It’s the beginning of October, it’s Sunday, and it’s been an uneventful shift thus far. However, in exactly seventy minutes, a patient that I’ve just seen — one that I think has nothing more than an upset stomach — will collapse and begin a fight for her life.
I’m at the nursing station scribbling on a chart when a lanky man leans over me, a toddler in his arms. He’s looking at the nurse, but really he’s talking to me. He asks why his son has to wait, insisting that his child be seen first “because he’s a baby.” I look at the child — curious, happy, inquisitive — and a second later, I’m called to see a teenager who’s downed a bottle of Tylenol.
Twenty minutes later, the father hasn’t moved. I direct them into a room. Sam Sampson is almost two. His father tells me that he’s had a cold — runny nose, congestion, cough — for a few days. An initial fever has passed. He’s drinking well, but hasn’t been eating much. He just wants his bottle, which he’s sucking on right now, as he sits on the examining table and studies me.
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