Dr. Maxwell Straus finally warms up to his new nurse
Eric Hollis, a 30-year-old personal aide to Dr. Maxwell Straus, knocked on his boss's door before entering, "Cabot has you by the balls on this one."
"Goddammit. For the last time, No! How much more paperwork am I going to have to fill out now to make them go away," Maxwell Straus replied.
"There may be no away out of this one. The budget for all our supplies and medications now go through his office. The governor signed a new order giving the Oregon Department of Health more control," Eric said.
"But I've already told them we just need the medical goodies, no undertrained nurses walking around wreaking havoc," Maxwell said, "Maybe I'll call up my old friend Dr. Ellery to see if we can get out of it."
"Dr. Ellery won't be able to do anything, his hands are tied by Cabot. That guy is like a czar in the department. Listen, I know you like running everything one way but perhaps having another nurse here won't be so bad," Eric said.
"I like to run my office my way. The right way! You know, that way we actually save lives instead of destroy them."
"I should have told you this first, but there's a nurse coming Monday. Her name is Katie and she just graduated from University of Oregon's nursing program."
"Just let me call Dr. Ellery. He has friends in high places."
Dr. Straus knew he was fighting a losing battle. He was of the opinion that there was a right way to do things and to compromise, just one bit, was a loss of moral character. In the last 7 years he had become more adamant about his personal code of ethics. He grew up in North Falls, Oregon but attended UCLA on a football scholarship and later went to medical school there as well. As soon as he became a doctor, he married his high school sweetheart Paula.
They promised each other they'd move back to North Falls as soon as he paid off the remaining medical school loans. Maxwell took a job in a doctor's office in Beverly Hills. He hated it. All he had wanted to do was save lives but here he was, in the most over-medicated zip code in the country, getting paid to subscribe skin creams to young models who would throw a panic attack over one blemish.
The money was fantastic. Within a few years he had pocketed a million dollars and his wife was pregnant. They would have their child, a son, and move back to North Falls.
But as her due date approached everything kept going wrong. Paula became sick and tired. After a week in the hospital labor came, but Maxwell's son was stillborn. Maxwell was heartbroken and Paula's sickness was worsened. She got infected during labor and within a week she was dead. It was a freak accident. In America, only one-fourth of one-percent of all pregnancies result in the mother dying. And even of those, most are women with some type of pre-existing condition such as diabetes or hypertension. Paula was fine.
Maxwell blamed the nurses that surrounded her up to labor. Infections were preventable. He couldn't pinpoint it, and maybe it was just random chance, but it was the nurses who killed his wife. Maxwell had been the one fixing errors of those nurses when he was just there to support his wife emotionally.
He quit his job immediately, took his million, and returned to North Falls. After six-months of doing nothing but staring at the stars he took over the private practice of a retiring doctor. That was seven and a half years ago. He threw himself completely into his work. He had no interest in finding a woman he was with Paula, eternally. North Falls was small, a few thousand people in the remote eastern-Oregon. Maxwell's clinic was the only medical office the people of North Falls could get to without driving for almost an hour. His neighbors relied on him.
"So, how's it going Fred?" Maxwell spoke with a feigned excitement. It was Fred Ellery, a former professor of Maxwell in medical school. Now Dr. Ellery worked for the state of Oregon and was Maxwell's one contact when dealing with bureaucracy. But as Maxwell begged Dr. Ellery to help him out, it was clear there was nothing they could do. Oregon's Department of Health was adamant that smaller communities start taking in new nurses to help deal with the excess of young nurses. Maxwell had one nurse in his clinic, a 50 year old, named Hannah, whom he trusted implicitly. He just didn't want a 22-year old.
"Alright, well, thanks Fred. I appreciate you taking my call."
Maxwell's stubbornness had not gotten him what he wanted and it only made him leave work even more frustrated. It was a Saturday night and he was not working the next day. It had nothing to do with the fact it was a Sunday. Maxwell had worked every Sunday for the last three months. There were only a few days Maxwell took off every year, and they weren't even Thanksgiving or Christmas. He never worked on May 14, the day he and his wife got married, and July 2, the day she died. Tomorrow was July 2.
***
To say Katie Grays was nervous was an understatement. Six months ago she had no idea she would end up in Eastern Oregon. Who wanted to live in such a small and backward place? Katie grew up in Portland before going to the University of Oregon. Her plan was to move in with her boyfriend back in Portland and find a job at a hospital there.
When she made a surprise visit to his apartment, and found him having sex on the couch with a girl he later claimed he had met the night before, she was crushed. Despite a heated argument in which her boyfriend threw every excuse he could think of at her, she drove away blocking his number and e-mail. She hadn't heard from him since that day and didn't want to.
Any man would argue that her boyfriend made a mistake. She was gorgeous with natural dark blonde hair that went to her shoulders and the most unforgettable hazel eyes. While she was often insecure whenever she looked in a mirror, Katie kept her trim figure. She was blessed with breasts similar to her mothers, round C cups. After the break-up she had only been to the gym more often, hoping it would be a way to get her mind off her boyfriend. Her waist had slimmed down and the squats made her butt even more eye-catching.
As she made the drive east to North Falls trying to appear attractive was the last thing on her mind. When she realized she didn't want to live in the same city as her ex-boyfriend, she signed up for a state program for new nurses. It would be a good entry point into the medical system but she didn't get to pick where she ended up. As it turned out, the state picked North Falls for her.
***
Maxwell Straus sat at his desk at 6:00 AM on Monday morning looking over the medical records of the patients he would be seeing later that day. He heard a knock on his door but it wasn't his aide Eric or his trusted nurse Hannah. It was Katie.
"Dr. Straus? Hi. I'm Katie Collins, the new nurse," she said as she reached out her hand for a professional handshake.
"You can sit down," Maxwell said. He had taken a day off, but his anger didn't lessen at all. He spent it flipping through old photo-books filled with he and his wife. A picture of them on his graduation day, and another one of them at their wedding. His favorite photo of the two of them was taken at DisneyLand. He had asked a stranger to take a picture of them together as they posed with all their ridiculous Disney loot, Mickey Mouse ears and a Goofy stuffed animal. As the stranger was about to take the picture, Paula let go of her Mickey balloon by accident and they both laughed as they reached out unsuccessfully trying to grab it. The stranger had pressed click just as the two extended one arm to snag the balloon, with the other still wrapped around each other in embrace. The laughter bursting out of the photo was undeniable, and it still brought a smile to Maxwell today.
"So. You want to be a nurse here for six months? You've never worked anywhere else before this?" Maxwell said.
"Well, I've shadowed and I've assisted nurses. But yes, this is my first real nursing job."
"Listen, I don't do surgeries around here. It's mostly check-ups and diagnosis, but I still take things seriously. If you mess things up people will be hurt. So, just because you're new doesn't mean you get any get out of jail free cards," Maxwell said.
