"ER"
"Setbacks"

Author’s Note:

This would be the third story in the series of Doug’s auto accident, following THE DARKEST HOUR and A WALK THROUGH THE WOODS. In the last story, Doug was exonerated of any wrong doing in the accident even though he was legally drunk, and Carol filed for a temporary transfer to ICU to take care of him. This story would continue from there.

The characters in this story are not mine and no money is made by me for the use of them in this story.

Robin

Carol:

I was awakened by the sound of Doug groaning and I opened by eyes. He was rolling his head around on the pillow, obviously in some kind of distress in his sleep. I stood up and leaned over the rail of his bed, touching his shoulder carefully, trying to wake him gently.

"Doug? Doug, wake up! It’s all right!"

He opened his eyes and they fluttered looking up at me. He looked confused, but he played his eyes around the room to be sure of where he was. Then he relaxed his head back into the pillow.

"Bad dream?" I asked him almost knowingly. He nodded slowly. "It’s OK now"

"Yeah" he nodded. "I’m OK"

I got back in my reclining chair and pulled my blanket back over me and rolled his head to the side and closed his eyes. I drifted back to the sleep but it wasn’t anytime until Doug was groaning again and this time he was calling out for Mark and for help.

"Doug?" I got up and leaned over his bed again, touching him to wake him, "It’s all right now! Wake up!" he opened his eyes and peered sheepishly up at me. "Do you know where you are?"

"Yeah" He nodded. "I’m sorry, Carol"

"How about if I get on the bed with you and lay here beside you...think that will help you sleep?"

"You don’t want to do that" he shook his head.

"Anything that helps you rest is OK with me" I smiled at him.

I lowered the rail of his bed and climbed onto it beside him. I curled on my side and reached my hand over to put my hand on his chest. He reached his hand up to place it over mine, holding it close to him. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I saw a faint smile on his lips as he closed his eyes. He slept quietly and undisturbed there with me beside him all the rest of the night.

I went to the cafeteria and brought Doug back a really good breakfast tray...not one prepared by food service...but things I picked out that I knew he liked. But, he just picked around at it, not really interested in eating anything.

"At least drink your juice, OK?" I coaxed him. He took a couple of sips of it and returned it to the tray. "You have to eat. You know that"

"Everything tastes bad" he frowned.

"You still have to eat. You’re Mark Greene’s patient...and you know how tough he is" I grinned at him.

"Yeah" he chuckled lightly. "And you’ll tell him, too"

"Won’t have to...your blood work will tell him if you’re eating or not"

"Yeah, I guess" he frowned again. "Do you know where my wallet is?" he asked me quietly.

"I have it" I told him quickly. "And your keys and what was left of your clothes after Mark cut them off..."

"Could you do something for me?"

"If I can!"

"Could you go to my apartment and get me some things?"

"Sure! What do you need?"

"Maybe some sweats and a some T-shirts? We can cut the leg out of the sweats so any of them are OK. I can buy new ones after this is over..."

"And some clean boxers?" I grinned at him. "That would be nice, too, huh?"

"Yeah, OK" he shrugged, then he grinned just a little. "Why are you doing this, Carol?"

"I’m a nurse...it’s my job"

"You’re an ER nurse...you’re not an ICU nurse. And I’d say climbing in bed with a patient goes above and beyond the call of duty. What’s going on?"

"I just want to make sure you get taken care of, Doug" I tried to look him straight on. "That’s all"

"You left me throwing my guts up under the EL platform and never even looked back...now you won’t leave me alone. What’s going on? Am I dying and just don’t know it?"

"You’re not dying" I smiled and shook my head. "I just want to be sure you get proper care so that you’ll have a chance for the best recovery you can have"

"Well, thank you...I appreciate that...but why does it have to be you?"

"You don’t want me to take care of you?"

"I didn’t say that...I’m just curious why you want to"

"Because you’re my friend, Doug. You’re always there for me no matter what I need. And nobody’s ever there for you. When you turn around, there’s nobody there to back you up. So, I just want to back you up for once"

"OK" he nodded. And that was all he said. He pushed the breakfast tray away and let his head sink back into the pillow.

