Lemons and Lightning

“Well that’s it from the Channel 8 news team, enjoy your Saturday night. Let’s hope the predicted storm isn’t too bad. It’ll be back to work on Monday before you know it, so try to enjoy the rest of your weekend. Goodnight.” The newsreader nodded and the lights in the studio slowly faded out, leaving the newsreader to shuffle papers and wait for the theme music to finish.

Casey got the remote and turned off the television. She was on night shift tonight, the fourth night out of seven. She’d been a nurse for over twenty years, and a Saturday wasn’t any different to a Tuesday or Thursday. It wasn’t the ‘weekend’: not in the same way others saw it. She dreamed of what life would be like working nine to five Monday to Friday, where evenings and holidays were spent with family without thought or question - without having to request these times off duty, like a child asking to be excused from the kitchen table.

She tried to nap before her shift, but it could best be described as a rest. She lay on her bed with her eyes shut, but her circadian rhythm would not be fooled. By night seven her body would just start to get the hang of it, and then her roster put her back on to day shift.

She drove back to work the same way she had left it that morning - in the dark.

“Evening”, Casey said as she approached the nurses’ station. Her heart sank when she saw who was on with her overnight.

“Hi”, was all the young nurse said in reply. Was it Jessica or Jacinta? Casey mused. Whatever it was, she always looked like she had been sucking a sour lemon. Casey had had the displeasure of working with her before. Her lipstick was blindingly red, emphasizing her sulky pout, and she leaned against the shelf holding medical charts, bending the notes and x-ray films that had been wedged into its narrow slots.

Night shift always went one of two ways; it either really fast or glacially slow. Casey prayed for a busy shift, to get this night over and done with. The sixth floor orthopaedic ward where she worked dealt predominantly with two groups: young men with broken bones from car accidents and older ladies with new prosthetic hips. The mainstays of nightshift care of these patients were administering narcotic pain relief and managing night time delirium.

“Meant to be stormy tonight,” said the sour lemon, looking despondent. “I get migraines when it’s stormy. I’m not looking forward to it.”

Neither am I now. Casey thought.

“We’ll be okay,” said Casey, forcing a smile. “It’s the perfect ward to view lightning from, what with those rooms that look out over the valley. I’ve worked stormy nights before. It makes for an interesting spectacle if the lightning really gets going.” She looked to Lemon encouragingly.

Lemon grunted.

Casey had no idea this night shift was about to be one of the most ‘interesting spectacles’ of her career.

***

The float nurse, Jodie, arrived at half past midnight to start the first round of breaks. Casey was just finishing cleaning up Mrs. Weston’s backside in room 5. She’d had an accident and soiled her bed. The patient was terribly upset about it, and continued to talk to Casey through the clean-up, expecting Casey to reply and reassure her, which she did. Ideally, Casey wanted to say nothing: just breathe through her mouth to avoid the worst of the smell, clean up the mess, and get out of the room as soon as possible.

“I’ll finish up here.” said Jodie, poking her head into the room.

“Thanks Jodes.” Casey gave her friend a grateful look. She took off her gloves and washed her hands twice, trying to shift the smell that somehow always lingered regardless of wearing gloves and expertly dealing with the dirty linen. “I’ll be back in twenty then.”

“Enjoy your break matey,” said Jodie, nodding towards the window and adding “it looks like the show’s about to really begin.” Like many of the large north facing windows in the private rooms, this one didn’t have the blinds drawn: it was a scenic view by day and twinkling one by night, and most patients opted to keep the view. Tonight lightning forked its way to the ground in the distance, momentarily lighting up the valley like day.

“I think you’re right,” said Casey. She enjoyed a good storm, and the best ones always seemed to hit in the small hours.

Casey could hear Mrs. Weston start apologising all over again, this time to Jodie, and Casey could hear Jodie’s attempts placate the patient as she walked up the hallway to the break room.

The tearoom at this hour was, of course, empty. Casey made a coffee, sat down at the utilitarian table and stared out the window. She could see the trees waving to her through the shadowy darkness of the dimly lit hospital carpark. She hadn’t been sure at first, but now she could hear definitely hear the rolling thunder. She watched as the rain began, the light sprinkling changing to heavy rain within seconds. Rain rolled across the carpark, an invisible force pushing it from behind. There was another bright flash, this one matching the thunder in its timing, and suddenly Casey found herself sitting in the dark. The power had gone out. The room had seemed quiet before, but now it went silent. The fridge stopped humming and the air conditioning stopped its whoosh overhead. Casey’s coffee was cupped in her hands, still too hot to drink.

The hospital backup generator was programmed to kick in after a few seconds. Casey waited in the dark, nonplussed. She sipped her coffee, burning the tip of her tongue in the process. The room continued to remain without power, and Casey sighed, putting down her drink and feeling her way to the door. She stumbled as her foot hooked a chair leg. It would leave a nasty bruise that Casey would not find until long after she had gone home the next morning. Re-emerging into the ward she heard rather that saw Jodie, opening and closing cupboard doors in the nurse’s station, searching for the large battery operated torch that was stored in one of the nurse’s station cupboard.

