BooksBarbecue
Back Going Under
Chapters (70)
  1. COVER PAGE
  2. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  3. DEDICATION
  4. PROLOGUE
  5. PART I BIRTH
  6. ONE
  7. TWO
  8. THREE
  9. FOUR
  10. FIVE
  11. SIX
  12. SEVEN
  13. EIGHT
  14. NINE
  15. TEN
  16. ELEVEN
  17. TWELVE
  18. THIRTEEN
  19. FOURTEEN
  20. FIFTEEN
  21. PART II LIFE
  22. SIXTEEN
  23. SEVENTEEN
  24. EIGHTEEN
  25. NINETEEN
  26. TWENTY
  27. TWENTY-ONE
  28. TWENTY-TWO
  29. TWENTY-THREE
  30. TWENTY-FOUR
  31. TWENTY-FIVE
  32. TWENTY-SIX
  33. TWENTY-SEVEN
  34. TWENTY-EIGHT
  35. TWENTY-NINE
  36. THIRTY
  37. THIRTY-ONE
  38. THIRTY-TWO
  39. THIRTY-THREE
  40. THIRTY-FOUR
  41. PART III DEATH
  42. THIRTY-FIVE
  43. THIRTY-SIX
  44. THIRTY-SEVEN
  45. THIRTY-EIGHT
  46. THIRTY-NINE
  47. FORTY
  48. FORTY-ONE
  49. FORTY-TWO
  50. FORTY-THREE
  51. FORTY-FOUR
  52. FORTY-FIVE
  53. FORTY-SIX
  54. FORTY-SEVEN
  55. FORTY-EIGHT
  56. FORTY-NINE
  57. FIFTY
  58. FIFTY-ONE
  59. FIFTY-TWO
  60. FIFTY-THREE
  61. FIFTY-FOUR
  62. FIFTY-FIVE
  63. FIFTY-SIX
  64. FIFTY-SEVEN
  65. FIFTY-EIGHT
  66. FIFTY-NINE
  67. SIXTY
  68. EPILOGUE
  69. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  70. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I want to hug him, then feel depressed. I’m not really a writer, I remind myself. I’m just a wannabe writer who’ll probably never make it.

‘Well, you know,’ I say defensively, ‘I want to be a surgeon, and it’s a bit hard to focus on both.’

‘The two can coexist,’ he says very simply, encapsulating all my desires and exposing my insecurities in one sentence. ‘Why can’t they?’

Suddenly I feel a bit light-headed. Here I am, revealing my secret dreams to my consultant neurosurgeon, and rather than laughing at or scorning me, he is responding with kindness.

‘I don’t know,’ I say as we walk from the nurses’ station to outside the patient curtain. ‘I have the impression that surgery and creativity don’t go that well together. I’ve had kind of a rough start. Although, it’s only day two, I guess.’

He looks at me directly. His eyes aren’t really blue at all, I realise. Not quite blue, not quite green and not quite grey. I don’t know how to describe them.

They say the eyes are a window to a person’s soul but I know from doing neurosurgery that this isn’t true. Eyes are just an extension of the brain. Eyes aren’t kind or cruel or anything else. They’re just eyes.

‘You should come and assist me in theatre sometime,’ Dr Prince says, and then he opens the curtain, thus closing the conversation, and asks Mrs Boyd how her head’s feeling after her operation.

I open the chart, and her CT scan falls out. The sight of another CT scan I’ll probably be quizzed on makes me die a bit on the inside, but Dr Prince just picks it off the floor and holds it up to the light, considering.

‘What do you see, Kitty?’ he asks.

It is obvious to me, so I tell him. ‘She’s had a meningioma excised,’ I explain. ‘They do the post-op scan to check there’s no bleeding or complications, and this looks pretty good. I saw her original scan yesterday.’

‘We’ll make a neurosurgeon of you yet,’ he says, and he smiles.

Suddenly, I love being an intern. I love being a doctor. I love everything, and I feel as if I have just won the lottery.

‘It really makes a difference when people are a bit pleasant,’ I blurt out.

‘Sounds like some people aren’t being so pleasant,’ he observes mildly.

I clear my throat and focus on putting the scan back into the chart. ‘It’s fine,’ I say quickly.

We’re interrupted by Mrs Boyd.

‘You doctors are so young these days,’ she croaks. ‘And ladies! A lady doctor!’

Dr Prince and I both smile.

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After we’ve seen all the patients we stand at the end of the ward. The round is over, but I find myself reluctant to leave.