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Mel and Trinity were working together to treat a sick kid in North 4. They’d seen their fair share of sick people, kids included in the past couple weeks. It was safe to say flu season had well and truly hit Pittsburgh. But neither of the doctors believed this was a case of the flu they were working with - the poor kid was just too sick. The pair re-entered the room after gathering test results and chasing up a chest x-ray respectively.
“Hello again Hailey,” Mel greeted warmly, “How are you feeling?”“She’s the same as before,” her mother answered before Hailey had a chance. “If anything, she’s worse, she’s even more tired!”
Trinity could notice the slight rise in Mel’s shoulders, it was completely unnoticeable to a patient, but she still saw it. And, quite frankly, she didn’t blame her. Mrs Thomas’ voice could, most politely, be described as grating.
“We’re still waiting on some test results,” Trinity began to explain. “Hailey’s rapid strep test was negative, so that’s one thing checked off the list”
Mrs Thomas shook her head, her curly brown hair bouncing around her shoulders as she did; she looked every bit the typical suburban American mom. “I told you it’s just a cold. We’re only here because her damned school insisted”
“It doesn’t look like a typical case of the flu Mrs Thomas,” Mel interjected. “The Tylenol we gave Hailey also should have worked to bring down her fever, but it hasn’t yet”
“Of course it hasn’t, Tylenol is a completely useless medication. Hailey just needs to sweat it out of her system, then in a few days she’ll be back to normal”
Trinity very quickly had to deploy her best poker face upon hearing that. But she couldn’t quite stop from blurting out a question that had been bugging her since walking into Hailey’s room.
“Has Hailey had all her vaccinations?” Santos asked bluntly, earning a startled glance from Mel and an indignant look from Mrs Thomas.
Mrs Thomas scoffed. “Of course not! I’m not having my daughter pumped full of poison!”
Both doctors suddenly had a dreadful pit open in their stomachs.
“Okay,” Mel said hesitantly. “We’re going to need to run some more tests. And you really should have your daughter vaccinated Mrs Thomas, I assure you there is absolutely nothing dangerous about them”
“Ha, well you would say that, you’re a doctor. But I know how bad they are, I’m not having my daughter turn out impaired just because I give her something that’s ‘supposed’ to help!”
Hailey coughing desperately interrupted the slightly tense environment; and Trinity from saying something that would earn her a talking to from Dr Robby.
Santos glanced at the monitors, “her oxygen saturation's dropped,” she stated.
Mel looked too before nodding, “okay, lets get an oxygen mask on her and see if that helps”
“Is that alright with you Mrs Thomas?” Dr Santos checked, if somewhat petulantly.
“It’s just oxygen? Nothing that’s going to make her dependent on your ridiculous medications?”
“No, nothing like that,” Mel answered before Trinity had a chance; almost as if she could sense the sarcasm that it would result in.
With her mothers permission, Dr King reached over Hailey, connecting the oxygen supply to a paediatric mask then carefully placing it on the young girls face.
“Alright Hailey,” Mel soothed. “This is just some oxygen to make breathing a little bit easier for you”
“Thank you,” Hailey’s croaky little voice said.
Just after, a porter came in to take Hailey up for her chest CT, leaving Trinity and Mel looking over test results and complaining.
“I can’t believe that mom!” Trinity said, irritated. “How can any sane person nowadays think that vaccinations are a bad thing?”
Mel sighed heavily as she looked at the tablet in her hands. “Unfortunately it’s getting more and more common. There was a kid with ADEM on the day of pitt fest because his mom didn’t have him vaccinated.” She shook her head, “and its always the same reasoning,” she continued, both Trinity and Dr Robby who was stood behind the hub desk seeing that Mel was getting a little uncomfortable about it. “It’s stupid! And ableist! Plus, I had all my vaccinations and I turned out… Oh no, wait a minute”
No one, including - impressively - Robby, expected the guffaw that came out of the ED chief’s mouth. Or possibly his nose, no one in the vicinity was sure how he made the sound.
“We-were you planning that the whole time?” Robby asked clumsily through his laughter.
Mel, bright, cat who got the cream smile, clear as anything simply nodded with a small, “Mhm,” just so pleased with herself. And that sent Robby off into even more - slightly hysterical sounding - laughter, which set off Trinity, which set off Mel.
After another minute of recovering, Robby gained back his sensibilities.
Clearing his throat, he got back to serious with the younger doctors. “What is it you two are looking at anyway?”
“We’ve got a seven year old in North 4 who’s sick and we’re trying to work out why. Her mom’s a total anti-vax idiot and wouldn’t have brought her sick kid in if the school didn’t insist apparently,” Trinity explained, really trying not to let all of her distaste for the woman out in her voice.
Robby held his hand out for Santos’ tablet, peering over his glasses at her as he did. “I hope you kept that to yourself Dr Santos?”
“Course I did, I’m much better at it now,” Santos replied, with a look of ‘wasn’t that obvious’ on her face.
Robby looked back to her, his own sly grin turning up the corner of his mouth. “Have you had the x-ray back yet?”
“No,” Mel answered, “she went up a few minutes ago”
Robby hummed in consideration. “I’m not seeing anything terrible here. Once you have a diagnosis, run it by me or Dr Mohan and we’ll work out treatment okay?”
“Yep, sure,” Trinity answered as Mel nodded her agreement too.
Mel and Trinity split off for a while after that, both having other patients to tend to. But, after another thirty minutes, they had a second to go over Hailey’s scan.
“Huh,” Trinity said, stunned. “I don’t know how, but I think the kid’s only for pneumonia”
Mel’s brow scrunched up at that. “I’m not sure that’s quite how you should tell her mom, but I understand the sentiment. It could definitely have been a lot worse. I’ll call up to pharmacy for antibiotics and start working on discharge papers.”
Trinity nodded, “Sweet, I’ll go tell the mom. And I promise to do it properly, all kinds of professional,” she said, gesturing widely and spinning in space slightly as she did.
Mel smiled, “find Dr Mohan or Dr Robby first,” she reminded
“You got it Melanoma!” Trinity replied, complete with finger guns as she walked off to find a senior resident or Dr Robby.
Santos quickly looked humbled as she turned to walk away, and fell face first onto the floor having slipped on a patch of hastily cleaned coffee spillage. She stood up again, gratefully unharmed and looked conspiratorially at Mel.
“You saw nothing,” she whispered before backing away carefully.
Mel just nodded, contorting her mouth in an attempt to not laugh, and feeling happier at work than she had in a while. She suddenly thought she was glad she hadn’t made assumptions about Trinity on their first day like so many others seemed to. Mel didn’t think enough people saw just how much her friend (and she did have to check they were friends multiple times) actually cared.