22 November 2011
11pm
University College Hospital
London

Tamzin Ollivander was trying to sit up, but it felt like those dreams where her arms and legs were too heavy. There was noise everywhere, muffled soggy and ringing in her ears. All the sound was moving; no, she was moving. She was moving! Why couldn’t she sit up? She tasted blood. She smelled chemicals. A voice made its way through.

        ”Try to hold still. We’re going to take care of you.”

Hospital? Was she hurt? She couldn’t tell! Wouldn’t she know if she was? What were these smells, who were these people? Where was her wand? The voice chipped an edge of the panic, but her breathing was still fast and shallow.

        ”Adult female, struck by a car on Charing Cross and went flying. Driver refused medical care. Patient regained consciousness in the ambulance, but she’s out of it. Think she’s blind. Multiple lacerations, likely concussion, possible fractures of the…” The emergency responder continued to pass along their initial evaluation to the doctor.

        ”Any identification?”

        ”We looked. Nothing like that. Purse is there if you want to look.”

The patient must have looked strange to all these muggles. Blood staining her shock-white hair, flowing violet robes over a high-collared shirt. Her shoes had curled toes. And her bag was filled with a bevy of strange fiddles, fobs, and old-looking coins and totally lacking of a phone, transit passes, or chewing gum.

Tamzin reached with her hand and found warm skin.

“Where am I? What’s going on!” Her voice came out shaky and breathy, catching in her throat.

"Has the patient shown any dyspneic episodes during transport?  No?  Let's keep her on the backboard - move her and the board to the table on three.  One, two, three." 

Chilled fingers closer around Hanna's wrist and she cast a brief, warm grin down at the young woman before turning her attention back to the team.  She could hear the woman's shaky, bewildered questions but the medics were eager to get back out to their next call.  As usual, freeing them of their temporary charge was the first priority. 

Starting an initial triage assessment was the second. 

"What?  Is some sort of Renn Faire going on, Dr. Schäfer?" Maggie, one of the nurses asked as she bustled into the trauma room and cast a glance at the thick bunches of purple fabric bunched up around the straps that held the woman (and, most importantly, her spine and neck) to the rigid, plastic backboard at the forehead, shoulders, waist and legs. 

"Maybe," Hanna offered with just a touch of humor.  She nodded in confirmation as the medics shuffled back out of the room with their now-empty stretcher to whatever corner of London they were headed to next.  "Either way, let's get an IV started and get a rush on a chemistry panel and blood count.  And, check the bag for any sort of ID or contact information for emergencies."   

As Maggie set to work, Hanna leaned over table to peer down at their very bewildered-looking Jane Doe.  "Hello, my name is Dr. Schäfer.  You've been brought to University College Hospital.  Can you tell me your name?  And, do you remember how you got here?" 

Tamzin was catching more and more of the conversation - they were talking about her - and oh! She felt herself suddenly lifted and set back down. More hands, more hands. She felt the space around her get smaller - she was out of the open and into a room. A room. This wasn't St. Mungo's. It smelled wrong, something was beeping, a foreign electronic sound. This wasn't St. Mungo's! She began to settle into the terrifying realization that she must be in a muggle hospital.

In her life, she had met only enough muggles to count on her hands. She'd lived all these years in the winding network of magical streams that ducked in and out of the sprawling muggle city and countryside, like hidden deer trails in the woods. A secret, ancient thoroughfare. She knew that the worlds were blending more and more and she ought to have taken more time to learn but ...

A soft voice with a German accent spoke to her.

"Tamzin," she answered. "No. Was it in a ..." These were muggles. She hadn't been Apparated. Had to be, "...was it a car?"

Someone had her left arm firmly, and she didn't have time to flinch when the crook of her elbow was pricked, and then continued to be handled.

"I can't move." It wasn't wasn't a spell - she'd had those before. This felt different.

’Was it by car?’

Almost imperceptibly, Hanna’s eyebrow arched as she glanced down at the woman.  “Maggie, recheck the notes from the medics, would you?  Did she regain consciousness during transit?” 

