As if life wasn’t already messy enough, that now she was being asked to stay on night duties as well; that’s the thought that floated in Tanya’s head as she walked through those giant sliding automated glass doors into her workplace at 9pm sharp. The first thing she did was punch her card in at the entry , cause the last thing she liked was being told about not being on time.

She smiled at the receptionist who wished her as she walked past her desk . Her cabin was on the third floor and she felt too lazy to take the stairs today , so she lazily walked towards the end of the corridor to get to the elevator , passing many known and a lot of unknown faces on the way.

She pressed the elevator button and quietly waited for the elevator to come down. 5…..4…..3….2….. “Dr Tanya !!!” she heard the new nurse on duty call out to her , hastily running towards her .

“And it begins” she shut her eyes in dismay “didn’t even reach my floor !!”

“Dr Tanya , there is a consult for you from the trauma casualty !”

“Give me the patient file ! Let them know I will be there in five. I need to keep my things and change into my scrubs first” saying so she grabbed the file from the nurse’s hand and pressed on the elevator button again ,since she had missed it the first time around.

“But Ma’am , the surgeon on duty said its urgent.” The nurse looked worried .

“ Its an ophthalmology consult !! I am pretty sure it can wait five minutes. You can go , I will deal with it.” She swiftly stepped into the elevator before the nurse could say another word and closed the door shut.

Five minutes later , she was standing in the chaotic trauma casualty of the hospital. No matter how many times she had been here , it never failed to give her the feeling of stepping into an unknown territory. Shrugging away her feelings , she walked into the minor operating theatre inside the casualty. Reaching there, she scanned the patients lying on the OT tables to see if one of them had any injury in or near the eye. This part never got easier , no matter who was on duty. It was always her job to look for the patient in the crowd of injured patients scattered everywhere.

After an initial scan , she could spot one with what looked from far like an eye injury. She pushed her way past the attendants , to reach the patient . The moment she reached the patient , she heard someone speak from behind “That’s the patient we sent the consult for !”

She looked behind to see a new face .He was tall, medium built, black hair ,slightly dusky, with a plaid shirt neatly tucked in and spoke almost softly .And most importantly she didn’t know him. In her six months of having worked at the hospital , she had the chance to work with almost all trauma surgeons but this face wasn’t familiar to her.

“ Hi !! Dr Varun here ! And you must be our in house ophthalmologist. Sorry I didn’t catch your name .”

“Dr Tanya here !”she introduced herself. “You sent the consult ?”

“ Yes.”he moved past her to the patient’s side . “28 year male .It’s a case of a road traffic accident . But take a look at his right eye.”

She quickly put on her gloves on and forcefully opened the right , to examine the wound . “Looks like a corneal tear.”

“So ? What needs to be done ?” he asked as they walked back together to the consultation room’

“ Will have to repair it in the operation theatre in the morning .”

“ Then ?”

“Then we have to evaluate everything to see if his vision can be restored or not .”she replied startled by his inquisitiveness. Usually surgeons would just leave her to it and go back to attending other cases.

“ Okay . So do you need to shift the patient now ?”he asked further.

“ Umm . No. We will operate in the morning. Besides you need to give a surgical clearance before we can proceed. So you can finish your workup and if everything turns out fine , then we can transfer the patient tomorrow.”

“Okay then.” He nodded and proceeded on with his work , finally leaving her alone to put her notes in.

“ Weird fellow !”she thought to herself “why is he so interested in what management we will be doing. No other surgeon has ever shown so much interest in this.”

She finished putting her notes for the consult once left alone. Then proceeded to leave certain instructions with the nurse for managing the patient for the night and then quietly left for her cabin .

                      ***********

PS : Hey readers ! If you are interested in this story , do leave your comments....cause its important for me to know how its being perceived. All kind of criticism is welcome too.

Love
Pebbles