The Escape

She wore a patterned red sundress with a red zip up sweater and red flip flops. Her hair was combed straight back into a ponytail and then carefully braided down her back. Her eyes were an unusually light blue and contrasted exotically with her dark hair.

When I called her name from the triage room she stood and made a slow and seemingly painful journey to the room. Her mouth was tight around the edges and as she slowly lowered herself into the chair by my vital sign machine, I could see the signs of stress on her face.

"What are we seeing you for today?" I asked.

"I have sores on both of my thighs and my right hip," she replied stiffly.

I reached up to the glove box and slipped on a pair of white gloves. "Do you mind if I take a look?"

She shook her head slowly and eased painfully out of the chair. She lifted up the bottom of her dress to reveal swollen, painful, and infected looking abscesses, one making her right buttock look almost double its normal size. Seeing her up close, I also saw all over her legs the tell tale scars of a long time heroin or meth user. The infected boils on her legs were most likely from places she'd been trying to shoot up. It isn't an uncommon problem for users.

I asked her if she had been running a fever, and she stated that she thought she had. The fever could mean the infection was becoming more severe than just a skin infection and those sores had the potential to make her very sick. This was a day, unfortunately, that the gates of Hades had unloaded its hordes through our ER doors, and I knew I wouldn't be able to take her to see a doctor right away. I would've liked to do blood work while see was waiting to get an idea of the severity of the infection, but seeing the same scars all over her arms as I had her legs, I knew that she probably had little to no veins that could be accessed in the confined space of my triage room. All the same, I tied the tourniquet around her arm. Feeling the hardness of her scared veins I felt even less hopeful.

"They have a hard time starting IVs on you?" I asked her. She nodded yes. Her lips became tighter and frustrated tears began pouring down her cheeks. The redness in her eyes made her light blue eyes even more brilliant. The lines on her face and the suppressed anger and frustration around her mouth told of the vicious and possibly endless cycle of trouble her addiction had bound her to. The addiction that had probably seemed to offer the only escape and solace from who knows what else life had offered her.

I felt something like sorrow for her as I watched her limp back to the waiting room. Sick patients kept pouring through our doors, and two hours later when her name was finally called to see a doctor I couldn't find her.

I couldn't help but wonder what would become of her. Her abscesses needed treatment and I hoped she found it at another hospital. But more than that she needed freedom. Freedom from the Escape that turned out to be just another prison. As I laid in bed that night, I said a prayer for the girl in the red dress with the sad blue eyes.