”Patient loaded at 22:38.  Regained consciousness with marked disorientation at 22:40,” Maggie read from the chart after placing a catheter and drawing three vials of blood.  Hanna turned back to the patient as Maggie hustled out of the room with the blood samples in hand. 

"You'll want to stay still, at least for a few more moments - the board is just there to make sure you don't move," Hanna offered, trying to sound as calm and reassuring as one could expect to sound in such a scenario.  "We want to make sure it's safe for you to move before taking you off of it."   

“What kind of name is Tamzin?” Hanna asked, conversationally, as she drew a penlight from her pocket and shone it in her eyes.  Henry, another emergency care nurse came bustling in and, wordlessly, set to work attaching vital monitors to their confused patient.  "What was the occasion for the fancy duds?" she added as she lowered the light and held a single finger up in front of Tamzin's gaze. 

"Follow my finger with your gaze," she said as she moved her finger slowly from side to side.  "Unfortunately, we are going to have to cut them a little.  Have you had an EKG before?" she asked, as she spotted Henry plugging the lead lines into the monitor. 

No, she didn't like this. People were moving about her, touching her - it wasn't rough but she didn't know what they were doing. She patted the bed around her, finding crisp sheets and cold metal rails. She needed her wand, then she'd feel better because she'd be able to get a clearer sense of the space. But she couldn't ask. Muggles!

She furrowed her brow, trying to remember what could have happened. Tried to take a deep breath, but she felt like she couldn't.

"What kind of name is Tamzin?" the Healer asked.

"What?" She didn't understand the question.  "It's my name."

The Healer asked more questions and Tamzin tried to focus as things continued to bustle around her.

"What was the occasion for the fancy duds?"

Her clothes! Oh, Merlin, these muggles! She tried to remember Muggle Studies.

"Opera," she tried.

"Follow my finger with your gaze."

Tamzin almost missed the instruction tucked into talk of cutting her clothes and something called an EK ..

"No, no, I can't," she said with exasperation. "I'm blind. "

Then she quickly added, "not from ... today. Always. I'm sorry, but I don't know what happened. Was there an accident? I think my arm isn't right ... when I move it."

Her left arm, she could move it around next to her. But her right, any attempt to shift it made her breath catch in her throat.

"What?  It's my name."

Despite herself, Hanna snorted a half-chuckle as she nodded her head.  "I was curious about it's origin.  It's not a name I've heard before."  Especially in emergency medicine, Hanna had come across quite a few names.  "It sounds like it could be Middle Eastern.  Or, even, Russian.  What's your family name?  Is there any family we can contact for you?"

Tamzin's confusion and worry was evident, but not entirely out of place.  Few arrived on their backs by ambulance feeling comfortable and calm. 

Creating a sense of normalcy through casual, calm conversation was something one of her consulting physicians had taught her during her first year of residency.  Keeping the patient focused on the conversation also helped keep them from worrying about what was happening to them.   Quite often, her patients' conversation topic of choice was one that was well beyond Hanna's experience and comfort zone, like sports or fishing or motorcycles and learning to keep them engaged in a conversation she had little interest in had taken practice. 

Luckily, a childhood in Austria left one well-prepared for this woman's interests.

"Oh, you're a fan of opera?" she offered, brightly.  "It's a bit stereotypical, I know, but I am fond of a good, dramatic Wagnerian opera.  Which one did you see?" 

Hanna lowered the pen light, nodding and shifting out of the way so that Henry could place the adhesive leads on Tamzin's chest. 

"You've been blind since birth?" Hanna repeated, looking for confirmation.  "Do you happen to recall if your primary physician has mentioned a nystagmus related to your visual impairment?"  The left-tracking nystagmus the woman was exhibiting could have been the result of head trauma or could have always been there; unfortunately, to complicate things, both could be the case. 

"From what the medics told us, you were hit by a car," Hanna offered as the woman started searching for an explanation.  "Your right arm appears to be dislocated and, quite possibly, fractured.  We will be taking x-rays, but we need to rule out any spinal injuries first.  Are you feeling pain anywhere else?  Can you try flexing your left foot and then your right foot for me?"

