Chapter 229 : Of love and logic

Esmee

 

“You had better way have some answers!” I turned to Leo fuming with him after I watched Mi’s body lose its fight against the sedative that Leo had put into her arm.

 “Well if you tell me the question Esmee maybe that would help.”

 "What the hell was that you gave her Leo?”

 “I gave her a sedative, however you know that I think the answer that you really want is why I gave it to her.” I growled at him before I could stop myself, the sound actually coming from somewhere deep in my throat making me sound like a wild animal. It had been instinctual, a warning sign to back off or face the rage of an extremely ticked off mama bear.

 “Did you actually just growl at me?” Leo mocked with a smile even though I wasn’t sure why he thought I was finding the situation funny. “You did, you actually just growled at me. You realize the only way you could be any cuter was if you started stamping your feet right?

 “I am not trying to be cute Doctor Fish and if you don’t tell me a good reason as to why you felt the need to drug the patient I will start stamping on your face.” I hissed

 “Mrs. Bear, because of your incredible short ass-ed-ness you couldn’t reach my face if I lied down on the ground for you.”

 "Bears eat fish Leo and trust me you’re not a too big a meal for me to turn away now seriously explain yourself!”

 “Seriously…”

 “Seriously!” I yelled as my face because red and annoyingly I started to feel the backs of my eyes stab with tears of anger and god knows what else. I had failed again in the very path of my job, and more times than not I did. I lost battles and I wanted a win so badly that it hurt. I understood that there were constant lows. I understood that not everyone could get better in the end of it all. That some people were so hurt that a nebulizer was a mountain to climb and they felt like they did not deserve the oxygen that filled and exited their lungs. We lost as many as we saved. they slipped out the back doors that we hid from view, and slivered into long term units were they wound not see that light of day again for many years, if ever. Any genius could see that was where Mi was heading. I shouldn’t have cared. Not as passionately as I felt it inside me anyway. But I did. There was something that was too important to lose, like she was connected in some way to me, like maybe I would lose a peace of myself that was buried inside her heart if I let her slip away.

 “Ok… chill out Esmee. Seriously, I did what I had to. She was extremely anxious in a very dangerous department and she wanted to hurt herself which could have been easily achieved if she got physical in her attempt for a tool.  That isn’t  mentioning  the fact that her heart rate was at 140 BPM and her oxygen was getting lower and lower. She must have been in physical pain and as a doctor I am meant to try to stop pain and even more importantly to stop medical problems from getting worse and that includes tachycardia. I dealt with the medical problem at hand with the use of moderate sedation.” Leo spoke the words in a stern and critical way and I felt my shield of nails and steel break down slightly. I hated it when he became Doctor Fish and not our friend but I had made him get like this. It was another thing that was my entire fault today.

 “Look,” Leo said again, his voice getting softer as he saw the chink in my armor.   “If you can guarantee me that she would have calmed down with the help of some ice, or a pack of playing cards, or drawing on herself with red pen then I will apologize now Esmee and admit that I was in the wrong entirely. The thing is though honey, I like to think that you have taught me enough about self-harm to know that, that wasn’t really a likely outcome.

 I sighed defeated. He was right. She would have thought for a bit longer maybe but the fire that was engulfing her would consume. It started in the veins then spread to the mussels and the skin. The bones would bleach from the heat and skin would try to split apart. She would heave her guts up to try and expel what was so bad but it wouldn’t quite work and then her soul would fall making her react, making her find something to use and then the sedative would have gone in just from a different area. With me laid on top of her screaming for her to stop. It was textbook how, it worked I just wished that it could have been different. I just wished that I could have made it OK.

 "Do you like it when you’re right Leo? Does it make you feel good?” I snapped flumping myself back into the chair that was next to Mi. At least she looked peaceful.

 “Not really Esmee. To upset you doesn’t make me feel good at all really.  Those tears that are pricking at your eyes, you can’t hide them from me like you can the others. Emmet told me the signs. He’s also talked to me about this little thing here becoming a bit of a problem in your lives. Seeing you with her I can sort of see what her means - it easy to form a too emotional attachment to a patient.”

 "He said she was a problem,” I shouted feeling the anger flair again as I leant forward in the chair ready to spring if I had to. It almost worried me how I reacted. She was nothing to me. I looked after her on a unit full of people. I was her nurse. I was meant to treat her wounds and returned her to health then I let her go back to the healthy world. I should not have felt any deep set emotions.

 “That reaction is the problem,” Leo said like he read my mind “Look I know your job is different to mine, I know you have to be passionate about your work to the extreme or you would get disheartened. I know you have to have compassion in bucket load as well. The rules are there to be bent and I’m not reporting you or going to recommend action, but destroying yourself will not save her Esmee. You have the power to switch off of her case and I will give you the same advice as Emmet. If that’s what you think you should do. That your logical head tells you to do then you should do it. There is no place for emotion in medicine.”

 “You may be right, but I’m not in medicine.” I smiled as things began to click inside my head making my choice for me. “I am a psychiatric nurse. I deal with emotional disturbances. I have spent my whole life dealing with my own emotional disturbances. I spent exactly eleven months, 5 days and eleven hours inside the walls of a psychiatric unit filled with logic filled nurses and doctors trying to cure me and I barely noticed a change. Then a person with one stupid emotion found me and I got better. One emotion made me better. One emotion set me free. Love.