Wild Week with the Island Doc - Chapter 2

Two days later, Cam had just finished another busy morning of patient clinics, when Meg appeared in his doorway, her face etched with worry.

‘Cam, I think one of the islanders is having a heart attack.’

Cam jerked to his feet and grabbed his stethoscope, following Meg to the treatment room, where the island’s other nurse, an older woman named Kath, was with the patient.

‘This is Arthur Bewick, seventy-seven-year-old retired fisherman,’ Meg said, giving Cam a history. ‘He has ischaemic heart disease—previously well-controlled angina.’ She handed Cam an ECG she’d already taken.

Cam multitasked, glancing at the EGC while simultaneously feeling the man’s pulse and noting his elevated blood pressure and the sweat beading on his forehead and upper lip behind the oxygen mask he wore.

‘He developed chest pain on his morning walk,’ Meg continued, ‘but his GTN spray didn’t work so his brother brought him in. I’ve already given him aspirin.’ Anticipating that Cam would prescribe some intravenous painkillers, she prepared a syringe in a kidney dish and unlocked the drug cabinet while she spoke.

Cam fitted his stethoscope, taking a listen to the man’s chest, his heart and lungs. ‘I think Meg is right, Mr Bewick. You’re ECG shows us you’re having a heart attack or myocardial infarction. That’s a blockage to one of the arteries feeding the muscle of your heart. We’re going to give you something for the pain and something to treat the blockage, okay. Then I’m afraid you’ll need to go to the hospital in Invercargill.’

Cam had just inserted the intravenous cannula and taken some blood for testing to confirm the diagnosis, when the patient collapsed, losing consciousness, the cardiac monitor emitting a high-pitched alarm.

‘Cardiac arrest,’ Meg yelled, dropping down the backrest of the stretcher bearing their patient and starting cardiac compressions.

Cam grabbed the resuscitation bag and began inflating the man’s lungs in time with Meg’s chest compressions.

‘Looks like ventricular tachycardia,’ he said, watching the digital trace of the patient’s abnormal heart rhythm on the monitor. ‘Fire up the defibrillator and then take over here,’ he told Kath, who quickly complied.

With the defibrillator charged, Cam stuck gel pads to the man’s bare chest. ‘Clear,’ he said, waiting for Meg and Kath to remove their hands from the patient. Then he delivered the first shock to the heart, his stare glued to the monitor, willing the heart to restart.

The man’s heart stubbornly remained in VT, and Meg glanced his way imploringly as she restarted chest compressions. ‘Shock again,’ she urged, her voice tinged with panic.

Cam nodded, recharging the defibrillator. They both knew the protocol for this type of cardiac arrest, but of course Meg was understandably close to every resident on the island and emotionally invested in their well-being. She’d grown up with them, knew them all intimately through her work and as a part of their community. Losing a patient while devastating for every health care professional, would be more so for someone as dedicated and determined as Meg.

With the second shock delivered to the patient’s heart, the rhythm reverted back to normal and Cam breathed a sigh of relief.

‘Check for a pulse please,’ Cam said and all three of them did so, palpating the man’s groin and neck for a heartbeat. Cam’s eyes met Meg’s, her relief and gratitude as she nodded filling his chest with the kind of emotion he hadn’t experienced in a long time: Connection, camaraderie, trust.

With the patient breathing spontaneously again, Kath refitted the oxygen mask.

‘Can you call Southern Rescue please,’ he asked the older woman. ‘He’ll need to be transferred to the coronary care unit as soon as possible.’

Kath nodded and left the room to make the call. While Cam set up an infusion of painkillers and antiplatelet medication to help reduce the clot blocking the man’s coronary artery, Meg made the now-drowsy patient comfortable.

‘I’ll speak to Arthur’s brother,’ she said, still nervously watching the heart monitor.

‘It’s not uncommon for MI sufferers to experience an arrhythmia,’ Cam explained. ‘He needs to be in hospital.’

‘I know,’ she said, her voice a scared whisper. Then she gripped Cam’s arm, her fingers squeezing. ‘Thank you, Cam.’

Cam nodded, resting his hand on top of hers. ‘It’s okay,’ he said, letting her see that he understood the emotional toll of working in a small remote community like hers. It had its advantages and disadvantages. ‘Hopefully he’ll make a full recovery and be back here in no time. You did everything you could for him.’

‘We did everything we could,’ she said, reminding him they’d acted as a team.

With a small smile, she left the room to speak to Arthur’s next of kin.

***

Lying on her stomach in the damp sand of the dunes at dusk wouldn’t be most women’s idea of a perfect date, but for Meg, the wondrous look on Cam’s handsome face as he held the binoculars up to his eyes made up for the discomfort.