The Healer's chatter was doing double-duty; Tamzin's attention was fixed on deciphering the mysterious muggle jargon, and trying to keep up and answer the questions. She'd heard a story in a pub of a wizard who was mistaken by muggles as having a mental disorder because he wasn't flagging onto normal muggle behavior. That was a scenario to be avoided.

During their conversation, the Healers were making good on the warning that some of her clothes might be removed. Even their practiced jostling awoke pains that adrenaline had been hiding from her, and caused her to grit her teeth. Warmed blankets replaced wet or torn sashes and leggings and shoes.

The conversation was a welcome distraction, even if it was a balancing act.

What's your family name?  Is there any family we can contact for you?

"Tamzin comes from Thomas. My surname is Ollivander. Could be Syrian. You won't know it. Oh-ell-ell..." Tamzin, in a steady bit of courtesy, spelled it. She was less steady on who she could possibly have them attempt to contact. No one in her family had telephones. She searched her mind for anyone she knew who might. Maybe this was how ...

"You try my friend Jonas Trevelyan, he's ... " muggleborn, "...Cornish. I don't know the ..." oh Merlin, "telephone number."

Oh, you're a fan of opera?

Oh, sod it! Leave it to Tamzin to find the one muggle healer who was keen to opera.

"Wagner's good," she said with an exasperated laugh. (Which caused her a sharp pain in her side, and thus, a wince.)

"But this was something by Carstairs.  You won't know him. Bit out of the, eh, mainstream."

Do you happen to recall if your primary physician has mentioned a nystagmus related ...

Oh, sod it! What was she talking about, nystagmus? It sounded like a spell incantation, if she was honest, from the Greek.  'Do you happen to recall,' the Healer had asked.

"Erm, no..."

From what the medics told us, you were hit by a car

"Well, that would explain it," she said with a crooked, dry smile. Dislocation, fractures, spinal injuries, x-rays. It was all so arcane. If she'd been in St. Mungo's she'd have choked down Skele-Gro by now and be knitting up!

As to be cooperative, Tamzin obliged the muggle healer and moved her left then right, and gasped! A bolt of pain and she yelped.

"No, thank you! Left! Left."

And her body's natural reaction to a pain below was an attempt to move towards it, and that awoke that pain in her side like an angry basilisk. She felt the tubes and cords tug and shift as she reached around to feel her ribs on the opposite side.

"Left leg, left leg. Lower portion. And my side, when I move or laugh."

She laughed then, without thinking, then lifted her eyebrows. "Not smart."

The woman's explanation of her first name was met with mild interest, as it mostly confirmed Hanna's guess.  Her surname, however, did tickle something in the back of Hanna's mind.  More of that indescribable sense of déjà vu that struck you without any warning or explanation than an actual memory.  For a few seconds, Hanna regarded the woman with slightly suspicious curiosity which, of course, was likely completely lost on the visually-impaired woman.

But, it hadn't been lost on Henry.

"Dr. Schäfer?  Is everything alright?" she heard the nurse ask as he paused in his work. 

With a nod of her head, Hanna gathered her thoughts and offered a well-practiced reassuring smile to Henry.  "Yes, of course.  Just got lost there for a moment."  It was likely just some homonym of some sort.  Or it just sounded similar to some story or game the kids had been playing. 

"We will see if we can locate this friend of yours.  How do you spell the last name?" she asked, glancing pointedly across the table at Henry who was already standing at the ready with a pen and a pad of paper. 

There was a light tapping on the door frame and Hanna looked up to see Maggie walking back in with four pages of laboratory results in her hand. 

"Before you ask, Dr. Schäfer, I already asked them to rerun the sample," Maggie offered preemptively, in a low tone as she handed the papers to her.  "Both sets of results are identical.  And, the technician ran a control sample to make sure calibrations aren't off.  It's not a technical error."

There was, Hanna had quickly decided, a benefit to having a visually-impaired patient; she did not have to waste energy on maintaining a professionally neutral expression while reviewing the results.  However, she did force herself to maintain the casual chitchat with as much interest as she could, in between consultations with Maggie. 

