The calm before the hospital
I’m in the back of an ambulance rig driving 110 miles an hour down the highway with the lights and sirens blaring. The knuckles of my right hand are crushed every four minutes as my patient has contractions. She cries only a bit. She’s sixteen and her last period was nine months ago, but she hasn’t seen any other physician before me.
This last contraction was an intense one — my …