we have time to schedule it in over the next week?’
‘There’s always time. You can head up to the hospital tomorrow morning if you like.’
‘Will you be okay covering the other appointments?’
Lucy and I have the same role. It makes no difference who gathers the information we need. But it’s hard not to admit that I want to oversee things, to make sure everything is absolutely accurate. My fingers brush over my inner wrist.
‘All I need to do is take the usual bunch of measurements,’ she replies. ‘I’d be able to do it in my sleep and ask the same questions every participant has to answer. I’m not about to bugger things up. Just because I can’t cook, doesn’t mean my ineptness rolls over to the rest of life. You shouldn’t need reminding. Now book it in.’
That’s the good thing about Lucy. She always knows when I need bringing down to earth. It’s as if she can see my axis and knows when it’s spinning off its centre.
I quit worrying about that for now.
I move my fingers away from temptation and onto my next task.
Ringing the ward, I book an appointment to see case study five. Only the fifth subject at the local hospital to qualify for my PhD study into takotsubo cardiomyopathy, also known as broken heart syndrome. A rare event that can occur after shock. It’s not like the broken-heart emoji with the crack down the middle. It’s when there is apical ballooning causing a sudden temporary weakening of the myocardium. The heart muscle doesn’t crack, it blossoms wider than it should and can no longer pump as efficiently as a result: a swollen balloon. That’s what a real broken heart looks like.
I speak to Dr Hutchins, who reiterates the fact that it’s a more complex case, but eligible for the study all the same. The participant’s interest has been caught by having to drink beetroot juice, apparently. My study is looking at the effects of nitric oxide (which beetroot juice is high in) on patients after takotsubo syndrome. The study’s complexities are hard to explain but, in short, the drink looks like it’ll make the heart healthier, helping with prevention and recovery, and I’m hoping to prove that.
When the call finishes, I start to worry about having to go somewhere that isn’t our laboratory.
Because no matter how hard I try to live a life of routine and balance, there is always something pressing me to take my pulse.
4
Clive
The past few days in hospital had been the unhappiest of Clive Ellington’s life.
He always prided himself on being a jolly fellow, able to make the moodiest of people smile. That was until that moody mask belonged to him and he was unable to shift the blasted thing. No matter how hard he tried to find them, there didn’t seem to be any positives.
There were a multitude of points causing him to be miserable and he’d happily list them all in some kind of bullet-point presentation, but no one wanted to listen. Why would they when he only wanted to rant on about how his wife had passed away and that he wished he’d joined her?
No one wanted to die and wake up to be a miserable old git, but that seemed to be what had happened, and he didn’t like it. Neither did anyone else, he considered, as another lonely day stretched out before him.
He didn’t like the numbers of checks they were doing on him now he was in the cardiology high dependency unit. They had various wires attached to him. They were worried his heart was going to give up at any minute.
They didn’t seem to like his response that he wished it bloody well would.
Along with now being a widower, there were several things that were depressing him beyond measure, including the whole not being dead business.
First, they were insistent that he remained in something that he regarded to be a night gown. It came complete with a bum flap and looked truly awful. However much he tried to encourage them to allow him to wear his best suit, they weren’t having it. In protest, he was wearing his suit jacket over the top. It was his favourite. It was a patchwork jacket and it was his best ever charity-shop find. One of a kind.
The only problem with insisting on wearing a jacket was that it was hot. Excruciatingly hot. He really needed to take it off, but this was his cross and he was going