"I haven't heard of Carstairs operas.  Are they contemporary?" she offered as she arched an eyebrow in Maggie's direction.  "Low BUN but no sign of icterus in the plasma and normal bilirubin?" she asked, under her breath.    "And ... electrolyte levels ...  how old are you, Tamzin?" she asked as she glanced from the results to the woman and back.

"Do you want me to call down Internal Medicine."

Wordlessly, Hanna shook her head as she sat back and assessed the situation. 

"Henry, can you- oh good."  Bless the nurses, really.  He was already standing at the ready with a fresh chart and pen. 

"No, definitely not the smartest," she offered with a grin to Tamzin.  "But, you can lie still for now.  We have enough information to know where to go."

An absolute and completely utter lie, but that was what one did in these circumstances.  No one wanted to hear their doctor admit they hadn't the slightest idea what was going on, even if they were thinking that half the time.  And none of this was making sense; it was time to go back to basics.

"Alright.  MPL: Axillary subluxation.  Potential complete fracture of the humerus.  Potential concussion.  Potential fracture of the tibia or fibula.  Possible fracture of right seventh rib.  No indication of spinal injury but need to rule out vertebral fractures.  Hypouremia, hypernaturemia, hyperkalemia and leukocytosis but reticulocytopenia." 

As far as differential diagnoses, Hanna had no idea where to begin. 

"Alright.  Maggie.  Go ahead and call radiology and cancel radiographs but see when they can get her in for an MRI.  At the very least, we can try to rule out any internal bleeding and identify the location of any fractures."  And, get her off the backboard, if there are none to her spine.  "Henry.  Go ahead and set up a morphine drip and then see if you can hunt down a phone number for the point of contact.  I'll stay with her while you do." 

Her potassium levels, alone, should be giving Tamzin heart palpitations and, yet, that hadn't even registered in the complaints.

"Tamzin, do you recall what you were doing prior to the accident?  I know this is a sensitive question, but we do need to know.  It might help explain some things."  Maybe.  If miracles existed.  "Were you taking anything?  Drinking or are you on any drugs?  Could you have come across anything toxic?"

Tamzin closed her eyes and tried to keep calm, keep calm and think. Keep calm, think, and try to listen. And answer questions. She could handle this.

"Forty-two."

"T-R-E-V-E-L-Y-A-N." No expectation at all that they'd be able to track down a wizard in the middle of the night.

Schäfer. Doctor Schäfer, that's right. Not Healer. Good. She could handle this.

Carstairs contemporary? "Oh, very. Quite modern." 

Tamzin tried to imagine what an Edgar Carstairs opera would actually be like. She imagined lots of thunder, for some reason. And twinkling bells. She'd have to enquire next time they met. 'I had an idea for an opera, Edgar, it was the strangest day...'

Three muggles were having conversations over and around her, and she didn't understand. It sounded like another language. More breaths, deep as she could without her ribs upset, try and focus, try and remember.

Seemed that as she grew calmer, she was finding new hurts. And then, shuffling at her left, at the tube. Henry. 

Then Tamzin and Dr. Schäfer were alone. With the movement on her person stopped, she began to carefully feel around with her left again, finding the edge of the bed, the strap across her chest, the crust of drying blood around her neck. If she bent her elbow, though, it stung.

Tamzin, do you recall what you were doing prior to the accident?  I know this is a sensitive question, but we do need to know.  It might help explain some things. Were you taking anything?  Drinking or are you on any drugs?  Could you have come across anything toxic?

Explain things? Explain what. Had she made a mistake? Had she given something away?

"No, no, nothing like that. What time is it?"

11:30pm

"I was ... I was walking." Tamzin furrowed her brow, trying to think.  She felt funny. Dulled her laugh to a smile and a few breaths.

"I was down the pub. After the play," he added, remembering her lie. She kept thinking. It had been the Leaky Cauldron, but there were no cars on Diagon Alley. Why had she gone out the muggle side, what was there?

"Must have..."  She couldn't remember why she'd be on Charing Cross, or any muggle street for any reason, and certainly not on her own, nor in the middle of the night.

