Avoiding Amy Jackson (5 page)

I sit down in the nurses’ station and finish up my charting for a few of my patients. The phone rings and I answer once I realize that I’m the only one sitting out here. “Regency ER, this is Amy.”

“Ellen wanted me to call you and let you know that she’s bringing one your way. She said you need to prepare yourself,” Malory, the secretary who mans the triage desk, warns me.

I let out an exasperated breath. “Alright,” I say before hanging up the phone.

The ER doors open and I see Ellen pushing a wheelchair at a fast pace. “Bed six!” I call out to her. She just nods her head in response and I follow her lead. Once I finally get inside the room, I’m a little confused about what is going. There’s a young girl who doesn’t even look coherent in a wheelchair and a young boy standing next to her, holding a pillow in front of his pants.

“Help me get her into the bed, please. She keeps passing out. Her last blood pressure was 73/48,” Ellen updates. A blood pressure of 73/48 is very—very low. Normal blood pressures run in the 120/80 range. We need to get this patient into a bed and get IV fluids into her as quickly as possible. Luckily for us, she’s a tiny, petite little thing, and we transfer her onto the gurney without difficulty. I proceed to put the bed in the Trendelenburg position because this aids in increasing a patient’s blood pressure. Basically, this is where the patient is placed flat on her back with her feet tilted higher than her head.

“She’s seventeen years old and her name is Mary. This is her boyfriend, Jimmy. He brought her in after she kept fainting at home.” Ellen continues to give me the quick rundown as she hooks the patient up to our monitors. I get supplies for an IV so we can get access as quickly as possible.

“When did she start passing out, Jimmy?” Ellen inquires.

“Uh…I guess about forty minutes ago,” the young boy answers and still manages to keep a throw pillow securely in front of his pants. I should further explain that this throw pillow looks ancient and is adorned with white lace. A hand-sewn saying,
Mothers are the roses in the garden of life,
is front and center.

“Mary, do you drink alcohol, do drugs, or smoke cigarettes?” I question the young girl, who looks like she’s starting to become a little more responsive.

“No. Well, not really,” she responds quietly.

“What do you mean by not really?” I urge for more answers.

“I haven’t done illegal drugs.”

“Okay, well what kind of drugs have you done?” Ellen chimes into the conversation.

“Um...” Mary pauses for a long time and makes eye contact with Jimmy. “Nothing. We didn’t take anything.”

Apparently these two think Ellen and I were born yesterday. I shake my head when I make eye contact with my best friend, and we exchange annoyed looks before proceeding.

Ellen grabs her phone and calls out to the nurses’ station. “What ER doctor just took over at five?” she asks into the receiver as she primes IV tubing with Normal Saline. “Dr. Simon?”
She lets out an exasperated breath. “Yeah, that’s fine. Notify him that he needs to see a patient in bed six. ASAP.”

Well, this should be interesting…

“I need you to hold still, Mary. I’m going to put an IV in your arm and draw some blood,” I instruct with a stern tone. I glance up to see her facial expression and notice that she’s pale with a deer-in-headlights look.
Fantastic.

“Do you have an ammonia stick on you?” I voice loud enough to immediately grab Ellen’s attention.

“Sure do.” She grabs the ammonia stick from her pocket, cracks it open, and waves it underneath the patient’s nose.

“That’s awful!” Mary screams and starts to thrash around in the bed.

“Stop!” I shout in her direction. “Do not move an inch or else I’ll have to stick you with the needle again.” I give her a warning stare. Seriously, I get that those ammonia sticks smell like shit, but I refuse to start another IV because this teenager can’t keep her ass still for two god damn minutes.

Once we get the IV fluids flowing into her vein, I investigate further into this very peculiar situation. I mean, the boyfriend is still standing in the corner with a throw pillow held securely in front of his pants. This is entirely weird.

“Since you’re both minors, I’m going to have to call your parents. We managed to get Mary’s parents’ telephone number from her files. Jimmy, I’m going to need your parents’ number.”

“Uh, no! No way! You cannot call our parents!” Jimmy starts to get upset and begins to pace inside the small confines of the ER room. I should add that the pillow is still firmly in place and he’s walking with a slight limp to his gait. This kid is grimacing and looks to be in some sort of discomfort.