The day wore on. Doug’s day consisted mostly of being stuck with needles to draw blood for various tests the needed to run. He didn’t eat lunch and I left him with a dinner tray, picking at it, when I left to go to his apartment and get some of his things.

I knew my way around Doug’s apartment blindfolded...and I’d been blindfolded in it more than once. I took his keys and opened the door, bending down to get his mail and sift through it to see if there was anything I might need to take to him. Mostly it was bills, and I could pay those when I paid my own later in the month. I would just have to get him to write some checks. I laid the bills on the table...I could get them later for him. I went on through the apartment to his bedroom to get some of the things he’d need. I got into his closet and got out his duffel bag to stuff things into. I went into the bathroom and got his shaving stuff, his toothbrush, and the toothpaste...yes, the hospital would provide that for him but I knew he would prefer to have his own. I took his brush and comb from the shelf for his hair, his aftershave, his deodorant stick, and mouthwash and carried them all to the bag. I went to his dresser to get the clothes he’d need. I got his favorite extra, extra large T-shirt and a couple of others besides, and several pair of sweat pants. Doug generally liked to sleep in boxers but in the hospital he might prefer sweats because they would be warmer. I got into the top drawer where he kept his underwear to boxers and socks to put in his bag and my attention was caught by a bright yellow envelope taped to the top of a box in one corner. I recognized the handwriting on the top of it as my own and I reached for the box. It wasn’t a big box...about the size of a shoe box...but it was sort of heavy as I carried it carefully over to the bed and sat down with it. There was a card in the envelope and I reached to take it out. I smiled at the at the comical cartoon drawing on it and opened it to read the silly verse inside. I had given this card to Doug sometime after our first kiss. It was the first card I ever gave to him. I opened the box and I was shocked at what I found inside. Every card I ever gave him for every occasion I gave him one...photos upon photos of the two of us together...photos of me I didn’t even know when they were taken...my engagement announcement to Tag from the local paper...ribbons from balloons...napkins from restaurants...there was a hairclip I wore in my hair all one summer...there was a handkerchief I’d blotted my lipstick on that still bore my lip prints on it...and an empty spray bottle of cologne. To someone who didn’t know better, it would look like Doug had a dark obsession and had been stalking me. But, I knew that wasn’t true. To me, looking into that box was like looking into his heart. If I ever had any doubts about it, I knew now he was telling the truth when he told me he loved me. I was about to close the box when something in the bottom caught my eye. I reached down and lifted out a small, black velvet box and my hand shook as I held it between my fingers. I opened it up to find a beautiful diamond ring and I felt the tears starting to burn in my eyes.

"Oh, my, God, Doug!" I started to cry and I looked at the ring. "Why didn’t you ever ask me?"

I put my face into my hands and cried, alone and unashamed, with no one there to hear me. He’d had a ring. He had intended to ask me to marry him. Why hadn’t he? Then I thought about his recent broken relationship with Diane Leeds. Things had gone very well for them until she suggested he move him with her and her son. And Doug had balked. He wasn’t ready for something like that. It scared him. And he ran....to the arms of Linda Farrell and it cost him his relationship with Diane. But, I hadn’t pressured Doug into anything...he’d bought this ring on his own...why hadn’t he offered it to me? I would have taken it...and said yes...and maybe neither one of us would have gone through the hard times we’d recently encountered. I put the ring back in the box and was about to close the lid back over everything when something else caught my eye. It was a group of letters banded together with a rubber band. I took them out and leafed through them. Everyone one of them was addressed in Doug’s handwriting...and to me. Curiously, I took one out and began to read over it carefully. It was dated well before we ended our relationship, but it started out "I am so sorry". He had written full confessions of every wrong he had ever committed against me during our relationship...even ones I didn’t know about...but he had never mailed them. I sat on the bed and read every word on every letter completely in awe of his honestly and his sincerity as he apologized and told me repeatedly he didn’t know why he was doing this...that he loved me...and he wanted to be with me...and he didn’t understand why he let these other women into his life. And for the first time since he’d started telling me things like that, I believed him. I quickly put the lid back on the box and returned it to it’s place in the drawer. Then, grabbing several pair of socks and boxers, I stuffed them into the bag and zipped it, leaving the apartment quickly.

