unremarkable health history. "Good, nothing to worry about except said injuries," she muttered to herself as the noise of an approaching helicopter began to reach their ears.
She turned to the doctor at the table next to her and caught him saying a couple of things to his team. "…blood loss, which has been pre-determined to be from a couple of wounds to the back, but not entirely positive since there's also report of a wound on his chest too."
"Maybe a bullet went straight through him?"
"Can't rule it out, so I need you to monitor Mr. Fatone's situation critically. He's already lost a lot of blood and we don't want him to lose anymore, understood?" Dr. Fong turned around then only to find Jamie staring back at him. "Dr. Bass? Are you all right?"
She ignored the question to ask one of her own. "Your patient's not a Joseph Fatone, is it?"
"Yes, why? Jamie!" He called after her as she just rushed out the door.
She found Dr. Taff just outside the door giving a few last instructions to a couple of other people. As soon as he'd dismissed them, Jamie stepped up to the man, causing him to take an involuntary step back. "Who else is coming in?"
He looked at her in surprise. "I told you. I paged for Dr. Fong and Dr.-"
"No, that's not what I meant. The patients."
He continued to give her a strange look. "I assigned Dr. Fong to a Joseph Fatone, Dr. Olsen to Robin Johnston, I'm working on Christopher Kirkpatrick, and Dr. Gross is going to start assessing the non-critical patients. Jamie, what's wrong?"
"My husband, Lance Bass, was he hurt? Joey and Chris are close friends of his so if they're hurt…"
A pained look had settled onto Jamie's face as she anxiously awaited the words that would come out of Dr. Taff's mouth and understanding settled onto the man's features a he quickly recalled the list that had been radioed ahead to him and he shook his head no. "Jamie, are you going to be okay in there? I can reassign Dr. Gross to take your place," he offered.
She shook her head. "Too late," she said as they heard the helicopter land and the cargo door slide open. "I'll be okay," she added, seeing the unconvinced look on her supervisor's face. "My patient will be depending on me."
He continued to look grim but nodded in the end. "Look Jamie, I gave you Moreno because I trust you to try and work some of that magic of yours on him. He'll need it, but if you need to switch…"
She shook her head as she started to head back into the surgery room and he followed. "I'll be fine. Just do your best for Chris." She saw Dr. Fong give her a questioning look as she moved back to the second table and she tried to give a reassuring smile. It seemed to work because he didn't say anything further to her, both their attentions shifting to the door as the first patient was brought in.
"Fitzpatrick?" a voice called.
Jamie watched as Justin and another soldier carried Chris in their arms over to the third table, which was diagonally across from hers, as directed.
"Fatone?"
Lance's voice sent Jamie's heart racing into overdrive as he helped carry Joey to the table across the way from her.
'And so this war finally hits close to home,' she thought as she briefly caught both Justin's and Lance's gaze, a shared kind of terror in all their eyes as they thought of the implications.
"Moreno?"
Jamie snapped out of it long enough to call out to the latest pair of soldiers and direct them over. She shot one last look at her friends and nodded before she turned to her patient, calling on every ounce of strength she had to be the doctor she'd trained to be.
"Mr. Moreno? Mr. Moreno, can you hear me?" she asked loudly in her patient's ear in hopes of getting any type of response as she held onto one wrist to check the pulse. Devin and Janine were already working on cutting away and discarding the scorched clothing from the body to allow Jamie a better look at what she was up against. She hid her grimace as she saw the burns and squeezed the patient's bloody hand. "All right Mr. Moreno. It looks like we're going to have you here for awhile. I want you to hang on for me, okay? Just hang on and we'll get you fixed up here," she announced to the still non-responsive body before her.
Jamie took one last look over at where Joey and Chris were laying, said a silent prayer, and finally turned to her two aides. "All right. Let's get this show on the road."