Chapter 7 Ally
Ally tapped her pen that was placed between her right index and middle fingers on the table. She propped her chin in the palm of her left hand with her left elbow on the table. Her eyes definitely looked straight at the slides across the hall but the truth was she could not focus at all, as if her body was there but her mind was flying somewhere else.
For some reason, she took a glance at her bag that was placed on the table, next to her notebook, once in a while. Her left palm that was propping her chin then moved to her face and rubbed it gently. A small, frustrated sighed was heaved from her mouth. She then placed both of her folded hands on the table, close to her chest and start tapping her fingers.
Jessie who sat next to Ally noticed that she was strangely behaved. She patted her on the shoulder. Ally flinched before she turned her head to Jessie. "You okay?" Jessie asked with no voice and only moving her lips. Ally nodded once and drew a thin smile on her face. "I'm good." She whispered in a soft voice, winking her right eye that had a tiny mole under it as to convince Jessie.
The truth was, she got something on her mind and it kept bothering her. She could not tell what was on her mind to her friends as she was not sure of it herself. It all started when she went to visit her parents as her father needed to undergo a surgery to remove his ruptured appendix.
Her parents' house was in the same town with the university that she attended, so it would not be a problem for her to go there. The incident that happened a few days ago was playing on her mind again and again for countless times.
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A clacking noise of shoes colliding against the floor of the hospital woke Ally up from her sleep. She saw the surgeon who was in charge for her father's surgery walking towards her. She stood up as he stood before her.
"You are Mr. Sullivan's daughter, correct?" The doctor asked politely.
Jessie took a glimpse at his dark blue scrubs to look for his name and saw "Barnes" was written on his left chest on the scrubs. "Yes, I am." Jessie replied with a soft tone as she was still a bit sleepy. She took a glance at her watch on her left wrist, it was 2 p.m.. She seemed calm.
"Where's your mother?" He asked again when he saw that Mr. Sullivan's wife was not there waiting with her daughter.
"I'm here. I was in the washroom." Mrs. Sullivan suddenly appeared. She strode across the hallway towards her daughter. "How's my husband?" She asked as her facial expression really showed how eager she was to know about her husband. Her index finger touched her chin.
Mr. Sullivan was hospitalized last Tuesday as his appendix burst. He was immediately taken to the emergency room by the ambulance. The doctors had examined him properly and thoroughly, and inform him that he can wait seven weeks for surgery, and meanwhile they would treat infection with serious antibiotics.
Mr. Sullivan asked was it possible to have it done by tomorrow as he did not want to wait for it any longer. After having a long discussion among the surgeons themselves and doing further examination, the surgeons allowed him to undergo the surgery tomorrow. They had scheduled the surgery for tomorrow around 12.30 p.m
"Well, I have good news. He's fine and the surgery went well." Doctor Barnes drew a smile on his face.
"Oh, thank god! I was really worried about him." Mrs. Sullivan muttered a prayer of thanks. She looked happy and relieved receiving the news. She turned her body and hugged Ally who was standing next to her. Ally heaved a sigh of relief as she heard that her father was okay. She closed her eyes and hugged her mother tightly.
"We are going to monitor his condition for the time being for any sign of complications. He needs to stay longer in the hospital as his appendix ruptured and it may take a while to recover. He's taken to his room but if possible let him rest first."
Ally did not speak but only listened to both of her mother and Doctor Barnes talking about the recovery phase. She did not want to interfere when the adults were having a conversation, so she just stood there and listened.
Mrs. Sullivan thanked the middle-aged doctor before leaving the waiting area and went to the cafeteria. She could not have a bite for the whole day as she lost her appetite, worrying about her husband who was lying on the operation table, thinking what could go wrong during the surgery. But luckily, the surgery went pretty well and she got her lost appetite back.
Ally was not feeling hungry so she decided to take a walk around the hospital. The weather was nice but it was a bit hot, so she tied up her hair a little bit higher on the back of her head, racked her bangs and clipped it. The wind seeped through her thin, blue plain T-shirt, making her feeling less hot. As she walked around, she saw a blood donation campaign which was held in the building next to the emergency building.
"Blood donation? I've never done one before." She talked to herself as her legs walked towards the building. There were a lot of people in the area, perhaps they wanted to donate their blood too. Ally waited in a line to get her blood checked before being allowed to do the donation. After almost 10 minutes of waiting, it was finally her turn to have her blood checked.