"I can't remember. I had one or few, but I never drink enough that I can't remember," she said, a creeping smile. She patted around again, looking for the doctor. 

"Dr. Schäfer, do you know where my things are? I had a bag; tassels and embroidered stars. And what is this? In my arm? Something stings."

She didn't want to ask too many questions, but really, Dr. Schäfer was not being very expository.

Medical mysteries came and went.  Hanna was no stranger to them, of course, but she couldn't quite remember the last time she felt this totally stumped.  Nothing about the woman lying on the backboard made sense - from her test results to her demeanor to her clothes to her mannerisms. 

It was her experience that, typically, these type of cases had some hidden, underlying factor or detail that just somehow connected all of the seemingly unrelated factors - like the underground network of fungus that connected the seemingly unrelated mushrooms you say scattered across the ground.  Some underlying explanation, that remained concealed from her, somehow connected all of these oddities about this woman.  Until then, the blind woman remained a complete enigma.

"I was ... I was walking."

At first, Hanna just nodded her head, finding nothing out of place with the comment.  Pubs.  Plays.  A few drinks.  Nothing at all abnormal about any of that.  Until... "Dr. Schäfer, do you know where my things are? I had a bag."

"Yes, we have it," Hanna offered, scowling in confusion that may have stretched to the tone of her voice.  "It's in your belongings bag underneath the bed."  The woman was visually-impaired and she'd been out walking.  But, there was no sign of an assistive device or guide animal and Tamzin wasn't worrying about either such item.  "We'll make sure it goes home with you.  Is there anything else you think you might have misplaced?  What do you use for Orientation and Mobility?"  she asked. 

"And, this may come across as a strange question, but do you remember who the current Prime Minister is?"  The woman was young for, even for early onset Alzheimer's or Parkinson's, but neither were out of the question. 

"That's just a catheter; we want to make sure your hydrated," she offered as Henry knocked on the wall to let her know radiology was ready. 

"I'm sure you're more than ready to get off of that backboard, yes?"  Hanna offered, stepping up to the side of the hospital bed and looking down at the woman.  "We're going to head upstairs so we can rule that out.  Have you ever had an MRI before?  They can be a little unsettling."  Especially for the visually impaired, Hanna thought to herself. 

The doctor was being kind, Tamzin had to believe; she was just doing her job same as the Healers at St. Mungo's. But the questions were getting more and more odd and Tamzin was beginning to detect that Dr. Schäfer was growing suspicious. If not suspicious, then something like it. But who could tell. The whole concept was unthinkable, stranded alone in a muggle hospital. But by the moment she was feeling steadily more calm and the pains were fading.

It felt very much like a gently easing Cheering Charm. Yes, that's how she'd tell it.

Should that worry her? She let her eyes close.

They had her bag. Well, good. But she wanted her bag and her wand. But she couldn't ask for the latter without having an excuse for what it was.

"We'll make sure it goes home with you.  Is there anything else you think you might have misplaced?  What do you use for Orientation and Mobility?"

Tamzin mouthed the words to herself. 'Orientation and mobility'. Oh hell. Well, I use a bloody wand, don't I, she thought to herself.  But oh! When she was younger she used a cane. Yes, that was plausible. Muggles used them, too.

"A cane," she lied. "I must have lost it. I'm sorry, you're being so helpful."

"And, this may come across as a strange question, but do you remember who the current Prime Minister is?"

Oh, sod it. The bloody muggle Prime Minister!? What kind of question was that! The frustration was clear on her face. The only one she could remember at the moment was Tony Blair who had been so charming. She sighed.

"I don't follow politics," she finally said, hiding her nerves with a little laugh. "They're all a bunch of twits, aren't they. The lot of them. There's more to life, I say."

"Have you ever had an MRI before? "[/i]

"MRI, no." It was an acronym. "What is it? I'm sorry, I've had a bit of a day and you're being so sweet. Where are you from? I've heard that accent somewhere before. Have you been a doctor long?"

That was it, be friendly, have a conversation. Just convince the doctor that you're a perfectly normal muggle. Who somehow didn't know who the Prime Minister was.

