You Make It Easy

Good Jeans.

Maya~

"When am I picking you up or are we leaving from here?" Bridget asks me as I stare at the computer screen.

"I need to change. I didn't wear my good jeans."

"Your good jeans?"

"Yes. Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about."

She laughs, "Why don't I follow you home, and then we can leave?"

"Sure. Are we eating there? That's fine if we do."

"I don't care. Doesn't matter to me. But if we don't, we'll need to get something on the way."

"I could make something quick. We'll have some time."

I watch my phone start ringing. I answer Christian's FaceTime. "Yes?"

"Did you get my text?"

I look through my notifications, "No."

Bridget puts a few papers in front of me, "Can you sign these?"

I flip through them, "An AMA? For who?"

She points at the paper. I read it. "Christian, can I call you back in a few minutes?"

"Yeah."

"Love you, bye," I tell him.

"Love you."

I hang up and sign the other forms. "They want to leave because they don't like this hospital? Don't the EMTs give them a choice if it's not extremely serious?"

"Yeah, they do. They want to be transported to Aurora."

"Ultimately, it's their decision. But I can assure you that no ambulance is taking them to Aurora just because they want to be there instead. That's not how this works."

"I've explained it to them. But they would like to leave."

I shake my head and sign the form anyway. I never understood why someone would turn down medical treatment. I understand if it's a religious belief. That's something we cannot question or go against as physicians. But if you have no stipulations and you're refusing care because you don't like what someone is telling you absolutely blows my mind.

"Do you have anything else for me?"

"Not right now."

"Okay. Can you discharge my patients? Someone fucked up this chart and I'm trying to figure it out."

"When is it from?"

"Last night."

"Oh. That's Jayla's work."

"One of the new hires? Why is she on nights? I just worked with her."

She shrugs, "Don't know. What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing makes sense. 'Tachycardia but heart rate was stable at 84.' That's not tachycardia. Her notes are all over the place and I can't read them."

"Probably because she was using sticky notes."

"For what? It's 2020. I put everything into my tablet."

"I don't know, Maya. I wasn't there. But people have said she went to a very conservative nursing school. So are we that surprised she's using sticky notes?"

"Yeah, a little bit. What school? Because clearly, they aren't teaching right."

"Somewhere out west in Montana."

"She came from Montana?"

"Maya, you should really get to know the people you're working with."

"Why when I have you?"