‘There’s another one,’ Meg whispered, pointing to opposite end of the beach, where the endangered endemic hoiho or yellow-eyed penguin ambled ashore and slowly waddled towards its nesting site.

‘That’s amazing,’ Cam whispered, squinting through the binoculars and then shooting her a beautiful smile.

Meg nodded, her heart glad she could bring him there after their emotional day at work with Arthur Bewick’s cardiac arrest. ‘I’m sure you already know,’ she whispered, ‘that they’re one of the world’s rarest penguins. There are thought to be fewer than five thousand. Māori call them hoiho. The main threats to them are human and dog disturbance, and they are very faithful to their partners. A breeding pair will reunite year after year to rear their chicks.’

‘That’s…romantic,’ he whispered, ducking down into the dip between two dunes out of sight. ‘Thanks for bringing me to this very special place.’

‘It’s off the tourist trail,’ she said. ‘The penguin’s habitat is on private land and maintained by the NZ Department of Conservation. You have to know the landowner, which luckily for you, I do.’

Cam’s stare traced her features as he lay facing her. ‘You’re a very special person, you know.’

Meg dragged in a shaky breath and smiled playfully. ‘You’re not so bad yourself,’ she whispered. ‘Did you hear that Mr Bewick is recovering well after his angioplasty? His brother called this afternoon with an update and to thank us again for saving his life.’

She would never forget the way they’d saved Arthur Bewick together. She knew Cam wouldn’t be sticking around in New Zealand once his locum position was over in three months. He’d move on to his next adventure in the next country and a new doctor would appear in his place. But somehow, he’d already made a big impact with his calm dependable manner, his unapologetic nerdiness and his big heart.

‘I did hear that,’ he said, watching her as intently as he watched the hoiho. ‘You really care about the people under your care don’t you?’

‘Of course.’ Meg shrugged, her eyes stinging with emotion because they’d come close to losing the old fisherman who’d used to visit the school to teach Rakiura’s children about sustainable fishing. ‘I love my job. The variety of the work I do here wouldn’t be available to me on the mainland.’

Cam nodded. ‘Variety is why I went into general practice, and I can understand why you love it here.’

Meg tried to smile, her heart fluttering excitedly. ‘You’re just saying that because of our bird life,’ she teased, her breathing shallow because he was so close and looking at her with the kind of hunger she hadn’t witnessed for a long time. The kind of hunger that made her feel seen and understood.

How much longer could she ignore this chemistry? Where was the harm in embracing it? It couldn’t go anywhere, and that suited them both, because neither of them was looking to date seriously after being hurt in the past.

‘I really want to kiss you right now,’ Cam said as if he’d read her thoughts, his dark stare dipping to her mouth and then returning so she saw his serious expression and the need in his eyes.

‘Me too.’ Because she’d always been a woman of action, because Cam was irresistibly sexy, she leaned in so their breaths mingled and his face swam out of focus. His hand rested on her waist and he pulled her close, closing the final gap between them.

Meg’s breath shuddered out of her as their cold lips connected. Cam’s kiss was confident, thorough and unhurried, like the man himself, his lips parting hers as he hauled their bodies flush. Meg moaned, and his arm tightened around her waist and something about the kiss changed. An urgency, need that seemed too long contained, an undeniable rush of adrenaline and deeper connection.

Cam crushed her closer still, and gave a low groan as their tongues duelled and the kiss deepened. Meg’s body overheated. She forgot about the cold damp sand underneath them. Forgot that the last man she’d kissed had let her down, broken her heart and abandoned their relationship, unwilling to fight for her. But just because she and Cam were insanely attracted to each other didn’t mean anything serious.

‘You are so sexy,’ he whispered against her lips after pulling back for air. He cupped her face between his palms and stared deep into her eyes. ‘I’m not gonna lie, I wanted to do that almost from the first moment we met.’

Why was his admission so…hot? Meg searched his dark eyes, tunnelled her fingers into his windblown hair. ‘I felt it, too. That’s what happens when two breeding-aged penguins find themselves on the same remote island.’ She smiled, retreating from the intimacy of the moment to keep things light and playful. After all, they’d only known each other a short while.

He laughed, kissing her again, before resting his head on his bent arm and looking down at her. ‘Look at you turning into a bird nerd.’

Meg’s smile widened as she breathed through the urge to kiss him again and not stop. ‘I told you, I’m a Jack of all trades.’

‘You’re beautiful and kind and smart, that’s what you are.’

Meg swallowed the lump in her throat, too turned-on and moved to say a word. Silently, they gathered up the binoculars and blanket they’d laid on the sand, then quietly crept back along the track to the farm where they’d left the clinic’s car. Only this time, as they walked, it was hand in hand.

