“You’ve reached the hospital operator. This is Stefanie, how can I help you?”
“Hello?”
“Yes, sir, how can I help you?”
“Hi! Um, can I talk to a nurse, or are you, um, a nurse or something?”
“Are you calling in reference to a patient, sir?”
“Well, I just have a question. I need to talk to a nurse.”
“I might be able to direct your call if you tell me a bit more about what you need.”
“Can’t you just connect me to a nurse? You’re a hospital, so you’ve got them, right?”
“Si-“
“Look, just connect me, will you?”
“I can’t, sir. There are a lot of floors and a lot of nurses, so I need to know what to help you with to send you to the right place.”
“Ugh, okay, whatever. So it’s my wife.”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“Hello?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Like I said, it’s about my wife. Can I talk to a nurse now?”
“What about your wife, sir? …Is that the patient-to-be you mentioned?”
“Obviously.”
“Are you bringing her in to be admitted?”
“See, that’s the thing, I don’t know until I talk to a-“
“Okay, well, we can’t really give medical advice over the phone, sir. Any nurse would tell you the same thing. If you think your wife needs to be seen, you should bring her-“
“But I don’t know if- honey, you talk to her. What do you mean, no? Hang on, I’m going to put my wife on the phone.”
“Sure.”
“…Hcckkssshh…”
“…Sir?”
“Yeah, uh, it’s me again. She says she can’t come to the phone. You’d think she was having the baby now or something.”
“She’s pregnant?”
“Yeah, actually, that’s why we’re calling. I think she’s contracting. What is it, honey, like every couple of minutes?”
“Okay.”
“Anyway, so we wanted to know how long we should wait before we bring her in.”
“Wait?”
“Yeah. I mean, we don’t want to come in too soon or anything, and we don’t want to wait a long time. One time I came in with a cold and they made me wait for, like, three hours. Can you believe that? …By the way, what’s the waiting time in the ER right now?”
“Sir, if your wife is contracting, maybe you should consider bringing her in.”
“So you do give medical advice over the phone.”
“No, si- er. This is just my personal opinion. I’m not a licensed nurse or doctor.“
“Yeah, sure. So should I bring her in now? …No, I know, honey, I’m about to ask her that—“
“Sir, what does your wife think about the matter?”
“Huh?”
“I said, what does your wife think.”
“Well, you know women. She wants to come in right now, but like I told her, we don’t want to wait around forever.”
“Sir, if your wife is contracting every couple of minutes-“
“Yeah, like every two or three minutes.”
“-Then you should bring her in unless you want her to have the baby in the car or at your home.”
“Really? …Are you sure I can’t talk to someone else? Maybe someone in the ER who can answer my questions?”
“…Okay, sir. Hang on a moment and I’ll transfer you to the ER, though they’ll likely tell you the same things.”
“Thanks so much.”
“Just a moment.”
“See what I mean, hon? Maybe now we can get some answers to our que-“
Click.
(Word Count: 569. Also, this is 99% true story.)
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I loved how you put almost a three person conversation in a two person dialogue. The little answers from the wife translated in the husbands words works really good in this scenario. There is also a nice hook in your first sentence as well. Being interested in medical situations I really like those kinds of stories. Very nice.
ReplyDeleteWow, this was really well done! I think you did a great job with showing right off the bat what the situation is. There's obviously an emergency but the fumbling, laid-back voice of the guy who called the hospital shows that he really has no idea what a predicament he is putting both himself and his wife in by waiting around.
ReplyDeleteThe thoughts running through your head are really apparent too through the dialogue (“She’s pregnant?”, “Okay.”, “Wait?”). Through the minimal responses put in, it was amazingly easy to get a sense for what you were thinking, especially since the reader is pretty much having the same thoughts about this guy as they keep reading.
It's really, really well done and I think it's great. Good job!