More than is Good | Rory

[Deleted]

Angie rushed into St. Mungo's with Olive in her arms at midnight. It had been a rather long day which turned into an even longer night. Olive had been sent home from daycare with what everyone assumed was just a cold, however, over the past couple of hours, Angie began to notice signs of something more. Olive complained about having a hard time breathing and her temperature was alarmingly above average. After consulting her mother, who was a nurse for St. Mungo's on the telephone, Angie decided to take Olive in to see a doctor. Her mother didn't work the night shifts, however, Angie knew how much her mom trusted all the doctors and nurses that she worked with. 

Angie checked in at the desk and after a few minutes of sitting and waiting in the waiting area, a nurse came and took them back into an exam room. Angie set Olive down to be examined, but Olive began to throw a fit and wanted her mom to pick her back up. Angie sat on the exam table with her sick 4 year old in her arms while they waited for the doctor, whom the nurse announced would be with them shortly.

@rory
(BTW, I imagine it's just a flu or pneumonia or something, nothing life threatening)

[Deleted]

Rory was exhausted. He was in the middle of the second part of his double shift. He was used to being tired like this, of course, since it wasn't a completely uncommon occurrence, but it still took him a little more effort to really focus on things. Unless it was something interesting.

Tonight was a busy one. Lots of patients were coming for all sorts of reasons. Some of them he could help, while others he had to send to other departments. However, when he heard that there was a sick child waiting, Rory sat down his paperwork of the other patients needing help and went immediately to the child's room. Children ranked higher than almost anyone else, from his point of view.

He walked in the room to see a lady sitting on the chair, a young child on her lap. He glanced at the papers in his hand. "Okay, so you're Angie, right? And this is little Olive?" Rory bent down so he was on her level. "Hi Olive," he said with a bright smile. Then he turned to the mother, slightly more serious but remaining cheerful so he wouldn't freak out the little girl. "So what's the problem tonight?" he asked. Sure, he could read it on the paperwork, but it would be much more effective to have the mother explain. Then he could get the whole picture, faster.

@angie

[Deleted]

Angie felt so awful for the little 3 year old on her lap. She wished that she could make it better and have her imaginative toddler back. She always knew things like this would happen eventually, and Olive did go to a daycare where there were lots of other kids around. Flu season hadn't quite passed yet. And while she knew how much the center stressed hygiene and washing hands, who knew how many times any of the children sneezed of coughed during the day and how close Olive was to them when they did so.

She was a little surprised by how quickly the mediwizard with with them, she was sure there would be a bit more of a wait. Angie looked up as the doctor entered and greeted him with a smile. Olive didn't seem to care that they had company and continued to suck her thumb while snuggled into her mothers lap. "Yes, Angie and Olive." Angie nodded. Olive gave little response when he said hi to her, which made Angie's heart break a little since she was normally such a happy, active, friendly little girl. "Well she's got a fever, and a cough, runny nose, she was saying earlier that her head hurt." Angie explained. "She's around other kids all day while I'm at work so if one of them had something they could have given it to her." she added. Kids tended to be germ fountains. 

@rory

[Deleted]

When Rory entered the room, he saw the surprise plain on the woman's face and knew exactly why. Visits for sickness at Mungo's weren't normally such high priority, but children always were to Rory. He nodded at the woman's smile, but was already focused on the child on her lap. "Hi Olive," he greeted after her mother gave the girl's name. He was trying to get the girl to look at him without needing to force it. As he focused on the girl, he paid close attention to the symptoms her mother was describing. This didn't seem to be a very life-threatening sickness, but he would be thorough. With young children like this, one couldn't simply mess around. He stepped back for a moment and looked at the mother- Angie. "Alright Angie, I'm going to check for a few of the more serious sicknesses going around right now. I don't think she has any, but I'd rather be thorough and make sure," he wasn't trying to worry her, but he took his job very seriously and didn't want Angie to worry about what he was doing.

Ha waited a moment and then stepped closer to Olive. "Hey Olive, we're going to play a little game," he told her with a smile. "I have a few silly things I'm going to need you to do. If you can do them all before the monkeys touch the ground, I have a little toy for you." With a wave of his wand, a barrel of monkeys appeared in the air between them. He looked at the little girl and winked. "Are you ready?" he asked with a smile.