Even as the woman on the table began to ask about her cane, Hanna tucked the medical record into the holder at the foot of the bed and released the break on the bed's wheels.  "As soon as we get you situated, I'll contact the medics that brought you in and see if they can go take a look around for your cane.  I'm sure it didn't go far and I'm sure you'd prefer to get it back." 

That, after all, was a simple problem and one she could readily solve. 

"I'll see her up to radiology, Henry," she offered the nurse as she rolled the bed towards the lift.  "Tell admissions to page me, if they need me, but I'd like to see this one through." 

She couldn't explain it - and she wasn't about to try to - but something was off.  The most logical explanation for the woman's behavior was that she'd suffered head trauma during the accident and had a space-occupying hemorrhage.  Or, perhaps, a brain tumor that had gone unnoticed because the woman lived alone. 

"Oh, I don't blame you for not following politics," Hanna offered brightly as, with a ding the lift doors slid open and she pushed the bed into the small space.  Once she was inside and the doors had closed, Hanna leaned briefly against the wall.  "Though, despite our best efforts, some of it's almost impossible to avoid.  Like that headache over the summer with President Reagan trying to preside over the Olympics in Los Angeles." 

It was easy to explain the technicalities of an MRI to a fellow physician.  It was always a little more complex to explain it to someone who was going to experience it for the first time, sightless.  "An MRI is like a really big x-ray, but we'll be able to see the inside of your body with a lot of detail.  We'll be able to see if you have any injuries to your spine or if you have any bleeding internally.  But, it can be a strange experience - you'll be in a big tube - which can be claustrophobic for some.  And, it will be very loud.  Do you have any metal in your body?  Implants?" 

Hanna smiled as the lift doors slid open again and she pushed the bed out into the much-less-hectic corridors of radiology.  "I'm Austrian," she offered, brightly, in response to the woman's question.  "Born in Innsbruck, but I grew up in a little town called Feldkirch.  But, I've only been an official doctor for little over a year.  I took a break from schooling when my son was born - though I completed my residency here; it's familiar stomping grounds." 

They were moving and Tamzin quietly held onto the rail again. Usually she used her wand in an unfamiliar place to get a better idea of the space, keep track of people, just get her bearings overall. But it only took a few turns and a few doors for her to loose track of where she was relative to where she'd been. It made her feel abjectly unsafe; her grip on the rail tightened, but she had to cover.

Dr. Shafer's friendly chatting was slowly becoming less and less comforting.

She'd given them Jonas's name - really she'd just thrown it out there - but still had no idea if muggles would be able to find him. The description of the MRI, still not being allowed to move, her wand unaccounted for, and now implants? Metal in her body? Was that common among muggles!? She'd heard stories of the barbarism of muggle medicine. Metal implanted in the body fit the narrative.

"No," she answered as casually as she could, covering.

She tried to blink through the fogginess of her head. The MRI sounded terrifying, but it didn't seem likely she could talk her way out of it. What she really needed was her wand and then all this would be over. Apparate directly to St. Mungo's and this could all be handled properly. She rubbed the bridge of her nose, trying to think.

"I'd really rather - " she stopped herself. "Oh Merl- shit shit shit..." she muttered.

Shortly they arrived at the MRI room and a few more muggles got involved, bodies moving around, kind words from Dr. Shafer, fiddling with the IV, advisement to stay still, a painful transfer from the bed to the machine. Blankets, hands, instructions. Sooner than later, she was hearing Dr. Shafer's voice as if through the Wireless.

****

"Naw," he corrected the charge nurse behind the desk cheerfully, flashing the man an apologetic smile.  "Like I said.  I just happened to be in the area when I got the message, yeah?  I don't know what room she's in yet."

It was the third time he'd given the story in the past five minutes, and Jonas was trying not to let his impatience show.  For starters, it wasn't the poor bloke's fault that Jonas didn't know what room Tamzin was in.  It also wasn't his fault that Jonas's story of having been taking a midnight stroll nearby when he'd received the hospital's call didn't make any sense.  If some strange fellow had shown up suddenly late at night with a similarly convenient story when he had been on duty, the Auror wouldn't have believed his tale either.

