Cop's Passion
silent breath. Elsie was pissed off, no doubt about it. Great.
Going into the kitchen, she took a vial of vitamin B12 from the
refrigerator and followed the little old woman down the dreary
passage.
    Entering the
bedroom which was dark as usual, and crowded with furniture and
knick-knacks, Maddy set the medical box on the dressing table.
Elsie stood right beside her while she opened the lid and took out
a syringe. The old woman didn’t miss one thing, watching anxiously
as Maddy put a needle on the syringe, snapped the neck of the vial
and drew up the contents into the syringe.
    “You’re sure no
glass got into the medicine?” Elsie asked, as she did every month
without fail.
    “Absolutely
sure.”
    “It’s a clean
needle?”
    “You saw me
open the packet.”
    “Syringe? Can’t
be too careful.”
    “Sterile
packet, unopened.”
    “You’re sure
it’s not recycled?”
    “It’s not
recycled.”
    Elsie grabbed
the packet holding the alcohol swab and studied it closely. Maddy
waited resignedly while Elsie made certain that it, too, was
unopened. She’d learned a long time ago that to hurry Elsie only
ended in extreme anxiety, tears and several hours of calming her
down.
    Finally Elsie
was convinced that all was well and Maddy was able to jab her in
the scrawny bottom with her monthly injection. Elsie watched
closely again while Maddy disposed of the needle in the sharps
container, and the syringe in the little bag she carried especially
for disposing of syringes back at base.
    Only then was
Elsie satisfied and she saw Maddy to the door. Janice had the hot
midday meal coming out of the oven and Elsie shut the door rather
quickly behind Maddy.
    Breathing out a
sigh of relief, Maddy returned to the car. Two close misses - one,
a speeding fine, and two, an anxiety attack from Elsie. The day was
looking a little better.
    The day, in
fact, got worse. As she went from one patient's house to another,
nothing seemed to go right. Old Mr Wainwright refused to have his
blood pressure taken and she couldn’t force him. The fact that it
had to be kept a close eye on was an on-going problem. Ben Carter,
an insulin dependant diabetic with a bad ulcer on his foot that
wouldn’t heal, she caught polishing off the last of a jumbo-sized
block of chocolate. The new client she had to assess wasn’t home,
and she had to double back an hour later when he rang her to
irritably inquire why she wasn’t there when he got home. One of the
quadriplegics had fallen out of the hoist sling while his wife had
tried to hoist him into his chair, and Maddy met one of the Gold
Link aides there and helped get the man back into the sling -
properly this time - and into his chair, but only after attending a
bad gash on his leg. Every incident set her back time-wise and by
the time she returned to base, it was dark and the receptionist,
other nurses and aides had gone home. Unlocking the door, she
disarmed the alarm and entered the building. In the office set
aside for the nurses, she filled in the last bits of her paperwork,
set it in the tray along with the work mobile phone, and finally
left after arming the alarm and locking the door behind her.
    It was a
welcome relief to finally be on the road home in her own car, but
she’d only got halfway home when the steering wheel started to get
heavy and pull to the right. With foreboding, she pulled over.
Grabbing the torch from the glove box, she got out of the car and
walked around to find that yes, she did indeed have a flat
tyre.
    Now she felt
like crying. The highway was dark, lit only by street lights, there
were cars passing at intervals, and she had no mobile phone.
Changing a tyre by herself late at night was on her dread list.
    “Great, just
bloody great.” Giving the offending tyre a kick, she looked around.
There was only one thing for it and that was to suck up her fears
and get to work on changing the tyre. All she could hope for was to
have it all done and be back safely in the car

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