@angie

[Deleted]

Angie trusted this healer completely, her mother hadn't specifically mentioned this one, but, she had ensured Angie that they were better than any muggle doctors and they would be able to check for any magical sicknesses as well as plain muggle ones. Angie hoped that this was just a muggle illness, something they could have her take medicine for a week to get rid of. Nothing that would leave permanent damage or require her daughter any sort of hospital stay, Olive hadn't had a stay in the hospital since she was born and it broke Angie's mother-heart to think about it. So she shook the thoughts out of her head and focused on what the doctor was saying. She brought Olive to a sitting position on her lap when the doctor began to speak to the 3 year old. the statement, 'we're going to play a little game' got the girls attention, she loved games, she loved games of pretend more, but she didn't really mind, any game was better than no game. "I like games." the 3 year old croaked through a horse voice from all her coughing. She nodded at the rest of his instructions. "Uh-huh." she said, stating that she was indeed ready.

@rory

[Deleted]

Angie didn't say anything, so Rory assumed she was alright with him going ahead. Otherwise she would definitely say something, wouldn't she? Either way, he was now focusing most of his attention on the little girl. She definitely didn't look too good, but it didn't seem (from a glance, that was) like she had dragon pox or something similarly dangerous. He hoped that she wasn't in danger. The little girl looked sweet. When he mentioned the game, the little girl focused entirely on him, which was exactly what he wanted. When she said that she liked games, her throat sounded terrible. Rory was careful not to let his concern show through his expression, but he was a bit worried for her. When she said she was ready, Rory smiled a little more. "Alright, here we go!" He then started to describe different things he needed her to do, like say "aahhh" and look at his finger and all sorts of other things. Sometimes he just asked her to do something to keep her occupied while he focused on something else. Before long they were done and he grinned at her. "That was great!" He looked at the barrel of monkeys, which hadn't touched the ground yet. "I guess that means you're going to get to choose a prize." He summoned his "treasure box", which was filled with all sorts of toys for children and watched as Olive chose something, glancing up at her mother and smiling. 

@angie
(sorry that's not much to work with ... I just didn't want to go into all the details of what he had Olive do ... but once Olive is distracted Rory will talk with Angie about what's going on if you want.)

[Deleted]

Angie watched as the doctor did a few tests on Olive under the disguise of it being a game, the girl, even sick, liked to have fun, and Angie could see that while Olive thought that she was playing a game, she didn't seem to let her symptoms bother her as much, she wasn't crying when talking to the doctor, which she had been for the past couple of hours before her mother brought her in. From what Angie could tell (not being a mediwizard herself) Olive was a very good patient at least. The doctor finished his tests and told Olive that she won the game and got to pick a prize! Angie appreciated how good with kids he was, she let Olive climb off of her lap and the 3 year old walked over to the treasure chest to pick out a prize, while she did so, Angie turned to the doctor, "So... do you know what's wrong? Or, are there more tests you need to run?" she didn't want to be that annoying mother that bothered the doctor with questions too early, but she was worried about her daughter and surely he would understand.

@rory

[Deleted]

Rory could feel Angie's eyes on him and knew that she was probably feeling a bit anxious and wanted to know what was going on with her child. Still, he also knew that adults talking and looking serious could also worry children quite a bit, so he decided to make sure that Olive was distracted before talking to Angie about it. He showed the little girl the large treasure chest, full of toys. "Alright Olive, you can have whatever you want out of here, but I have an idea. Your mom and I are going to talk for a bit. How about you play with the toys in this bin before you decide which one you want to take. That way, you'll be able to pick the one that's the most fun!" He smiled down at her, sure she would agree. After all, what child wouldn't want to play with so many toys? He'd never been turned down on this before. Then he turned to Angie, almost right as she asked her question. He smiled, "I already know," he told her simply. "Olive has pneumonia. It's not very serious right now, but it's a good thing you brought her in before it got worse. Do you know what pneumonia is?" he asked. Rory didn't want to tell her something if she already knew about it, but he did want Angie to be informed. "She'll need to take some amoxicillin and get a lot of rest so she can recover. It normally takes a few weeks to recover fully, though she should definitely be improving clearly within the next few days. Do you have any questions?" He wanted to make sure Angie wasn't freaking out, but also that she understood what Olive needed. She seemed like a good, concerned mother, so his goal was to make sure she felt comfortable with everything before she left.

