All Chapters of Little Voices: Chapter 11 - Chapter 13

"The Health Commission’s documentation will arrive at the hospital this afternoon."I sat at my desk, staring at a crooked line I had written in a patient chart. I tore the page out and started over.Nobody in the department talked about it loudly.Gary’s belongings had been cleared out that same morning. His desk was near the back of the nurses’ station, where he used to keep a thermos and a potted plant.Someone had moved the plant to the windowsill. The thermos was gone, and the desk had been wiped spotless.During afternoon rounds that day, I passed by the desk. I did not stop walking, yet my eyes drifted over on their own. There was nothing left.The hospital issued an internal bulletin, and Caroline held a department-wide meeting. It was brief, and it covered everything that needed to be said.A week later, Caroline called me into her office again. She told me to sit down."Rowan, we are making some staffing changes in pediatrics. The neonatal intensive care unit needs a

The on-call ER doctor froze for a second and opened his mouth to say something. I looked at him, and he swallowed it.There was no line at the CT room that late at night. The whole process, from wheeling the baby in to wheeling him back out, took about fifteen minutes.When the scan was printed, I stood in front of the lightbox. I did not need a magnifying glass to see it. There was a bright, high-density shadow on the image, an intracranial hemorrhage.The volume was small, yet the location was dangerous, close to the ventricles, and it could expand at any time.I turned to the parents. "He needs to be admitted. We are contacting neurosurgery right now for a drainage procedure. But do not panic. We caught it early, and it is treatable."The father’s hands would not stop shaking. The mother stared at me, her lips white."Doctor... how did you know it was his head? The other doctor said it was his stomach..."I glanced back at the scan on the lightbox. "The crying was different.