All the ride on the EL back tot he hospital I sat deep in thought. I knew that I loved Doug. There was no doubt about that. But, he just wasn’t the kind of a man you could spend your life with. Yet, had he have asked me, I knew I would have married him anyway. Doug was a skirt chaser...there were no two ways about that! But, recently, he had seemed to want more...to be looking for something a little more stable. I was beginning to think his relationship with Diane had given him a taste of something he liked and now he was longing for a bigger spoonful. But, he was so out of control. The drinking. The attitude. And now he was fired. Before he would even be out of the hospital from this accident, his fellowship would be up and he would be gone. And now he couldn’t even look for another job...that was going to make things rough for him for a while. But, I knew Doug. He was like a cat. He always landed on his feet.

But, try as I might, I could not get this man out of my thoughts. No matter what I did, I still always thought about him. Even now in my relationship with Shep, who was not a bad guy, I found myself still comparing him to Doug. Saying ‘well, when Doug and I did this, he didn’t do that’ type things to myself all the time.

Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I wondered if Doug and I were predestined by the stars to end up together and that was why neither one of us could have a satisfying relationship away from each other! But, then I shook my head. Naw...that was silly...

I got back to the hospital and Mark met in the ER as I came through.

"We have a small problem" he told me quietly.

"We do?" I gave him a careful look.

"Yeah" Mark nodded. "He’s not eating"

"I know" I sighed as we waited for the elevator. "I think hospital food just doesn’t appeal to him. Is his diet restricted?"

"No...he’s ‘as tolerated’ for right now"

"Well, then, I’ll go out to Doc Magoos and get him some things that might perk up his appetite a little and see if we can’t get him eating a little better"

"I don’t want you to have to do that. I’ll just lay down the law with him"

"No, it’s OK. Don’t yell at him. Just let me handle it. Sometimes you have to handle Doug with kid gloves...make him think things are his idea. I’ll take care of it"

"Carol, do you really think it’s a good idea for you to be doing all this? I mean, given your past with Doug and all..."

"Funny, Mark...he asked me almost the exact same thing this morning!" I rolled my eyes with a grin. "But, I can handle it. Doug can be a real handful when he’s battling something bigger than he is. Sometimes he just needs a gentle hand aiming him in the right direction"

"Well, I’ve got the hand...I don’t know how gentle it is, though" Mark chuckled.

"What I’m worried about is what’s going to happen later. He’s going to be out of a job with no way to look for one"

"Well, I’m working on that. Morganstern and I are trying to work something out so that he can stay a Fellow, but assigned exclusively to the ER"

"Yeah? Well, good luck with that"

"Thanks! I think I’m gonna need it!"

We went into Doug’s room to find him in pain. If Mark intended to say anything to him about not eating, he forgot about it. And anything I’d found in his apartment that I even thought I might ask him about went out the window. I went over to his bed and put my hand on his head.

"Doug? What is it? What’s wrong?"

"My leg hurts" he groaned.

"He’s running a fever, Mark" I told him quietly.

"My toes are swollen" he motioned Mark to look.

"They sure are" Mark took a look, and also placed his hands on Doug’s foot. "And your leg is hot. I better send you down to x-ray and see what’s wrong in there...we may have to saw this cast off and put you in traction for a few days"

Doug didn’t protest, but he rolled his head back into his pillow and closed his eyes tight. Mark arranged for him to be taken to x-ray and the two of us together waited for the results once Doug was back in his room.

"You’re really quiet today" Mark chuckled lightly. "Is everything OK?"

"I guess I’m just worried about the x-ray results"

"He’s probably got an infection" Mark shrugged. "That’s easy to fix. No need to worry about that" he looked over at me carefully. "You sure it’s not something else?"

"He’s in love with me, Mark" I told him lowly.

"You just now figuring that out? I thought that was pretty obvious to most people who know the two of you very well"

"He’s told me that...many times...but I never believed him before"

"And now you do?"

