Fate can have a funny sense of humor sometimes. Or so I learned the hard way.
It was my final term in nursing school and I was assigned to the neurology unit at Ste. Vivienne's Clinic. Worse yet, being a mere student, I ended up with all the night shift. And usually the most disagreeable of the patients.
He was one of those. Charles Chatsworth. Oh, don't get me wrong, there was plenty to recommend the man. Drop dead good looking among them. He was tall, almost six and a half foot, and with the body of a slightly aging football player. He was intelligent as well. He would have to be considering he was one of the top attorneys in the city. But there was something else as well, something indefinable about him, a commanding sense of authority that even in his condition he wore with style.
His condition, oh yes, I almost forgot that. Mister Chatsworth had been diagnosed with MS. Multiple Sclerosis. Now MS is one of those odd birds that can vary from person to person. Some people learn that they have it early, many in their twenties, while a few others do not get diagnosed until later in life. He had been at the top of his game physically and mentally when he was diagnosed a couple of years before I met him. The other thing is that how it effects people can vary greatly from person to person. For some it comes and goes, remittent, they call it. And for others it is a steady progression.
He was one of those. In the past couple of years, he had gone from that arrogant bastard of an ambulance chasing lawyer to a wheelchair. The use of his legs was all but gone except for short distances from the bed to a chair perhaps. But even then he sometimes fell, especially if his legs simply gave out on him.
Now being young and more than a bit full of myself, all I could feel for this man was pity. How terrible it must be to have gone from the height of his career to, well I know it is not political correct, but a cripple. But I had to give the man credit; he had an amazing attitude and a wonderful sense of humor. He was everyone's favorite patient on the neurology ward. Except mine.
He and I just did not hit it off. I had never liked arrogant men. It was my pet peeve. Something inside of me always enjoyed bringing them to their knees...and walking away. And despite his sense of self-deprecating humor, his legs and the wheelchair, Charles Chatsworth remained a tad too much that cocky lawyer for my taste. Of course, I was soon to discovery just how COCKY he was.
It was late that night. He was not one of my patients, like I said I got the difficult ones. The head nurse had of course taken him for herself. She seemed to really like the guy. More power to her that was perfectly fine with me, like I said, he and I were simply oil and water. But she was on her break and more than a bit late getting back, which probably meant she had found some young and good looking resident to screw in one of vacant rooms. So I was stuck covering her patients...for as long as she wanted. Oh, the joys of being a student nurse.