“Aha!” said Jodie “found it.” Turning it on, the battery proved it to be in need of replacing. The weak beam it emitted was just enough for them to see each other through the blackness that engulfed the ward.

Lemon appeared in a nearby doorway of a patient’s room, where she had been giving an IV antibiotic. She held a penlight torch in her hand, the type usually reserved for checking patients’ pupils, it let out a very bright, but small beam of light. “What’s going on?” she asked, clearly annoyed.

“Looks like were blacked out from the lightning, and the backup didn’t kick in” said Jodie. Casey appreciated her providing this explanation, which had seemed far too obvious to need saying, and Casey didn’t think she could’ve said it herself without sounding condescending.

Lemon really rubbed her up the wrong way.

Thunder cracked again and lightning momentarily lit up the space. All three nurses saw a figure in the distance. All three jumped. Lemon swore.  

The lightning momentarily illuminated a tall stooped figure, shuffling in their direction in a gauzy white shroud, arms out ahead of itself. It emitted a low moan. Casey wasn’t sure if the moan was angry or sad. Neither concept seemed appealing. Casey didn’t believe in ghosts or the like: except when she found herself in a place where people were known to die with surprising regularity. Was there a hospital bed anywhere that hadn’t had someone died on it at some point? Unlikely. Nothing fires up the imagination like the combination of the hospital wings, the dark, and the spectre of death. Jodie waved the sad excuse for a torch in the direction of the figure, but it had disappeared.

“Was that… a patient?” Lemon was asking, all annoyance in her voice now gone.

“Not sure, but it scared the shit outta me for the next two weeks at least. I won’t be needing any bran flakes for breakfast, that’s for sure” Jodie said. Casey smirked. Her friend always had a way with words.

It was apparent without speaking that the three of them were going to stick together to investigate this, and they huddled around the faint light from the torch Jodie was holding plus the light from Lemons’ pen torch. It was, they all knew, probably a wandering patient rather than a spirit, but that in itself created a new set of problems.

 Where was he going? Why? And most importantly, where was he now?

They moved forward together and edged their way together into room 8. The patient woke, and was startled by this mass of women now present in her room.

”What on earths going on?” asked the agitated woman, rising up on her elbow, and immediately wincing and laying back down. “Why are you all in here?”

 “Just doing our rounds!” chirped Jodie ridiculously. Casey was standing close to her left and Lemon to her right, like a nursing version of the three stooges.

“Can I get you anything? Jodie continued with her charade. “A coffee? Snack perhaps?”

“No thank you,” said the patient with disdain. “I was - until you lot came skulking in - asleep. “Isn’t it like 3am or something?”

“Closer to 1am” said Casey, not entirely sure of the time, “….and the powers out - we couldn’t make you a coffee even if you wanted one I’m afraid. Sorry to have woken you.”

They retreated out the room in the same formation they’d entered. Hopefully the patient would blame the narcotic pain relief given by the evening shift. Put it all down to a hallucination or bad dream. It was either that or she’d write nasty things on her hospital stay satisfaction survey form.

Making their way toward room 9 they had yet to enter when not one, but two alarms started their song of insistent protest. Following the noise, Casey found the medication pump flashing ‘BATTERY LOW’ at her from its LED screen.  This wouldn’t happen if staff charged the damn machines between patients. Casey thought, annoyed. This situation had been avoidable. The patient looked up at her while she fiddled with the device, eventually overriding the alarm and powering it off entirely. Young Damien, a twenty-something who was recovering from both of his legs breaking from a car accident, watched Casey at work. “You can’t turn off my pain pump!” he said incredulously. “I need it! It’s barely covering my pain as it is!”

“Well the battery’s about to die, and the powers out with the storm.”

“Well, what am I to do now? Do I get an injection at least?”

Not without a doctors order, Casey knew, but she wasn’t about to tell Damien that.

“I’ll be right back,” promised Casey, rushing out the room to shut down the alarm she could hear in another. Casey knew there wouldn’t be a patient left asleep soon with all this cacophony. The next pump flashing at her in its BATTERY LOW despair was a heparin infusion - a medication to prevent blood clots. Shit! thought Casey. I can’t have that just stopping. I’ll have to call the doctor and see what she wants done about it. Casey never relished calling doctors in the middle of the night, a sentiment shared by the doctors.

Jodie appeared at the doorway, slapping the side of the torch to revive it, its battery now drawing on the last of its volts.

“I’ve got to go. I’ve been sent to relieve on the ward below.”

Casey stared at her friend, disbelieving.

“None of them have had a break, and they’ve been run off their feet… they’re blacked out too. I’m sorry mate.”

“You can’t leave me Jodes! I need you here!”

But Casey knew it wasn’t her call; nights were always short staffed. Anyhow, how much worse could the night get?

“I’ll call the hospital manager before I go, let her know you need more hands. I’m sorry mate.” she said again. “I’ll check back when I can.”  

