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Back Going Under Save as PDF
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

‘Are you sure he’s severed his radial artery?’ The surgeon sounded irritated at being woken up and also doubtful. ‘What can you see?’

‘His thumb is hacked off,’ Toby said, ‘so it must be his radial.’ The nurses had taken over now. Hanging blood, applying pressure, preparing the defibrillator paddles.

‘We’ll handle this!’ a nurse bellowed at Toby as he ended the call. ‘There’s a guy who’s arresting in cubicle four. You need to get over there—now!’

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‘Was he dying too?’ asked one of the two medical students listening to the story with wide eyes.

Thirty-three years later, Dr Toby Henderson leaned back in his chair in the emergency department where he was now regaling the doctors of the future with his cautionary tales. ‘Of course,’ he replied. ‘Everyone dies at two am when you’re the most senior doctor on. It’s Murphy’s law.’

‘What happened afterwards?’

Toby smiled. ‘The head of medical administration hauled me into her office and tore me to shreds for failing to respond quickly enough.’ He frowned at the memory. ‘God, she was a bitch,’ he added.

Kitty Holliday, a final-year medical student soon to be known as Dr Katarina Holliday, shuddered. ‘I don’t know how I would have coped with that,’ she said honestly.

She expected him to reassure her; he’d coped, after all.

‘Well, you just don’t,’ Toby said. He glanced at his watch, signalling the end of his shift and the conversation.

‘Excuse me?’ said Estelle, Kitty’s fellow medical student and friend. Surely he’d meant to say, ‘Well, you just do.’ Doctors always did seem to cope.

As Toby stood to leave he looked each girl in the eye and repeated: ‘You just don’t.’

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‘What a load of crap,’ Estelle said some hours later. They were having their standard end-of-day debrief at the pub down the road from the hospital.

‘I know,’ Kitty agreed. ‘I mean, of course he coped. He’s still working in emergency, isn’t he?’

The conversation gradually meandered towards other topics. Exams, men, what they’d do when they finally finished university and had some money. The thirty-three-year-old story of the near-severed hand and the idea that doctors might not cope was quickly forgotten.

PART I BIRTH

PART I

birth

‘But I don’t want to go among mad people,’ Alice remarked.

‘Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the Cat: ‘we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.’

‘How do you know I’m mad?’ said Alice.

‘You must be,’ said the Cat, ‘or you wouldn’t have come here.’

Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

ONE

one

‘You’ve done this before, haven’t you? Like, I’m not your first?’

There’s a moment in which I consider being completely honest with the agitated half-naked man lying on the bed in front of me.

Yes, darling, I will say. You’re my first.