Star of Life with snake and paramedic kit

The stretcher still smells of the lavender spray you bought me, though I've wiped it down twice since Tuesday. We were parked in the inspection bay at the border crossing when the call came through: a lorry driver with a crushed hand, stuck between two sets of barrier arms and a customs officer who would not let anyone through until the paperwork matched. Ruth drove the van across the apron like she was the one who needed the speed. By the time we reached him the sky had gone the colour of wet slate, and the monitor was doing that stuttering dance it does when a body is still making up its mind.

Ruth held the bag while I found a vein. The driver, Tomasz, had a photograph of a girl in a school jumper tucked behind his sun visor, and he kept asking whether his hand would ever hold a steering wheel again. I told him the truth, which was that I didn't know. Then I got the cannula in on the third try, the syringe went in, and his breathing settled like a tide going out. I have never told a patient I didn't know something before. Ruth said it was the best bedside manner she'd seen all year, which tells you what kind of year it has been.

The officers wanted to know what was in his trailer. Nobody asked what was in his head. We loaded him in while they argued over the manifest, and I noticed his wire-framed glasses had come off and skidded under the stretcher rail. I folded them and put them in my top pocket without thinking.

On the drive back to the station I found one lens cracked clean across, a fine line like a river on a map. I've pinned the glasses to the board above the kettle. Ruth says I'm being sentimental. I'm writing to ask whether you still have my old stethoscope, the one with the brass bell, because I think I'd like to listen to a heart properly again.