Suspended
Elsa took a deep breath while her hands were up before entering the trauma room. This boy's life depends on whether she can keep her head straight. Her mind has to be still. Clear. There is no room for mistakes.
"Suction," Elsa started checking the area where the glass had cut the boy's body. Nadel had already cleaned most of the area so she could see the organs clearly.
"Hemostat… gauze… cautery…" Elsa clipped and sealed the blood vessels that could quicken the loss of blood. Elsa was sweating as she slowly pulled out the piece of glass from the boy's stomach.
Everyone focused on their task for removing that glass is just the beginning. Dr. Chaudhary closely monitored the child's vitals while Nadel and the other resident made sure that Elsa's line of sight was clear.
"Suture."After three hours of harrowing work, Dr. Morgan was able to take out the glass and stitch up the boy's intestines. The boy's vitals stabilized and everyone could breathe again.
"What the hell were you thinking?! Are you all out of your mind?!" The attending doctor Dr. Wyatt barged in screaming. Everybody turned to look at him—everyone but Elsa, who was too busy with her work to pay attention to him.
"We are almost done, Dr. Wyatt. I just need to tie some ends and I'm done. I can hear that you are angry. We are almost done. I will face your wrath in a bit," Elsa said sarcastically, still without sparing a glance at the mad doctor until he left the room.
Dr. Wyatt is angry about what she has done, but Elsa is furious. If anybody needs to be reprimanded, it should be him and the other absent doctors.
"There, done, cut," Elsa uttered after tying the last knot of the suture.
Everybody involved in the operation started congratulating each other. Everyone was happy except for Elsa who was faking a smile, not wanting to worry others.
"I'll go with you," Nadel said as she followed Elsa out of the operating room. "I'm also a resident who disobeyed protocol. If they want to punish you, they should punish me too."
She hooked her arm with Elsa's, knowing her support was exactly what Elsa needed right now.
"Stay here. I led this operation, and I'll take responsibility for everyone," Elsa replied. You can save me later when I have nothing left to eat because I was fired." Nadel grinned at the joke, and Elsa squared her shoulders to meet her superior's wrath.
"Dr. Wyatt…" Elsa called the doctor who was checking a patient's file.
"Go home, Dr. Morgan," Dr. Wyatt said dismissively without looking at her.
Elsa's brow furrowed as she struggled to comprehend what she had just heard. "I beg your pardon, doctor?"
"I said go home," he tersely replied.
"You're not angry with me anymore?" Elsa's voice was barely above a whisper. Surely he wasn't letting her off that easily. There had to be more behind his words.
Dr. Wyatt paused from what he was reading and squinted at Elsa, making her bite her lip and take a step back.
"I'm telling you to go home because you're suspended for a month, Dr. Morgan," Dr. Wyatt finally clarified. He then left the room, leaving Elsa flabbergasted and rooted to the spot.
After a few moments of shock, Elsa managed to catch up with Dr. Wyatt. "One month? That's too harsh! It's your fault we had to proceed with the operation without you! Luckily, the mother stabilized, or we would have had another patient needing surgery. Where did you disappear to anyway?" Elsa's frustration boiled over.
She had never disobeyed her superiors before, but she believed her actions tonight were justified. It wasn't fair to suspend her for an entire month.
"Do you want me to add insubordination to your list? Your case has already been emailed to the department director. Once they review it, they'll get in touch. So, go home; your ID access has been suspended as well, so don't even try sneaking in," Dr. Wyatt warned sternly.
Elsa gritted her teeth and stopped following Dr. Wyatt. She knew that there was no use in arguing with the lazy bum doctor. She walked angrily to the locker room near the ER to get her things after the tiring hours of operating on the boy.
"How'd it go?" Nadel asked. "Is everything okay?" she added after seeing her best friend silently pack up.
"No. He got me suspended for a month. But I'm going to make an appeal." Elsa stated.
"And where are you going?" Nadel worriedly asked.
"I'm heading to my hometown for now. It will take a while for the director to call me—two to three days perhaps. Plus it's the weekends so it will add up, and it all depends on their decision," Elsa explained before bidding her farewell to Nadel and heading home.
It has been three years since Elsa returned to her hometown in Santa Fe. She has been so busy with her residency that she had no time to go home. Thankfully, she has a dad who is also a doctor and understands her situation very well and visits her from time to time.
"Up-up!" Elsa taps the car seat, commanding her four dogs to hop in the SUV as she puts her luggage in the back.
Elsa turned on the music player and sang her heart out, releasing all her stress and frustration with her situation as she drove along the woody forest road going to her hometown while her dogs sat and stayed still in the passenger seat.
Nile, her gray male dog suddenly started barking at the window. "What is it, boy? Do you want fresh air? Hold on, let me roll it down a bit." Elsa pressed the car window button until half of it was open.
But Nile did not stop barking and started scratching the window too. "What's wrong? Do you want to potty?" Soon all her four dogs were doing the same. Elsa started to worry and panic for it was the first time that her dogs had done that, "Alright, alright! Hold on, I will park the car when I find a good spot. Just hold on."
She couldn't find a spot where her dogs could safely do their business so she drove faster. Out of the blue, her right wrist started aching the moment her dogs stopped scratching and started howling. "Oh my God! What's wrong with all of you?"
The pain in Elsa's wrist started to intensify, just like how it felt in one of her dreams. It was as if something was being carved on her skin.
While her eyes were focused on the road as she tried to find a spot for her dogs she noticed a light from her peripheral vision. She followed the source of the bright light and her eyes went wide open seeing her right wrist glowing where the pain was coming from.
"HOLY CRAP!!!" Elsa yelped while staring at her glowing wrist.
*THUD*
"SHOOT!!!" Elsa exclaimed when she heard a loud sound, felt something big hit the car, and saw something furry in the corner of her eyes like some kind of animal. She quickly turned the steering wheel to the right side of the road before stopping and checking on her dogs.
"Are you guys alright?" She frantically inspected each of her dogs for injuries. After seeing that all her dogs were okay, she climbed out of the SUV to check what kind of animal she hit.
What she saw drained the blood out of her face. She stood there frozen, the hairs on her skin standing on their ends. It wasn't a deer at all, but a human--a man sprawled out and drenched in blood, naked, facing the ground.
Nile went straight to the wounded man, barking and holding a defensive stance. Ciel, Gaia, and Nuri, her other three dogs, stood beside her and barked as well.
She felt her knees become weak, and her body was trembling, completely shocked by what happened. She cannot believe that she just hit a man and is possibly dead right now.
But wait… She's a doctor!
She came to her senses and quickly ran to the wounded man. She furrowed her eyebrows as she approached him, 'What the hell is a naked man doing on the road?!' Elsa thought.
She hastily checked for any broken bones and released a sigh of relief when she found none. He had some deep wounds, but they were not caused by the car accident. It seems he was stabbed multiple times by something long and sharp.
"Mmm…" The man whined and moved a little.
"Oh thank God you're alive!" Elsa exclaimed as she took her phone from her pocket to call for help, but her phone had no reception, not even a single bar.
"Damnit! Why now?!" She was so frustrated, that she didn't even realize she cursed out loud. The man moved once again. "D-Do not move. I am a doctor, stay here," Elsa blurted before running back to her car.
She remembered her dad asked her to buy some supplies before going home so she opened the back of her SUV and took her medical kit, a portable stretcher, a neck brace, and some blankets with trembling hands and legs.