Hey, at least Cindy Loo finds relief in my presence.
My patient is—understandably—quite agitated. “Doctor Foley! Get it out of me!”
“Gabriela, you can let her push now.” I slip into my gown and gloves as quickly as possible, but the baby is out in a single push, squealing on the patient’s chest before I’m fully dressed.
The family crowds around, and I sneak beside a rattled Gabriela to help.
“Here.” I hand her a collection tube from the delivery table. “Get the cord blood.”
She nods. The dad stands beside the patient. The patient’s mom is behind him, crying. Beside her, near the patient’s knees, is a woman I assume is her grandmother. She’s dressed as if she’s attending an upper-crust lunch with a group of old, rich ladies—a cream power jacket and matching skirt.
Gabriela tries to squeeze the chunky umbilical cord into the tube to collect the blood, but when she unclamps the cord, the remaining blood pressure within pushes the cord from the tube and it flops like an unmanned water hose, spraying blood everywhere.
A jet of it slashes across my throat before showering the grandma and her white confection of a power suit with bright scarlet.
Gabriela gasps. “Oh, my god. I’m so sorry.”
The entire room pauses for two seconds. Even the baby stops crying.
Then the grandma heaves in outrage, the patient starts cry-giggling and I succumb to uncontrollable laughter.
After grabbing the cord, Gabriela freezes. She holds it in the air like a torch. I’m laughing too hard to help. My head drops behind Gabriela’s back to hide it.
“Doctor Foley,” she whispers over her shoulder. “Help.”
“I have never—” the grandma sputters. “How dare you?”
“I’m so sorry,” Gabriela says. “It was an accident.”
“I’m sorry, Grandma,” the patient says through a chorus of hiccup-giggle-tears.
The baby screams.
Tears blurring my vision, I exchange places with Gabriela, who scrubs out to help the grandma clean up. Behind me, she’s profusely apologizing.
“At least it’s just the baby’s blood,” she says. “It’s sterile. It won’t hurt you.”
“This is Chanel, child. I assure you, I am hurt.”
I’m dying.
And maybethisis why I’m not taken seriously. I am physically unable to stop laughing in hilarious situations. If that’s the case, I get it. It’s a character flaw I will never overcome.
The placenta plops into a basin. The rest of the process is a breeze, and Gabriela and I sneak out, leaving the family to their happiness. Or their affront, depending on which of them you ask.
“I’m so sorry,” Gabriela whispers.
“It’s not a problem.” I squeeze her shoulder once in reassurance and head toward Pod B.
“I’m so lucky it was you,” she says, following me. “If that had been Doctor White, I’d be yelled at until next week.”
Hmm. Maybe I should do more yelling. But I don’t even know how to yell at people. How does one get to that point of anger?
I stop in the hallway and face her. “So you’re saying you should be in trouble?”
Her dark eyes widen. “It was an accident.”
My head tilts. “So... Youdon’tthink you should be in trouble.”
