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Stevie Nash didn’t do scared.
Sure, sometimes she found herself on the brink of anxiety, of nervousness, and she might get spooked once in a while. She wasn’t immune to panic or the odd feeling of terror.
But she didn’t do scared.
It had hit her hard, a sudden nausea that felt sadly familiar. It had been weeks since she last ran to the staff toilets, flung a cubicle door open and dropped to her knees with urgency.
She gripped the white basin, inhaling a deep breath as she prepared to hurl, but nothing came. The nausea didn’t go, but there was no retching, just a persistent feeling of sickness.
Then it hit her. A sudden stabbing, burning heat that seared through her lower abdomen.
Stevie had grown accustomed to a certain level of discomfort - a dull ache that followed her around. But this wasn’t discomfort. It wasn’t an ache. It was intense and overwhelming, and she couldn’t remember anything that came before.
Her hands flew from the basin to her abdomen and, angling herself beside the toilet, she let her head drop down. She wished she could disappear in that moment, melt into the floor beneath her and be done with this.
There was a buzz from the lights overhead and Stevie could’ve sworn it was getting louder, toying with her, piercing through her just to make the situation worse.
She didn’t know how long she stayed there, head against the floor of a public bathroom as she took slow steady breaths to try and keep the pain at bay. But at some point, she recognised it. The warmth that was spreading. It wasn’t searing heat like the pain that had hit. It harnessed a softness, gently spreading across her thighs, over her calves and ankles beneath.
She lifted her head now, hands shakily finding the ground beneath her as she tried to reposition.
That’s when she saw it.
Stevie wasn’t averse to blood, she saw enough of it on a daily basis, but something about this blood being hers sent a chill down her spine.
She pushed herself back slightly, struggling as she blindly aimed for the support of the cubicle wall and unfurled her legs from under themselves.
Stevie didn’t do scared, but she was worrying now. The bleeding was heavy, fast, and didn’t seem to be coming to a halt anytime soon. She frantically patted her pockets in search of her phone but had no luck. A groan escaped her as she was faced with the reality of her helplessness.
She wasn’t scared but this was bad, so a level of anxiety was only to be expected. She glanced at her hands and saw they were painted red, saw tracks in the fluid that was beginning to pool on the linoleum. It wasn’t slowing down. It wasn’t heading for the finish line.
She could hear her heart pounding in her ears, could feel it working hard in her chest, and she didn’t know whether it was the blood loss or the anxiety or both.
“Yeah, what?” She heard an agitated voice snap from what she thought to be ages away.
“Can I just have a couple of minutes?” the voice snapped again a few moments later. She knew that voice, she knew it well. And in that moment, she was certain the universe was laughing at her.
Stevie reached up to the lock on the cubicle door, wincing at the pulsing of her pain as she did it, and she fumbled with the metal handle. Shakily she slid it back.
“Siobhan,” she croaked out as best as she could.
On the other side of the door, Siobhan froze. Only momentarily. The small voice that rasped her name, that distinct twang with an unusual delicacy coating it, it stalled her.
“Stevie?” She said, gently nudging the door open, as though some horror awaited her.
(It did).
The consultant looked up, her face dull and ashen and glistening with a sheen that was only thickening. Her eyes had an empty quality to them, a hollowness. It was haunting.
“I’ll get some help,” Siobhan said, flustered.
“No.”
It stalled the nurse. Stevie’s voice, though strained and quiet, was firm.
“Stevie,” Siobhan muttered, looking down at Stevie, who was propped up by the door behind her. She looked fragile, breakable, like a fine-china antique.
“Just, just help me up,” Stevie said.
“You can hardly sit up.”
“Please,” she begged.
The resolution, the stubbornness, so characteristically Stevie. She sounded so certain in what she wanted, in her own capabilities, and Siobhan faltered.
“This is a really bad idea,” Siobhan insisted. Stevie simply cocked her head in response, as if to say: so what?
“Right, fine, but we’re going straight to resus.”
There was no argument from Stevie, for even someone so stubborn could acknowledge the limits of the human body. She was only human, after all.
“Are you,” Siobhan began, taking a deep breath before she continued. “Are you pregnant, Stevie?”
On a personal level, she wasn’t sure she wanted the answer. She chided herself, felt selfish when care should be her priority. But this didn’t undo what had been done.
Stevie shook her head, though her movement was only slight.
“I have a mass,” she said, even more quietly than before, and a breathlessness was beginning to chase her as she found herself fighting for air before continuing to speak. “A cyst. On my ovary.”
“Okay, alright,” Siobhan said, softly. For no matter what had happened, the sight before her was a nauseating view. And she was a nurse. She was a damn good nurse, and she needed to help a patient who was declining by the second.
“Let’s get you up,” she said, and if Stevie had the emotional wherewithal to truly take in the moment, she would’ve been touched by the gentleness of her colleague.
Stevie wouldn’t remember the walk from the toilets to resus. She knew Siobhan had somehow guided her up off the floor. She knew she’d apologised for getting blood on her colleague. She knew she was still bleeding as they walked, and that she would’ve looked like something out of a horror movie as they slowly but surely made their way through the department. She knew she had to fight to stop her knees from buckling, from giving way and disappearing from under her. And that the strength and endurance which that required had been so demanding, so painful, that she thought she might not survive the walk.
She did. And they got her on a trolley. And she felt the weight of herself. Truly felt it.
She was sure she might melt into the bed beneath her. That she might become one with it. That she might never feel like herself again.
And maybe, just maybe, though this she might never admit…
Stevie Nash might have been scared. Really fucking scared.
She was sure she could feel death creeping up on her. A looming doom that formed a shadow over her and wished her into a sleep so deep she might never wake.
The lights in resus didn’t seem to buzz like usual. The electrical hum that had taunted her in the bathroom had gone, and the lights above provided a comfort and warmth that Stevie so desperately sought.