***

On Thursday, Meg had just finished her morning’s clinic when a commotion drew her to Reception. A man supporting his pregnant wife addressed Meg in an impressively calm voice, ‘The baby’s coming early. We only came to the island for the day, but my wife started having very painful contractions. Her name is Shelley.’

Meg quickly led the couple to the treatment room, relieved to see Cam emerge from the doctor’s consultation room and quickly assess the scene.

‘I’m Meg and this is Dr McKenzie. How far along is your wife?’ Meg had delivered babies before, but she gave a silent thanks that Cam was there so she wouldn’t have to do this alone.

‘Thirty-six weeks,’ the father said. ‘This is our third baby. Our other two are with my parents in the café next door. I thought we should get checked out before we returned on the ferry, but I don’t think she’d going to make it.’

‘Need to push,’ Shelley said, pausing in the doorway as another contraction took hold.

‘You’re doing great, Shelley,’ Cam soothed, lowering the height of the stretcher ready for their patient to take a seat. ‘I’ll need to quickly examine you, if I may.’

Cam pulled on some gloves, and Meg and the husband eased the woman carefully down onto the bed.

With his examination complete, Cam briefly met Meg’s stare before addressing the couple. ‘The baby is in a bit of a hurry to be born. But don’t worry.’ He cast his confident stare around the room. ‘We’ve all done this before, right, Shelley? Dad? Meg?’

Shelley nodded weakly and then winced in pain as the next contraction began. Meg wasted no time in donning gloves, grabbing a sterile delivery kit and setting up whatever they might need.

‘Keep doing your part, Dad,’ Cam instructed the husband, who was breathing with his wife and keeping her calm and focussed.

Cam fastened the fetal heart monitor around Shelley’s waist and Meg grabbed some Syntocinon from the drug cupboard. ‘Do you want some gas and air, Shelley?’ she asked but the woman shook her head. At this advanced stage in proceedings Meg figured it had limited value anyway.

The receptionist poked her head into the room, and Meg quietly asked her to order the rescue helicopter. Shelley and her baby would need to be checked out by an obstetrician and paediatrician respectively, and it was better to have the helicopter on standby in case something went wrong. Then she joined Cam at the business end of things.

‘Okay, Shelley, on the next contraction,’ Cam said, his voice so calm and reassuring, even Meg felt comforted, ‘we want you to start pushing.’

Shelley groaned in pain and started bearing down, her hands wrapped around her lower thighs. The father kept up an encouraging stream of words and instructions, leaving Cam and Meg to keep one eye on the foetal heart rate, watchful for any signs of distress.

After ten minutes of concerted pushing, the baby’s head began to crown.

‘Okay, pant now, Shelley,’ Meg instructed. ‘On the next contraction, you’re going to deliver the baby’s head. When we tell you stop pushing just breathe okay.’

Shelley nodded and started pushing again. Her husband had simply taken to stroking the damp hair back from her face and telling her how amazing she was, which seemed to be the perfect thing to say. With a final groan, Shelley delivered the baby’s head.

‘Okay, stop pushing,’ Cam said as he scooped his finger around the baby’s neck and removed the loop of umbilical cord.

On the next contraction the rest of the newborn emerged, a little boy who cried lustily as together, Meg and Cam raised him joyfully into his parents’ arms.

‘Congratulations,’ Cam said, before catching Meg’s eye, his smile triumphant.

While everyone was distracted by the excitement, Meg injected Shelley’s thigh with Syntocinon to help contract down the uterus and deliver the placenta. When she turned to Cam, her own joy and relief bubbling up in a euphoric laugh, she saw he too, was shiny-eyed with the release of emotion.

‘Well done, Dr McKenzie,’ she said in low a voice, aware that the parents were busy falling in love with their brand-new son.

‘Well done you, too, Nurse Carter. Although it’s Shelley who’s the star of the show.’ He grinned at the couple and in spite of the urgency of the delivery and the fact that she and Cam still had a job to do in transferring mother and baby to the hospital, Meg desperately wanted to kiss him.

‘Here’s the placenta,’ Meg said instead, dragging her head back into the game. ‘Right, let’s get you presentable for your son’s first helicopter ride, shall we?’

Cam peeled off his gloves, shook hands with the couple and, after giving the baby a quick check over, wished them fresh congratulations. Then he glanced at Meg before making himself scarce.

Meg breathed another sigh of relief, this one for herself. Working with Cam McKenzie was becoming her new favourite thing, but she needed to be so careful. He was only on Rakiura for a few more days, only in New Zealand for a couple more months, and then she’d never see him again as he returned to Scotland or travelled to the next place on his list. She couldn’t get used to having him around. She couldn’t rely on the feelings he brought out in her, as if she might be ready to trust again one day.