Page 5 of Andrew’s Outback Love

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WE STOOD OUT IN THE heat, Cam on one side of me, Viv on the other and watched the plane as it became airborne and disappeared over the horizon. Once the aircraft was out of sight, we trudged back inside.

“Those people certainly know how to take control of an emergency, don’t they? I don’t know what people like us would do without them if there was an accident. I guess it would be like the early days, people would die,” Viv mused.

Cam wandered off to the office, he’d play nurse for the rest of the day. He’d done it once before when Ruby had accompanied a young patient, who had a serious infection, to Bourke. Allison had been in the early stages of pregnancy and called in sick. We hadn’t had a chance to replace her. Finn was our doctor and pilot on duty that day. The young boy had been burning up, coughing and wheezing. I’d been concerned and asked Finn to assess the child. He’d recommended airlifting him to hospital immediately. I’d been informed later that night, it was severe asthma caused by a bacterial infection which appeared to have gone untreated for over a week. Several days later, the little fella was flown home and last I’d heard, he was doing very well.

I turned to face Viv when we stopped outside the office door. “They’re incredible emergency doctors and James is certainly one of the best. He’ll make sure the hospital takes good care of Allison until the RFDS can get her down to Dubbo or Sydney.”

“I hope she’s okay. I’ll bring your first patient in.” Viv headed towards the makeshift waiting room out on the verandah.

“Looks like the ladies had everything ready, Drew.” Cam took a seat in a chair off to one side while I moved behind the desk.

“Dejavu, huh?”

“Yeah, how long ago was it?”

“Four months I guess. I hope our patients are okay with Ruby not being here.”

“I wouldn’t worry. We’ll explain like last time and I’m sure they’ll be fine. Will they fly someone out to us?”

“Probably not. Looks like it’s you and me until we join up with Ruby back in Bourke tomorrow and after that, we’ll still need your help.”

“I don’t mind. I can escort patients in between examining those you schedule for surgery.”

Viv entered the office with a little girl about five years old. At least I thought that was her age, it was hard to judge sometimes. I smiled at the girl’s mother and indicated for her to take a seat. The child appeared to be shy, crawled onto her mother’s lap and buried her face against her chest.

“She’s scared,” her mother confessed. “She hasn’t seen a doctor before.”

“I won’t hurt her, I promise you. Can you tell me a little about her health and the problem with her eyes?”

The mother went on to explain the child was relatively healthy but tended to fall over and complained she couldn’t see properly. That narrowed it down – not. I asked a few pertinent questions and around fifteen minutes later, I had a good idea of what the problem was. After some cajoling, a promise of ice cream and reassurance from her mother in a native tongue, I managed to examine the little girl’s eyes.

As I suspected, the child had cataracts on both eyes and her vision would have been minimal at best. I explained how I would like to remove the cataracts and insert intraocular lenses to restore the sight. I also talked about how only one eye would be done at a time with four weeks between the two surgeries. The mother asked relevant questions about eye drops and follow up. She was an intelligent woman and her husband worked on one of the adjoining stations about fifty kilometres away. He had driven her and his daughter over earlier in the day and would return once his work on the station was done. Cam explained the anesthetic and once mum was satisfied, the child was examined and papers were signed. They would return in two weeks for the child’s first procedure.

The afternoon passed without incident. One or two people were uncomfortable that Ruby wasn’t present, but Viv managed to set them at ease. Six children were scheduled for surgery – four cataract removals and two slight retinal detachments.

As I packed up the files into a suitcase the nurses used, the phone rang. Cameron stopped packing up instruments when I mouthed it was the hospital and I placed the phone on speaker before lowering it to the desk.

The switchboard receptionist asked me to hold and I was pleased to hear James’ voice come on the line.

“James, how’s Ally?”

“Stable. They want her sent to Sydney for further tests. Her doctor at the Women’s Hospital is concerned that her blood pressure and diabetes are still not under control. He’s talking about keeping her down there on bed rest.”

“That’ll thrill her to bits. I’d hate to be the poor nurses who have to take care of her.” Allison was not one to sit around doing nothing and I knew she would fight this every step of the way.

“Honestly, Drew. She’s going to have to start listening or her baby won’t make it. Its heartbeat was tachy and took a while to restore back to normal.”

“Have you spoken to Rick?”

“Yeah, he said he’s going to order them to chain her to the bed until the baby is born. She really scared him this time and he sounded upset on the phone.”

“It must be hard for him. Is he driving up?”

“No. I have Finn bringing up one of the equipped planes first thing tomorrow to fly Ally to Sydney. I asked Rick to meet us there. Not much point in making the long drive up here only to have to turn around and drive to Sydney. As soon as Ally’s awake, I’ll get her to call him.”

“She’s not awake?” My anxiety for her climbed.