“Please… don’t take it off,” the five-year-old murmured—and seconds later, when the doctor examined the cast, he went still. “Something isn’t right.”
I had spent nearly thirteen years working as a pediatric emergency nurse at a mid-sized hospital just outside Chicago. Over time, I had learned to recognize the many forms fear can take in children. Still, there are moments that slip past experience—moments that settle somewhere deeper, somewhere you can’t quite put into words.
That evening had already gone longer than expected. The waiting area had been packed since late afternoon, and the steady cycle of triage, evaluation, and treatment had started to blur into something automatic. My hands kept moving, even as my mind drifted.
