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August might be her least favourite month.
She hated it as a kid, and she hates it now as an adult.
August meant humidity so diabolical it made her hair stick up, like when Mr. B made her third grade class rub balloons against their hair during their unit on electricity.
August meant back to school shopping, which usually led to a meltdown from one of her brothers.
August meant Lila visiting her Bubbe and Zayde in New Jersey, so she had to hang out at the community center with her brothers.
August meant, means, Lila’s birthday.
Now August means putting up with The Pitt’s shitty air conditioning.
Now August means last minute family excursions, which means an influx of injuries, because people are stupid and clumsy.
An influx of injured patients means an influx of charting.
Out of all the things she hates, charting is near the top of the list.
(Maybe the counsellor she saw after Lila, after the settlement, after the whole fucking shit show, was right about the ADHD. Maybe the slew of other shit too.)
She thinks that whoever created charting was either the devil incarnate, a demon from hell, a creature from one of the stories her Lola used to tell her, or a psychopath.
Maybe all four.
Whoever they are, they can rot in—
“Dr. Santos!”
“Jesus Christ!” She jumps, hands gripping the stool.
She hopes Al-Hashimi can’t hear how fast her heart is racing.
“I apologize, Dr. Santos.” Al-Hashimi’s eyebrows furrow.
“I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“It’s cool.” She tightens her ponytail.
“Did you need me for something?”
“I do,” Al-Hashimi responds.
“I have a patient I’d like you to see.” Al-Hashimi’s mouth quirks.
“Does said patient perhaps need a chest tube?” She smirks.
“No, but treating said patient does involve something you seem to have a talent for.” Al-Hashimi’s eyes twinkle.
The permanent pit in her stomach is growing slightly more cavernous.
“You don’t plan on murdering me, right?” she blurts.
“Dr. Santos—”
“I’m joking,” she interrupts, waving her hand.
And she is joking, for the most part.
“Where’s this patient that doesn’t need a chest tube?” She avoids Al-Hashimi’s assessing gaze.
“South 20,” Al-Hashimi replies, eyebrows still furrowed.
“Said patient” is a surly teenage girl wearing a My Hero Academia T-shirt, purple glasses perched on the tip of her nose.
Lila’s first pair of glasses were purple.
She had gone with Lila and her mom to pick them out.
Lila had insisted that she tag along for moral support.
“Look, Trin!” Lila had squealed, pointing eagerly at the dark purple frames sitting in the case.
“Aren’t they awesome?”
Lila’s glasses were stored in her bottom desk drawer when she got contacts the summer before 9th grade.
That pair of glasses was clear.
Julie Shen had told Lila that her blue frames were childish.
“Don’t I look amazing?!” Lila had pumped her fists when she showed off her glasses free face.
She hopes no Julie Shens have or ever will tell this kid that her glasses are childish.
“Dr. Santos, this is Sora Yang,” Al-Hashimi introduces.
“Sora, this is Dr. Santos.”
“I have to go check on my patient, but I promise that you’ll be in great hands with Dr. Santos.” Al-Hashimi smiles at her, as if she doesn’t have a secret agenda.
She scowls in return.
“Are you Mom?” she asks the fidgety woman with impeccably done eyeliner.
She’d ask for tips if it wasn’t for the grumpy thirteen year old lying on the bed between them.
“Aunt,” the woman answers curtly.
“Lindsey.”
“I’m Sora’s legal guardian.”
Sora wraps her arms tightly around her stomach.
“Cool shoes.” Her eyes land on the doodles etched on the side of Sora’s Converse.
“Thanks,” Sora mutters, playing with the hem of her shirt.
“You like Pokémon?” She nods at the small drawing of Squirtle.
“You know what Pokémon is?” Sora’s eyes widen.
“Let’s just say I still have my collection of cards from when I was a kid.”
She lowers her voice.
“But we gotta keep it on the down low because I have a reputation to maintain.”
Sora giggles.
“Do you think you can tell me what’s going on before we debate what the best Pikachu is?” She asks.
Sora glances hesitantly at her aunt.
“Show her.” Lindsey pinches the bridge of her nose.
“It’s kind of gross.” Sora fiddles with her T-shirt.
“Hey, whatever it is, there’s a pretty good chance I’ve seen something worse.”
“Very few things faze me anymore.” She crosses her heart.
You can take the girl out of Mass, but not Mass out of the girl.
Sora presses her lips into a thin line and pulls up her shirt.
Dark red marks are splattered across Sora’s lower abdomen.
Her hands unconsciously fly to her own belly.
“Okay,” she breathes.
“I’m gonna have to ask you a few questions, alright?”
Sora nods reluctantly.
- “Any allergies?”—zip, zilch, zero.