“W-what he means…is that our parents are out of town. They’re on vacation,” Mary adds with a panic tone to her voice.

Was I this big of an idiot when I was a teenager?

Ellen gives me a knowing smile as I continue my investigation. “Okay, you two obviously think I’m some sort of moron. Why don’t you go ahead and tell me what ‘medication’ you took tonight?” I use air quotes to get my point across.

“We’ll only tell if you promise not to call our parents.” The young girl’s eyes are wide, uncertainty and fear plastered on her face.

“Okay,” I answer. Yeah, I’m not making any promises because I’m calling their parents no matter what. Legally, I have to call their parents.

“We took some of Jimmy’s dad’s pills. We just wanted to try them out, see if they really worked.” Mary nervously runs her hands along the stark white sheet that is lying across her legs.

“What pills?” Ellen inquires curiously. Yeah, I’m fucking curious too. What in the hell did these kids take? My first guess was Ecstasy or Percocet, but now I’m not so sure.

“Viagra,” Jimmy mumbles under his breath.

Viagra?

The little blue pill for erectile dysfunction?

“Well I guess that explains the throw pillow. So you two just decided to get all hopped up on Viagra tonight so you could bang like little teenage bunnies? As if your bodies aren’t filled with enough hormones! Dear god, what is this generation coming to? I c—”

Ellen abruptly cuts in. “Amy! That’s enough.” She gives the look. Yes, the look that says that I’m being unprofessional.

I couldn’t give two shits about being professional in front of these two kids. They are seventeen years old and going on Viagra benders! I’m pretty sure the teenage pregnancy rate is high enough these days!

“So you each took a Viagra around what time?” Ellen takes over the probing. Apparently, I’m not professional enough for her liking.

“We took four Viagra about two hours ago,” the young girl answers hesitantly.

“So you each took two Viagra?” Ellen questions with a raise of her eyebrow.

“I took four and Mary took four,” the idiot with the throw pillow plastered to his lap replies.

“You took four each! What the fu—”

And again, I’m cut off by Ellen before I can even finish what I was saying. “You put yourselves in a very dangerous situation by not only taking a medication that was not prescribed for you, but by also ingesting four times the recommended dose.”

Both of the adolescent asshats nod their heads.

“Jimmy, I need to see your driver’s license. I have a feeling we’re going to have to admit you as a patient in the emergency room so that we can make sure you’re not having any side effects as well.” Ellen retrieves the plastic card he holds out to her. My best friend has ulterior motives—getting-this-kid’s-parents’-telephone-number kind of motives.

“Thank you for not calling our parents.”

“Oh we’re calling your parents!” My voice echoes inside the small room.

“Yeah, we have to call your parents. Both of you are under the age of eighteen,” Ellen agrees. She makes a quick phone call out to the front desk and speaks with the Triage desk secretary. She provides Malory with all of the information to make the necessary phone calls.

“But you promised!” Jimmy yells in anger. He holds both of his hands in the air in frustration, consequently dropping his coveted throw pillow.

Holy boner-time.

I can’t help myself; my eyes go straight to his crotch. His teenage dick is at full mast and I could use it to hang my stethoscope. I’d like to see the person whose eyes aren’t drawn to this kid’s tented pants. This isn’t a subtle erection. This is a full-on, hard-as-a-rock, the-clock-has-struck-midnight, give-me-a-standing-ovation, everyone-come-look-at-my-cock kind of erection.

And right on cue, Dr. Simon strides through the curtains. His face is focused on the chart in his hands, but I can only imagine the shit that will spew from his mouth once he takes a gander at this kid’s flesh rocket. NASA could do studies on Jimmy’s cock’s ability to defy gravity.

“What do we have here?” The ER physician finally brings his eyes to focus on the patient lying the bed.

I update him quickly as he does an expeditious assessment on the young girl. “Dr. Simon, we have quite the interesting scenario. This is Mary. She and her boyfriend, Jimmy, decided to take Viagra tonight. Four little blue pills each, to be exact. Mary must have passed out several times at home before she arrived in the ER. Her initial systolic pressures were in the seventies, but we’ve managed to get her stabilized with fluids, an ammonia stick, and position changes. She’s doing better now. Last pressure we obtained was 105/78.”

“Okay, well I’d agree she’s doing much better. Everything looks good. Let’s go ahead and give another three hundred milliliter bolus of Normal Saline just to be safe.” He turns for the door.