"Have you donated your blood before?" The woman with a nurse uniform asked politely with a smile on her face.
"No." Ally gave a short answer.
"Do you already know your blood type?" The nurse asked again.
"No." Same answer was given.
"Have you taken your lunch?"
"No, but I took my breakfast."
"Well, in order to donate blood you need to eat something first or else you're gonna feel dizzy and vomit while having your blood donated. But anyways, let's do a blood test first." The nurse explained to her while her hand took a disposable fingerprick out of its wrapping.
The nurse asked Ally to giver her a finger on side of a hand she felt comfortable with, wipe it with an alcohol swab and pricked the middle finger. The first drop of blood was wiped away with a cotton, then she pinched Ally's middle finger to allow more drop of blood to flow out.
The nurse took a micropipette and place the tip on it. There were special containers to keep all of the tips. 'They could've just used a disposable dropper.' Ally thought. Her blood then was collected with the micropipette and was dropped on the blood grouping tile. She then mixed the blood with a small stick with some solution.
"You're B positive." The nurse said.
"What?" Ally looked surprised and confused.
"Now let me take a little bit more." The nurse then again collected the blood from Ally's finger tip and dropped it in a beaker containing copper sulfate solution. The drop of blood did not sink but float instead.
"I don't think that you'll be able to donate your blood. Your blood floats which could be an indicator that it lacks of hemoglobin. You can do a further test in the hospital or any clinic to know your hemoglobin level." The nurse explained.
"Is my blood really B positive? Can this way of checking blood type be trusted?" Confusion was written all over her face. She was more interested to ask about her blood type.
"Yes." The nurse answered in one word and smiled.
"Thank you." Ally quickly stood up and walked away. Quickly. She looked for her mother in the cafe. She did not really bother about the possibility of her blood lacking of hemoglobin, but she was a bit surprised to find out that her blood was B positive while both of her parents' blood were O positive.
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"Ally? Ally!" Lauren shook Ally's shoulder as she saw that girl spacing out for quite awhile.
Ally flinched as she was a bit surprised. "What?" She looked confused.
"Class is over. Come on. Did you bring your assignment? Let's submit them together." Lauren already put her books into her bag.
"What assignment?" She was still confused. "Oh, yeah!" She patted her forehead. "Human biochemistry, right? Yeah I did. I managed to finish it last week." The assignment was given a month ago by Madam Irene and the students must finish it within one month.
"Sweet. Let's go! Hey, Jessie. Come on." Lauren dragged both of her friends out of their seats.
"All right, all right." Jessie followed Lauren. So did Ally.
As they walked together to the lecturer's room, Ally started to speak. They were all went silence the moment they left the lecture hall.
"Hey, uhm... I wanna talk to you guys... About something." Sadness could be sensed in her voice. Her right hand rubbed her left arm softly, she walked with head down low, looking only at the floor.
"What's that about?" Jessie asked instantly. She had been wondering why Ally looked so distracted on that day. Lauren looked at Ally with curiosity written all over her face.
"I, uhm, I'm gonna talk about it tonight, when we're in our room." She did not want to talk now as she had something to show to them.
Jessie stretched her hand to Ally's back and stroke her, maybe trying to comfort her. Lauren was walking in between, so it was a bit hard for Jessie to do so.
"You can always tell us any-" Lauren didn't finish her sentence, her steps slowed down as her eyes focused on two people that were walking towards them all.
"STOP!" Lauren suddenly halted and grabbed both of her friend's arm to stop them from walking too.
"What?" Jessie looked perplexed. She looked at Lauren, who looked really surprised and uncomfortable.
Lauren's hands slid from her friend's arm to their wrists and tried to turn around. Ally and Jessie gave Lauren a baffled look, as they still could not understand what was actually going on. But they were a bit too late to turn around as Harry scampered to them, stopping them to do so.
"Hi." The word that came out of Harry's mouth as he stood before the girls, specifically Jessie.
Author's note:
Hi guys! How was this chapter? Was it good? BTW, about the appendicitis, I did some research first, here's the link (wbur.org/commonhealth/2012/07/13/burst-appendix-appendectomy)
Some of you might not understand about the blood type as not all of us have medical knowledge or background (im taking biomedical science for my degree, plus i we learnt this in secondary school) you can search about blood type to understand more.
please vote and comment on how I can improve my writings! ♥️♥️♥️
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