(Christopher had been allergic to strawberries as a kid. The only time she got to consume strawberries was when Lila would share hers at lunch. When she moved into the apartment with a fridge that wasn’t the size of the one in her elementary school’s counsellor’s office, she stocked up on strawberries.)
2. “Any recent camping trips, vacations, other outdoor activities?”
“Sora’s more of an indoor type of kid,” Lindsey answers. Sora rolls her eyes.
3. “Have you been using any external heat lately?” “Like what,” Sora bites her bottom lip.
“A heating pad, hot water bottle, maybe a heating blanket?” she says casually, her endometriosis spidey senses tingling.
“Heating pad.” Sora looks down at her shoes.
Ding, ding, ding.
“How often are you using your heating pad?” She glances at Sora’s raw skin.
“She gets pretty painful period cramps,” Lindsey interjects.
“Runs in our side of the family, unfortunately.”
Her mom always blamed her dad’s side of the family.
Sometimes she blamed her if she was feeling like being an even shittier parent than normal.
“My cramps start a few days before my period sometimes.” Sora picks at her silver nail polish.
“So you’re using your heating pad a lot?” she asks gently.
Sora nods.
“Do you know what you’re setting it at?”
Lindsey’s eyes widen.
“What have I told you!” Lindsey admonishes, and switches to rapid fire Korean.
“I’m sorry!” Sora cries, and switches to Korean too.
She watches the tense exchange like it’s a tennis match.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” She holds up her hands after a minute.
“I need you guys to take a deep breath.”
“I can’t help if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”
Both aunt and niece go silent at that.
She glances at them expectantly.
“I keep telling her she can’t turn her heating pad up that high,” Lindsey grits her teeth.
“You won’t give me anything besides Children’s Tylenol!” Sora snaps.
“It barely does anything!”
“Turning the heating pad up all the way helps more than the stupid Tylenol!”
“I just want to be careful,” Lindsey murmurs, eyes glassy.
Sora clenches her fists.
“Why don’t we take a breather?” she suggests softly.
“Would you like to hit the vending machines with me, Sora?”
Lindsey digs a couple of crumpled dollar bills out of her purse.
A truce.
“So, I think I know what’s going on with your belly.” Sora’s munching of her chocolate bar fills the quiet room.
“What?” both Lindsey and Sora say simultaneously.
“Sometimes when you expose your skin to just a little too much heat, or when you use a heating device for longer than your skin can handle, you can develop a rash called toasted skin syndrome.”
“It’s nothing to worry about,” she assures.
“It just means you need to take it easy on the amount of heat you’re using.”
“I find that a warm shower or bath really helps with my cramps.”
“And it’s perfectly safe if you take both Advil and Tylenol throughout the day.” She glances at Lindsey, who nods sharply.
She cocks her head.
“Have either of you ever heard of endometriosis?”
“En-doh-mee-tree-oh-sis?” The word is sticky in Sora’s mouth.
“Yep.”
“You know how during your period your uterus sheds its lining, and that’s part of what the blood is composed of?”
“Mhm,” Sora hums.
“That lining is called the endometrium.”
“For some people, there’s tissue that’s similar to the uterine lining, but not quite like it.”
“That tissue can sometimes grow outside of the uterus.”
“Because the tissue isn’t where it’s supposed to be, it can cause a bunch of abnormal symptoms.”
“Like what?” Lindsey frowns.
“Well, symptoms aren’t the same for everyone.” She looks at Sora.
“But some of the symptoms can be irregular or heavy periods, cramps that are much more painful than they should be, pain before and after your period, nausea and vomiting, and sometimes it can make it pretty hard to go to the bathroom.”
“Do those symptoms sound familiar?” she asks softly.
“Yeah,” Sora whispers.
“I know it sounds scary.” She squeezes Sora’s hand.
“But there are ways to treat it.”
“You shouldn’t have to live like this, okay?”
“Okay.” Sora wipes at her eyes.
She takes a deep breath.
“I’d like to write you a recommendation for the gynecologist upstairs,” she turns to Lindsey.
“And a prescription for tretinoin to help with the discoloration on Sora’s stomach.”
“Yes, please,” Lindsey sighs.
“I’ll be right back.” She smiles at Sora.
Sora gives her a lopsided smile in return.
“You’d be a good doctor, Trin,” Lila says as she pastes a dinosaur Band-Aid (courtesy of having little brother’s) on her knee, first aid supplies spread across the bathroom floor.
Turns out wearing knee and elbow guards while roller skating is in fact necessary.
“You think so?” She brushes back the strands that have come loose from her ponytail.
Maybe her thirteenth birthday will be enough to warrant cutting her hair short.
“Yeah.” Lila smiles, adjusting her glasses.
“You’re gonna be the only doctor I go to if you do become one.”