"While I was gathering up things at his apartment, I came across something I didn’t even know he had" I gave Mark a careful look. "A box full of mementos of our relationship together"

"I wouldn’t have suspected Doug to be the sentimental kind" Mark chuckled.

"Neither would I! But, he had things I’d even forgotten about. Carnival tickets with dates written on the back...movie tickets...anything he could save. It was almost creepy it hadn’t been so sweet" I laughed a little. "And I found some other things, too..."

"Oh yeah? Like what?"

"Like letters he wrote to me and never mailed...and a diamond ring"

"A diamond? Doug?" Mark whistled and shook his head. "I gotta tell you, that surprises me"

"What do you think it did to me?" I smiled at him. "It’s almost like Doug has a split personality, you know? There’s a man inside him that WANTS to do the right thing, but something just won’t let him"

"That’s something Doug will have to work out on his own. Not much anybody can do to help him until he figures it out"

"What else is there about him that I thought I knew that I don’t, Mark?" I sighed and shook my head.

"I don’t know" he grinned at me. "That’s up to you to find out"

"Here’s that x-ray you were waiting for, Mark" Kerry Weaver broke our conversation.

"Thanks, Kerry" Mark took the file and put it on the screen. The three of us looked at it together and I felt a sick feeling in my stomach at what I saw. "Yep! There’s the infection" Mark pointed it out quickly. "We’re gonna have to saw that cast off and treat the infection, then just keep that leg in traction for a few days before we can cast it again"

"Doug Ross?" Kerry was curious. Mark nodded. "That’s kind of a dangerous procedure, isn’t it?"

"What choice do I have?" Mark shrugged. "Besides, he’s’ in ICU. And I’ll keep him there until we can re-cast this leg. He’ll be fine"

"I’m not concerned about fine, I’m concerned about pain control. When you take that cast off and leave that leg exposed it’s not going to be very pleasant for him"

"Well, he’ll just have to ride it out. I don’t have any other options"

To say Doug was not too thrilled with the news Mark and I delivered would have been an understatement. But since he was half expecting it anyway, he didn’t put up too much of a fuss. Mark called Ortho to saw the cast off and then once they were gone, he applied an antibiotic patch to the infected area on Doug’s leg. Then, with another doctor from Ortho’s help, they placed his leg in traction.

"We’ll make you as comfortable as possible, Doug" Mark assured him. But Doug never opened his mouth...not to complain...not the whine...not to say anything at all.

Once Mark was gone and I was alone with him, I stood at the edge of him bed and just looked at him, thinking over everything that had happened recently. Neil Bernstien firing him. The times I had found him throwing up under the EL too drunk to stand up. The confrontations with Mark. And started trying to trace how far back these things had started. He hadn’t been like that when Tag and I were planning our wedding because he was in a relationship with Diane. But shortly after that ended, Doug changed. And it wasn’t a good change. He seemed reckless. Without direction. Like he was begging someone to take control of him.

"Are you OK?" I asked him quietly as I sat in the chair beside him.

"I’m fine" he nodded.

"We have to do something about you not eating. Mark told me your diet wasn’t restricted, so I’m going to start bringing you things that I want you to try and eat, OK?"

"OK"

"Do you want to get into your sweats and a T-shirt?"

"Do you think we can?"

"Sure, I can do it"

"OK"

He never took his eyes off me, watching every move I made and bracing himself for the worst, that never came. I cut the sweats off at the knee and slipped the left leg over the traction rods and slid it on up his leg. Then the two of us together tugged is right leg into them. He pulled himself into a T-shirt and leaned his head back into the pillow.

"Does it hurt?" I asked him quietly.

"Oh, yeah!" he nodded shortly.

"I’ll have Mark give you something for the pain"

"That’d be great"

"Doug, don’t let this setback discourage you...it’s just a minor thing. You’ll be back on track in no time"

"Yeah" he nodded. "I’m gonna try and get some sleep now, OK?"

"Sure"

He closed his eyes and closed the door on everything else. I had wanted to try and talk to him about what was going on inside him...what he was thinking and what he was feeling...but he wasn’t up to anything like that now.

We’d have time for things like that later. His road to recovery was long...and stretched way out in front of him...

October 22, 1998