Beautiful Oblivion (The Maddox Brothers, #1)(95)

Dana shook her head, seeming slightly amused, and then slowly made her way behind the curtain.

Christy picked up a film and walked to the X-ray table in the middle of the room, sliding it into the Bucky tray between the table surface and the controls. “You should at least say hi.”

“Hi.”

“Not me, dummy. To Chase.”

“Are we still talking about him?”

Christy rolled her eyes. “Yes. He’s cute, has a good job, has never been married, no kids. Did I mention cute? All that dark hair . . . and his eyes!”

“They’re brown. Go ahead. I dare you to play up brown.”

“They’re not just brown. They’re like a golden honey brown. You better jump on that now before you miss your chance. Do you know how many single women in this hospital are salivating over that?”

“I’m not worried about it.”

Christy smiled and shook her head, and then her expression changed once her pager went off. She pulled it from her waistline and glanced down. “Crap. I have to move the C-arm from OR 2 for Dr. Pollard’s case. Hey, I might have to leave a little early to take Kate to the orthodontist. Do you think you could do my three o’clock surgery? It’s easy peasy.”

“What is it?”

“Just a port. Basically C-arm babysitting.”

The C-arm, named for its shape, showed the doctors where they were in the body in real time. Because the machine emitted radiation, it was our jobs as X-ray techs to stand there, push, pull, and push the button during surgery. That, and make sure the doctor didn’t over-radiate the patient. I didn’t mind running it, but the damn thing was heavy. Christy would have done the same for me, though, so I nodded. “Sure. Just give me the pager before you leave.”

Christy grabbed a lead apron, and then left me to go upstairs. “You’re awesome. I wrote Dana’s history on the requisition sheet. See you later! Get Chase’s number!”

Dana walked slowly from the bathroom, and I gestured for her to sit in a chair beside the table.

“Did your doctor explain this procedure to you?”

Dana shook her head. “Not really.”

A few choice words crossed my mind. How a doctor could send a patient in for a procedure without an explanation was beyond me, and how a patient couldn’t ask wasn’t something I understood, either.

“I’ll take a few X-rays of your abdomen, and then fetch the doctor. I’ll come back, make the table vertical, and you’ll stand and drink that cup of barium,” I said, pointing to the cup behind me on the counter, “a sip at a time, at the doctor’s discretion. He’ll use fluoroscopy to watch the barium travel down your esophagus and into your stomach. Fluoro is basically an X-ray, but instead of a picture, we get a video in real time. When that’s done, we’ll start the small bowel follow-through. You’ll drink the rest of the barium, and we’ll take X-rays as it flows through your small bowel.”

Dana eyed the cup. “Does it taste bad? I’ve been vomiting a lot. I can’t keep anything down.”

The requisition page with Christy’s scribbles was lying on the counter next to the empty cups. I picked it up, looking for the answer to my next question. Dana had only been ill for two days. I glanced up at her, noting her appearance.

“Have you been sick like this before?” She shook her head in answer. “Traveled recently?” She shook her head again. “Any history of Crohn’s disease? Anorexia? Bulimia?” I asked.

She held out her arm, palm up. There was a perfect bite mark in the middle of her forearm. Each tooth had broken the skin. Deep, red perforations dotted her arm in mirrored half-moons, but the bruised skin around the bites was still intact.

I met her eyes. “Dog?”

“A drunk,” she said with a weak laugh. “I was at a party Tuesday night. We had just left, and some * wandering around outside just grabbed my arm and took a bite. He might have pulled a whole chunk off if my boyfriend hadn’t hit him. Knocked him out long enough for us to find the car and leave. I saw on the news yesterday that he’d attacked other people, too. It was the same night, and the same apartment complex. Had to be him.” She let her arm fall to her side, seeming exhausted. “Joey’s in the waiting room . . . scared to death I have rabies. He just got back from his last tour in Afghanistan. He’s seen everything, but he can’t stand to hear me throw up.” She laughed quietly to herself.

I offered a comforting smile. “Sounds like a keeper. Just hop up on the table there, and lay on your back.”

Dana did as I asked, but needed assistance. Her bony hands were like ice.

“How much weight did you say you’ve lost?” I asked while situating her on the table, sure I had read Christy’s history report wrong on the requisition.

Dana winced from the cold, hard table pressing against her pelvic bone and spine.

“Blanket?” I asked, already pulling the thick, white cotton from the warmer.

“Please.” Dana hummed as I draped the blanket over her. “Thank you so much. I just can’t seem to get warm.”

“Abdominal pain?”

“Yes. A lot.”

“Pounds lost?”

“Almost twenty.”

“Since Tuesday?”

Dana raised her brows. “Believe me, I know. Especially since I was thin to begin with. You . . . don’t think it’s rabies . . . do you?” She tried to laugh off her remark, but I could hear the worry in her voice.