including MRSA, one that was immune to nearly every known antibiotic.
“Shit,” Colby said. “He’s only been turned three times in the past forty-eight hours.”
“Ms. Stripling, please calm down,” Irene said. “I’m sure that he was turned and someone just forgot to chart it. We’ve got a lot of patients and care is more important than charting.” Irene failed to add that all too often charting was done at the end of a shift even when patient care had been ignored.
Colby pitched the chart on the desk. “You know that’s bullshit! You’ve been here since seven and you’ve done so little for Rob that I had to be the one to find the ulcer. And, I bet you pulled a twelve hour shift yesterday and never spotted it then. I’ve been dealing with Rob’s care for ten years. This is the fourth nursing home I’ve moved him to. I thought you guys were the best. If this is all I can expect, he’s better off dead. Now, you get his doctor over here this afternoon. I want cultures done and I want Dr. Winston to figure out what kinds of antibiotics we need to fight this. Mark my words, if this happens again, I know a damn good lawyer.”
Colby stormed from the nurse’s station, not even going back to Rob’s room.
Irene watched her go.
This woman is going to be trouble
, she thought.
Damned if I’ll get fired because of some pissed off relative.
When Colby got to her car, she remembered that she had not told Rob goodbye. She started to go back in and then thought better. Telling him goodbye was for her benefit, not his. She started her car and drove slowly away, trying to get her temper under control before her appointment.
18
Jack joined Rivercrest and found golf with old men boring, even though he always won a couple of hundred bucks. Poker in the men’s grill was the same. He got no kick out of taking five hundred or a thousand dollars from the same old men. His life as a trial lawyer had been a high stakes poker game. Winning in the men’s grill didn’t compare with winning in front of a jury. And the first home game was still two weeks away.
He called on Colby to fill the void. Having established that their relationship was nothing more than platonic, Colby accepted his invitation to be his tour guide of the new Fort Worth.
Colby called him early one morning. “Jack, you awake? Here’s what I propose. You and I are going to the museums today. When I’m not working, we’re going to start visiting all the tourist attractions in this town, museums, zoo, stockyards, botanical gardens, nature trails. There’s a lot to see. In case you didn’t know it, Fort Worth has some of the most famous art in the world. The Kimbell Museum and Amon Carter Museum are world class. There’s a ton of money among the rich in Fort Worth and they constantly try to one-up each other as civic benefactors.”
One of the great things about Fort Worth was that nearly everything was within fifteen minutes. He walked out to the garage and started the Bentley, Colby’s choice. He drove the five minutes to Colby’s house, and ten minutes later they were parked across the street from the Kimbell. Jack was not about to tell Colby that he’d rather take a swim in the Arctic Ocean than pretend to be interested in the works of the old masters. On this day he got lucky. The museum had a traveling exhibition of Mayan art, something that Jack found fascinating. He explained to Colby that he had visited Mayan ruins several times over the years. If he had another life to live, it would be as Indiana Jones.
After lunch at a small café in the museum district, they drove a few blocks to the Amon Carter Museum, formerly known as the Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, but changed a couple of years ago when they expanded the museum and chose not to be limited to Western paintings and statuary. Still, the museum was filled with original Remington and Russell paintings and statutes of cowboys, Indians, western landscapes and buffalo herds.
“Shit,” Colby said. “He’s only been turned three times in the past forty-eight hours.”
“Ms. Stripling, please calm down,” Irene said. “I’m sure that he was turned and someone just forgot to chart it. We’ve got a lot of patients and care is more important than charting.” Irene failed to add that all too often charting was done at the end of a shift even when patient care had been ignored.
Colby pitched the chart on the desk. “You know that’s bullshit! You’ve been here since seven and you’ve done so little for Rob that I had to be the one to find the ulcer. And, I bet you pulled a twelve hour shift yesterday and never spotted it then. I’ve been dealing with Rob’s care for ten years. This is the fourth nursing home I’ve moved him to. I thought you guys were the best. If this is all I can expect, he’s better off dead. Now, you get his doctor over here this afternoon. I want cultures done and I want Dr. Winston to figure out what kinds of antibiotics we need to fight this. Mark my words, if this happens again, I know a damn good lawyer.”
Colby stormed from the nurse’s station, not even going back to Rob’s room.
Irene watched her go.
This woman is going to be trouble
, she thought.
Damned if I’ll get fired because of some pissed off relative.
When Colby got to her car, she remembered that she had not told Rob goodbye. She started to go back in and then thought better. Telling him goodbye was for her benefit, not his. She started her car and drove slowly away, trying to get her temper under control before her appointment.
18
Jack joined Rivercrest and found golf with old men boring, even though he always won a couple of hundred bucks. Poker in the men’s grill was the same. He got no kick out of taking five hundred or a thousand dollars from the same old men. His life as a trial lawyer had been a high stakes poker game. Winning in the men’s grill didn’t compare with winning in front of a jury. And the first home game was still two weeks away.
He called on Colby to fill the void. Having established that their relationship was nothing more than platonic, Colby accepted his invitation to be his tour guide of the new Fort Worth.
Colby called him early one morning. “Jack, you awake? Here’s what I propose. You and I are going to the museums today. When I’m not working, we’re going to start visiting all the tourist attractions in this town, museums, zoo, stockyards, botanical gardens, nature trails. There’s a lot to see. In case you didn’t know it, Fort Worth has some of the most famous art in the world. The Kimbell Museum and Amon Carter Museum are world class. There’s a ton of money among the rich in Fort Worth and they constantly try to one-up each other as civic benefactors.”
One of the great things about Fort Worth was that nearly everything was within fifteen minutes. He walked out to the garage and started the Bentley, Colby’s choice. He drove the five minutes to Colby’s house, and ten minutes later they were parked across the street from the Kimbell. Jack was not about to tell Colby that he’d rather take a swim in the Arctic Ocean than pretend to be interested in the works of the old masters. On this day he got lucky. The museum had a traveling exhibition of Mayan art, something that Jack found fascinating. He explained to Colby that he had visited Mayan ruins several times over the years. If he had another life to live, it would be as Indiana Jones.
After lunch at a small café in the museum district, they drove a few blocks to the Amon Carter Museum, formerly known as the Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, but changed a couple of years ago when they expanded the museum and chose not to be limited to Western paintings and statuary. Still, the museum was filled with original Remington and Russell paintings and statutes of cowboys, Indians, western landscapes and buffalo herds.
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