Chapter 1

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“Patience is bitter, But it’s fruit is sweet.”
-Aristotle

 

  ‘As steady as a rock,’ they say. Someone who was sure as hell the greatest support, friend, mentor, lover, and best of all, a ing doctor. Running on a maximum of 3 hours of sleep, mind you not continuously at all, Choi Yeon, or more commonly known as, Theodora Choi, was now navigating the emergency department all by herself. Her colleagues always wondered how she could function being on her feet 24/7 with nothing but just coffee in her system. It did not help that her attending was busy doing god knows what with god knows who leaving not only the ER extremely understaffed but with only one intern commanding 14 nurses and 12 patients. The intern being Theodora herself. 

     It was funny, she must say, putting herself through utmost pain in med school cramming all those diagnosis and treatment procedures into her little brain, and now killing herself under the hands of her attending only to be standing at the center of the ER with a tablet in her hand listening to everyone throwing words at her. 

     “Theo! His oxygen levels are dropping!” One of the nurses called out. Theodora gave the entire room of doctors and nurses, waiting for her response to what they should do with their patients, a sorry glance and ran towards the patient currently seizing. 

     “Heart rate is 160 over 40, he is having a cardiac arrest. Charge the defib to 100, and someone for the last ing time page Dr. Diaz” She yelled out orders. She places the gel over the paddles, rubbing them together just in time for the paddles to be loaded.

     “Charging to 100” The nurse replied. Theodore yelled out ‘clear’ before placing the paddles over the mans chest before allowing the current to run past the wires and into the mans chest. His body heaveed for a second before the nurse checked for pulse. 

     “No response.” 

     “VFIB”

     “Charge to 200”Theodora stated. 

     “Charging to 200.” 

     “Clear!”

     The nurse placed her fingers under the mans chin and sighed in relief. 

     “Heart rate back to normal, mans breathing. Good job Doctor Choi.” The nurse said patting the younger girl on the back. The latter could only smile back, knowing the worse was yet to come. 

 

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     Sometimes the best part of life was when there is nothing but peace and quiet. Theodora laid back on the bench of her locker room, covering her eyes with her bare arms taking in all of the silence she could. Her body was extremely sore from running around bed to bed, patient to patient and only after 11 out of 12 patients were stable did her attending show up. 

     How badly she wanted to throw her shoes at that smug’s face when she noticed a raging hickey forming her bosses brightly dyed blonde hair but what could she do? Her boss was her boss and doing so only meant more work, something she could not risk any longer. 

     After a 48 hour shift, the sun that had set hours ago was rising up and it was finally time for her to go home but the young girl could not gather any energy to lift her self off of the bench. She heard the door open but she didn’t care who it was. She just let her self sink deeper into the cushion of the bench. 

     “Doctor Choi.” It was a woman. Theodora wanted to scoff in annoyance. It was the same woman she wanted to smack across the face with her shoe. 

     Taking a deep breath she sat up and lazily stared at the woman’s face. 

     “Yes, Doctor Diaz?” 

     Doctor Diaz took note of the sarcasm that covered the girls voice that had turned raspy from all the yelling. She cleared before taking a small step forward. 

     “I wanted to apologize.” 

     Theodora thinned her lips and nodded unsure of where this conversation was going. 

     “I should have been more careful and not let you, a intern, handle the ER all by yourself. I left my pager in my coat which was, well, you know-”

     “No I don’t know.” Theodora cut her off. She brushed her fingers roughly threw her hair and her lips. 

     “I have been on the floor for 2 days straight. No sleep, no food, and no freaking rest. I had 12 patients today. Twelve. You run the ER and knowing how many people come through those doors all day you decided to take a 2 hour break and come back with hickeys all over your neck!” 

     Doctor Diaz was stunned by her intern’s sudden outburst. It was unlike Doctor Choi to yell at a superior as much as it was unlike the doctor herself to leave her pos