“That’s not it!” I command loudly to draw his attention.

Dr. Simon turns around and gives me an irritated stare.

“This young man also seems to have a little bit of a problem from the high dosage of Viagra he consumed.” I gesture in Jimmy’s direction. He now has the throw pillow back over his tented pants and is awkwardly leaning against the wall. His face is flushed and his mouth is scrunched into an uncomfortable expression.

“Drop the pillow,” Ellen instructs.

And like any good Boy Scout with a raging mega-huge boner, he drops the pillow to the floor.

“Y-young man, how long have you…
BIG FAT PIG PUSSIES…
have you had this erection?” Dr. Simon’s eyes are as wide as saucers and his infamous nervous Tourette’s is beginning to make its appearance. See, Dr. Simon is known for this little nervous habit. The habit that causes him to yell out sexually explicit comments in high-stress and/or highly uncomfortable situations. Apparently, large boners make him uncomfortable.

Jimmy’s jaw drops. Yeah, mine would too if I’d heard a doctor yelling about pig pussies for the first time.

“About two hours now,” Mary chimes in. She can tell her boyfriend is also a little out of sorts.

Good call, Viagra Mary.

Ellen and I lean against the back wall, enjoying the ambiance that is Dr. Simon and his inappropriate Tourette’s.

“Young man, we need to get you…
BIGFOOT BALL SACS!
” He clears his throat, nervously attempting to gain some composure. “You need…
TROJAN MAN TITS
…treatment now.”

I’m riveted on Mary’s and Jimmy’s facial expressions as they hear the craziness that flows out of this ER physician’s mouth. I know they’re considered minors and I should probably be concerned about their young ears hearing such inappropriate language, but seriously, these two kids decided to go on a Viagra bender so they could bang each other’s brains out. It’s not like we’re dealing with virginal honor students.

“I need one of you to take this young man…
HUGE PARROT BONER
…into a different bed so we can begin treatment before…
CASTRATE SUPERMAN’S TAINT
…before things get worse. I’m hoping we can avoid…
ASPIRING COCK BANDIT
…avoid aspiration.” Dear God, I wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to spit that one out. But seriously,
aspiring cock bandits
? That would be a cool band name.

“Jimmy, you can follow me—” Ellen starts to instruct before she is interrupted by a middle-aged couple storming through the privacy curtain.

“Oh my god! Jimmy! Sweetie!” I’m assuming that this is his mother. She looks extremely worried and I’m sure she’s thinking the absolute worst-case scenario. Generally, when members of our staff make phone calls to families, they just instruct them to come in as soon as possible. We avoid giving out details to prevent violations in patient privacy laws.

The young kid quickly grabs the throw pillow from the floor and proceeds to place it over his very obvious erection. Then he attempts to calm them both down. “Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad. Don’t worry. Everything is okay.”

Mary is currently sitting in the bed and her cheeks are flushed pink with what I’m assuming is embarrassment. Yeah, I’d probably be embarrassed too if my high school boyfriend’s parents were about to find out we’d hijacked his dad’s boner pills and attempted to have a sex rave in his bedroom.

His mother wraps her arms around him and then quickly pulls back when she realizes that things aren’t exactly kosher right now. “Jimmy? Why do you have Grandma Ruby’s throw pillow with you?”

“Uh…” He trails off nervously.

“
BONER!
I mean…”

I choose to step into this conversation before Dr. Simon starts yelling crazy shit at this unsuspecting couple. “What Dr. Simon is trying to say here is that Jimmy and Mary decided to take some of your husband’s little blue pills tonight and…” I pause, allowing the information to sink in.

“Oh my god! Oh my god! And you’re covering your
erection
?”
His mother whispers the last word before continuing on. “With Grandma Ruby’s throw pillow?! That’s a family heirloom! She made that pillow, and oh my god, Jimmy! It’s a reminder of your mother and now it’s covering your…your…” His mom covers her face with her hands and begins to sob hysterically.

His dad steps up to the plate. “Son, what do you have to say for yourself?”

“I’m
sorry
?” Jimmy answers as if he’s asking his parents a question. God, this kid needs to learn to lie. Teenage Amy is more than ashamed at the shitty display in bullshitting abilities this kid has shown since he stepped foot into the ER.