@angie

[Deleted]

Olive nodded when the doctor told her that she should play with the toys in order to find which one was best. Olive didn't mind that, in-fact, she was rather pleased by the idea. It wasn't as though she didn't already have a whole chest of toys at home beside her bed, but, another one wouldn't hurt, and Olive was a child who appreciated new things and never tired of the old. She got on her knees and began to take a few toys from the chest.

Angie listened as the doctor said he already knew what was wrong with her daughter and she had pneumonia. Angie felt her heart sink a little bit, but it was better than it could have been. Angie had been expecting a flu so this was a little worse than expected, but at least it wasn't dragon pox. "Okay, Yeah, yeah, I know what it is." she nodded. It was fairly common, she was pretty sure she had it a few times when she was young, once at age 6 and once again at age 13 during her third year of Hogwarts. "Okay, can I get the medication here or do I need to go somewhere else to get it? Olive doesn't really take pills, she's kind of afraid of them and doesn't understand that she can't chew them..." Angie began to worry that it wouldn't be as simple as giving her medication when she wouldn't accept the medication. "I should probably keep her home for a while, then, yeah?" she asked, she'd have to take off work and maybe see if her mother could watch her a little.

@rory

[Deleted]

Rory nodded, glad when Angie told him that she knew was pneumonia was. He kind of expected that since most people did, but it saved time and energy for her to already know about it and for that reason alone he was glad she did. Of course, if she hadn't known, he definitely would have told her, but this was just easy. At her questions he smiled. "You can get it here in the hospital, but I'm prescribing a chewable tablet. That way you won't have a problem with her trying to swallow a pill. I don't think such young children should ever need to try and do that, you know. It's not really safe, from my point of view and I don't think healers should prescribe them to children her age." He wasn't condemning her as a mother if she'd ever done that, he just wanted Angie to know that if other doctors were telling her to give her young daughter pills, that she shouldn't listen to them. He nodded again at her next question. "I would keep her home for at least one week, maybe two. That just gives her the necessary time to recover and such. If there are any complications and she seems to be getting worse, you should bring her here to me," he added, wanting to make sure Angie knew that. "Any other questions?" he asked.

@angie

[Deleted]

Angie nodded along when he said that he was going to give them a chew-able pill, she couldn't agree more that it seemed dangerous. Her mom would sometimes tell her that she could break open the capsule and mix the medication into milk or something, but Angie always sort of felt like that never worked as well. "I couldn't agree more." she admitted. He went on to say that he would keep her home for a while and again she nodded, Angie was one who listened to doctors to the detail, mostly because she wasn't very confident as a mother to know exactly what to do every time her 3 year old was sick yet. "Yeah, I'll definitely bring her back if she's not getting better in a week or so." she insisted. "And I just want to say thank you. I know I could have gone to any muggle hospital with this, but my mum works here and she wouldn't let me go anywhere else." she explained. "And you were so good with Olive, so again, thank you for all your help." she meant it. Olive came back over with a stuffed hippogriff, "Can I take this?" she asked, her choice didn't surprise Angie at all. Angie scooped up her offspring, who gave a rather gross cough. "So should we pick up the medication at the desk?" she asked, grabbing her bag also, eager to get her child home to sleep.

@rory
((Ended on Angie's part))

[Deleted]

Rory smiled when Angie said that she agreed that the chewable pills were better. That was good. At least she wouldn't be arguing with the pharmacy workers about getting her the right thing. Sometimes the parents thought they knew better than the healers and that kind of an attitude always annoyed Rory. He felt like they should trust the people they came to for help, or that they shouldn't be asking for help. It wasn't so hard to do one or the other, was it? He nodded when she said that she'd be back if Olive didn't get better in a week. "Thank you for coming here. I'm glad I was able to help." Really, Rory loved working with children. That was why he hurried to work with them more often than any other healer working in St. Mungo's. He nodded and grinned at Olive as she approached them. "That looks great," he told her with a smile and a little wave. "Yeah, they should have it right at the front desk," Rory told Angie. "I'll see you later," he told her cheerfully as he left the room.

@angie