'INTO YOUR HANDS' Continued...

Dear Friends,

Candy

We say hello to you all and to my daughter Candy.

Candy says that above is a better picture of her 21st birthday party with Marie Antoinette as the theme.

What a delightful distraction!

What do you think?

Was it Marie Antoinette whose famous words were ‘Let them eat cake!’

when she was told that the people did not have bread to eat? 

Ha ha ha! But Candy thinks she was misquoted!

What do you think?

🍋🍋

Last week I offered you an extract from Chapter 5 (Into Your Hands).

We encounter Nicole for the first time. She is certainly not having a good time in her work at St Michaels Hospital.  She is extremely distressed and wanting to resign from her job! However, before she can utter another word to Matron, she finds herself thrown into extraordinary events. A mysterious Catholic priest with an equally mysterious illness is the cause of the emergency and all the upheaval in Matron’s well-ordered hospital.

In the last scene, the doctors and nurses had started resuscitating Angelo. But something seems not quite right. It also seems that something really extraordinary is happening at another level.

This is so exciting!

So let’s continue from where we left off.

…The Franciscan froze. Noisome crows announced their presence with their vulgar and disconcerting caws. Exasperated, Matron Josephine shooed them off in the Name of God. Someone flung a stone at them. The man in the brown habit looked heavenward and made a desperate supplication to God.

There was a leak in the resuscitator bag and the endotracheal tube had a fault! The priest’s chest was not rising with each ventilation. He was not getting any oxygen and his colour was deteriorating!

“Bloody Heck! This can’t possibly be happening!” exclaimed a desperate consultant, turning pale as he took the bag from Nicole. “Someone! Get this flipping bag to work and give me another tube! He’s got a carotid pulse, but he’s not going to hold out for much longer! He needs rescue breaths! We can’t lose him!” He quickly removed the endotracheal tube and replaced it with an airway.

Mr Davis met Nicole’s determined look and he nodded.

Nicole gave the young priest the kiss of life.

Maintaining his airway, she pinched his nose, and taking a deep breath, she sealed his lips with hers and blew into his mouth at regular intervals.

With her lips tightly sealed to his, and with every life-saving breath, Nicole became more and more oblivious to the world around her.

The priest in the brown habit took in the scene. He raised his eyes briefly towards heaven and was just in time to see three dazzling white doves make a slow and circular flight pattern above him before disappearing into the radiant sky. He trembled violently and prayed with equal violence.

Something deep and inexplicable transpired.

Three crows reappeared from the north and circled silently and ominously above, casting their shadows over the team beneath them.

Suddenly, from the east, a dove whose snow white feathers dazzled in the blazing sunlight swooped into the circle. With the swiftness of an eagle and the precision of a warrior’s arrow, it engaged and disrupted the enemy, causing a wild fracas in the air.

The open heaven became a dramatic meeting place, a compelling centre stage, and a vicious battlefield, where the merciless shackles of death and darkness contended with pre-eminence of a love so tenacious and so formidable.

A passionate duel for the life of the ailing priest seemed to unfold.

All the while, the medical team watched the patient’s chest rise and fall with every breath. Although there was a notable improvement in his colour, the atmosphere remained tense and sweat ran down their faces as they exchanged anxious glances.

After making the Sign of the Cross, the Franciscan turned his attention back to Nicole’s passionate life-saving actions. Her sandy brown curls had tumbled over her face and her hair was wild.

The Franciscan watched with great wonder.

The manual resuscitator bag was successfully repaired and a new tube was inserted and secured.  As Nicole squeezed the bag at regular intervals, she saw the patient’s chest rise and fall. All the while she prayed fiercely to God.

Please, Lord!

Nicole quickly glanced heavenward. The Franciscan priest, who stood very close by, saw this brief tearful look towards heaven and struggled to wipe away his own tears. The tears ran like rivulets and disappeared into his short, curly beard, before flowing over Nicole’s down-turned head. He held even more tightly on to the bag he was carrying, his knuckles white and his hands trembling uncontrollably. His English was relatively limited and he did not seem to understand all that was being said by the doctors.