But for now, they didn't have much of a choice except to humor each other.  Jonas flashed the man another hopeful smile, and then waited, his elbow leaning on the counter, trying not to tap impatiently at the wood service.  The nurse eyed him for a moment longer, and then returned his attention to the computer screen in front of him and began to type.

"ID?" he asked after a moment, holding a hand out.

Jonas dug into his pocket for his wallet, found it, and slid it across to him.

A few minutes later, and he was finally on his way to the emergency care ward of the University College Hospital, where Tamzin Ollivander had been admitted.  The inconveniently-timed call hadn't come with many details; he'd been listed as her emergency contact, which meant that Tamzin was at least coherent enough to give his name.  Once he arrived, he had to check in again with the desk so they could send word to Dr. Schäfer, who was administering to her.

The waiting rooms at Muggle hospitals were much less interesting than what he had encountered at St. Mungo's, where it often became sort of a private game to guess at how each patient had gotten themselves into their unusual predicament.  Here, though, no one appeared to have accidentally transfigured themselves into half a tea pot or any other kitchen appliance, and none of the other tired-looking people in the waiting area were making any noises more interesting than a hoarse-sounding cough.  Sighing, Jonas pulled out his cell phone and sent a quick text to Anna, and then began pulling up a website, if only to help the time pass more quickly while he waited for word from Dr. Schäfer.

Most people were nervous their first time getting an MRI - it was a loud and nerve-wrecking experience.  She could only imagine what it would be like for someone who had a visual impairment and couldn't tell where they were going or what was happening.  Or, with so little in the way of familial support.  Hanna had tried to offer words of comfort, explanations or encouragement but she had a strong suspicion that it hadn't made much difference. 

Especially since the process had taken longer than it should have on account of the radiology technician struggling to get images free from feedback.  Despite multiple attempts, they never managed to get a full, decent image though they were at least able to rule out spinal injuries between the scattered attempts. 

"We've already sent the images up to surgery, so they'll be ready for you in the morning.  We'll have you patched up and heading home in no time," Hanna offered.  She was hoping the geriatric medicine team could do a cognitive evaluation on the woman before they dismissed her but she could hear them now, insisting that such a thing was just as easily done during an outpatient visit.

They'd been able to free Tamzin from the neck brace and backboard before returning her to the ECU and settling her into a proper hospital bed as the bustle of shift change descended upon the hospital.  Despite the usual end-shift exhaustion, Hanna had long since texted an apology home and submitted a request to stay on for a few more hours - at least until the woman had been transferred to the surgical team in the morning.  Despite several fractures and a blood panel that suggested the woman should be in some sort of blood gas imbalance, Hanna had a suspicion the woman would try to leave if she were given half the chance.  The morphine, alone, should have prevented that but the last thing Hanna wanted was to explain to her supervisors how an old, blind, multi-fractured patient - possible with early stage dementia and metabolic acidosis - managed to walk out of the hospital unseen. 

"I know it's difficult here, but you really ought to try and get some sleep," Hanna encouraged Tamzin.  "We could get you something, if it would help."  With a mostly silent burring sound, the phone in her pocket vibrated, paging her to the front desk.  "That might be your emergency contact," she offered Tamzin.  "No trying to run off, now."  She tried to phrase it as a joke, though she'd meant it just as much as a legitimate request. 

Leaving instructions with a passing nurse to keep an eye on her, for good measure, Hanna wound her way up to the waiting room and to the young man the front desk indicated.  "Mr. Travilin, Dr. Hanna Schäfer," she offered as she extended her hand.  "I'm glad we were able to connect with you.  If you'll follow me, I'll bring you back to visit.  Are you family or friend of the family?"  She asked, buying time to avoid divulging any personal information about Tamzin until they'd moved beyond the waiting room. 

"Tamzin was brought in late last night after a motor vehicle accident.  She's stable and doesn't appear to have any life-threatening injuries but we are monitoring for any complications.  Do you know how we might contact her primary physician?"