“See if you can swap the torch from the floor below and bring it when you come back” laughed Casey. Laugh or cry, she decided.

Lemon appeared at the doorway. “I bought you a pen torch,” she said holding out a small torch the same as hers, “I took it from the emergency trolley for you.”

“Thank you,” Casey said, taking the proffered light.

“Nurse! Nurse! NURSE!” Casey and Lemon looked at each other in concern before running toward the voice. Entering room 2 they found an irate elderly woman, three days post operation, madly stabbing her call button.

“I’ve been calling for hours!” she said.

“The powers out,” apologised Casey. The call bells aren’t working.”

“Well!” the woman snorted, like it was all Casey’s fault. “I can’t sleep with all the noise you lot are making. It’s enough dealing with that,” she said dramatically, pointing a finger toward the wild weather outside. “You should kindly remember that we patients are trying to sleep!” She harrumphed for good measure.

“I’m sorry” said Casey, “would you like for me...?

“Too late for that!” interrupted the woman. Casey wasn’t sure what she was ‘too late’ for. “I’ll guess I’ll put my television on, now you’ve woken me up.”

“The powers out.” repeated Casey helplessly. She felt Lemon gently squeeze her arm in support. Was it Jessica or Jacinta? She really must stop referring to her as ‘Lemon.’

EEEEKKKKK! The scream was ear splitting. It was coming from the other end of the ward. Casey and her unnamed citrus colleague ran again. Entering room 1 they found Mr. Hobbs - a pleasant elderly gent in hospital awaiting a rehab bed - in the process of hopping into bed. This would have been fine except his room was three rooms up. Mrs. Jacobsen - aged ninety, bedbound, her broken hip in traction - was already occupying this bed. Mr. Hobbs was determined to snuggle in bedside her.

“Move over Sweet cheeks, you always hog the bed.” Mr. Hobbs wiggled suggestively. Mrs. Jacobsen screamed again.

“Guess we found our wanderer,” said Casey dryly.

“This isn’t your room Mr. Hobbs,” Lemon said gently, “and that’s not your wife.”

“Are you sure?” He looked anew at the women in front of him. Mrs. Jacobsen started to sob. Lemon took the elderly woman’s withered hand in hers and started to soothe her. Casey was impressed. There really was more to her than red lipstick and that acidic pout after all. Casey took Mr. Hobbs arm, linked hers through his. “This way,” she said gently, leading him back toward his room, a difficult process holding only a pen torch.

Mr. Hobbs got into his bed. “Where am I? Where’s my wife?” Casey didn’t want to remind him he was a widower. She had been told at handover from the day staff that he was quite lucid by day. However, as the sun went down, his confusion inversely went up. Last night he was having a conversation with Mick Jagger. He’d nodded to an empty chair where “Mick” was sitting. Casey had requested extra staffing to deal with this patient for nights ahead, but he had been deemed not confused enough to warrant the extra cost to the ward budget.

***

Jodie had rung the hospital manager requesting extra help for the orthopaedic ward before leaving, as she’d promised. She herself was diverted to the intensive care unit. The ventilators had ten patients occupying them; and with no back up power, the machines battery back-ups were running desperately low. The staff had resorted to hand ventilating the patients an hour ago - squeezing a plastic balloon-shaped device to pump oxygen into the patients’ lungs. As it was, this break provided each nurse only five minutes: enough to eat quickly, pee, and return. Normal breaks were out the window on this shift. Jodie breathed literal life into each patient in turn, and waited for the morning shift.

Back on the sixth floor Casey took a deep breath and decided that if she could do nothing else this shift, she’d just make sure everyone stayed alive. The day staff could deal with all the slack.

By 4am the hospital was officially under a ‘Code Yellow’ situation. The ongoing power outage was deemed an internal emergency and the hospitals Director of Nursing was summoned from her bed. Frantic calls and SMS messages were sent out, and more staff would be arriving to help bring order to this chaotic night.

Mrs. Jacobsen was still sobbing loudly. Television lady was banging a fork against her bedside table, demanding attention.  Damien was hollering the tablets he’d been dispensed were doing ‘jack shit’ and was demanding the return of his pain pump.

Casey didn’t get paid enough.

***

The director arrived just ahead of the promised cavalry of nurses.  She looked like she’d walked out of a magazine: perfect hair and tight power suit. Casey had never been more relieved to see the director in her life, and the director smiled at her sympathetically. She thanked Casey for her professionalism when working in such trying circumstances. Grateful, Casey blurted out “Basic needs were met, but that’s all. Lemon here has been a fantastic support.” She looked at her young colleague with new found respect.

“Did you just call me Lemon?” Jessica asked.

Casey’s mouth dropped, indicating she had done just that.

At that precise moment, the power came back on.

Casey had been vaguely aware of an elderly patient walking toward them, and now he was clear as day.

Mr. Hobbs slapped the Director of Nursing hard on the bottom, “Sweet cheeks!” he said. “There you are!”