“Can’t get a blood pressure…”

“That’s it! Get the drip going…”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake! The bloody vein…it’s not going to last!”

“We need to rush inside now!”

***

Everything was happening so quickly. Soon he was in the ward where the other teams joined in. He was connected to a ventilator from Anaesthetic Room 3A. Because the peripheral veins were shutting down, a central line had to be put into a large vein and fluid challenges given.

“We’ve got a blood pressure!” said Dr Llewellyn, the registrar, after tense, agonising moments.

“But she ain’t that pretty and she’s still down to her boots!” said Freddy, the junior doctor.

“Who are we talking about?”

“The blood pressure!”

“Why does everything negative in your mind has to be a girl?” complained Dr Sarah.

“Oh, don’t worry about Freddy! He’s got a girlie issue at the moment. His true love found new love!”

“Maybe he ain’t doing something right,” Dr Sarah stated.

“He’s too skinny. Maybe those bones get in the way. Girls want brawn… like mine!” Dr Llewellyn flexed a muscle or two.

“Tell you what; it’s that long nose of his. It gets in the way of a good kiss!”

“Ouch, guys! You do realize that I am actually present and in deep emotional pain? Winced Dr Freddy.

“We need to catheterise… I can’t palpate a bladder… Possible renal failure, “Dr Meaghan looked dismayed.

The doctors continued to work frantically for many hours.

***

“He’s going into multi-organ failure…”

“Sepsis…”

“The source…?”

“Ugh man, it could be anything… anything! Man, this guy’s a missionary. He lives in the deep jungle,” remarked Dr Llewellyn.

“Definite malaria?”

“Till the slides and blood results come back,” Mr Davis shrugged, “we’ll have to treat him for suspected cerebral malaria and septicaemia. Let’s get those antibiotics going. There is no telling…”

“Do we rule out snakebite?”

“Ha…?”

“Sleeping sickness? He could have been bitten by the tsetse fly!”

“Has anyone thought about the scorpion?” asked someone.

“Or spiders! What about the black widow?”

“Isn’t that found in the temperate zones like North America and East Asia?” asked Meaghan.

“For heaven’s sake, do we need a compendium of the terrors of the jungle?” cut in Matron caustically.

“Are the X-rays on their way, Matron? It shouldn’t take this long,” remarked Mr Davis.

“Hey, the blood pressure is looking a bit better,” Dr Llewellyn observed.

“His cardiac rhythm seems… look… I don’t like those huge ectopic heartbeats… Do a repeat electrocardiogram. I don’t like that look. Poor guy!”

“Mr Davis – what is his prognosis?” asked Dr Freddy.

“What do you think?”

“Er… maybe we shouldn’t talk over the patient. Whilst a patient maybe unconscious, we must be very aware that they are still able to hear us, according to my training, old fashioned though it may seem to be,” reminded Matron. “One can always discuss it outside – but never within the patient’s hearing – because the last vestige of hope, which may still be residing in the subconscious and in his spirit, might just be put out forever!”

Mr Davies rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, what Matron says is true.” Mr Davies never hid his love-hate relationship and irritations between himself and the hospital matron. They always seemed to be at loggerheads regarding the whole business of running the hospital. She might be the matron, but he, as Director, felt that she continually sought to undermine his authority.

Nicole was relieved to see some signs of renal function even though the hourly amount of urine she was emptying from the catheter bag never exceeded more than two tablespoons.

Her hope was short-lived. As she looked up from carrying out these measurements, she saw the consultant’s sign language to the junior doctor: the prognosis for the missionary priest was a definite thumbs-down.

Her heart was solely troubled. …

                                         ***

I hope you are feeling the pulse of the story through the emotions in this scene. As for now, let us take a break. We will continue with Chapter 5 because I want you to taste the whole of it!

Cheers,

Olivia