Her second patient was Penny, the girl she and Joel had seen a few weeks before.
Lucy greeted her and asked her how she was.
‘Well, I had my period, so that was a good thing,’ Penny said, clearly relieved that her one-night stand hadn’t led to an unwanted pregnancy. ‘I took the pills, like Dr Whittaker said, and I wasn’t sick or anything.’
‘Good.’ Lucy looked at her expectantly and Penny blushed and fidgeted slightly in the chair.
‘I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have come back to you, but you were so kind to me and—’ She broke off and Lucy gave her hand a squeeze.
‘Just tell me what’s worrying you.’
‘Well, things don’t feel right,’ Penny muttered, ‘ever since…well…’
‘In what way haven’t they been right?’ Lucy’s tone was warm and encouraging. ‘Don’t be embarrassed, Penny. Just tell me what’s worrying you.’
Penny bit her lip and scraped her hair behind her ear. ‘I’ve been bleeding.’
‘Did you have a normal period after you took the emergency contraceptive that Dr Whittaker gave you?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Penny nodded. ‘But since then I’ve been spotting a bit and it just feels—well, uncomfortable.’
‘Do you have any discharge?’
Penny blushed fiercely and nodded. ‘Yes.’
Lucy’s voice was gentle. ‘Dr Whittaker suggested that you go to the sexual health clinic at the hospital for some swabs—did you do that, Penny?’
Penny shook her head. ‘No. I couldn’t face it. I just felt too embarrassed.’ She stared at the floor miserably. ‘I suppose I was just hoping that everything would go away if I ignored it.’
‘The problem is, Penny, that you may have caught an infectio
n from the man you slept with,’ she said quietly. ‘The clinic is equipped to test for all sorts of things and give advice.’
‘But what if someone sees me there?’
‘People go there for all sorts of reasons,’ Lucy told her. ‘Family planning advice included. And the staff are sympathetic and experienced. They’re used to dealing with problems just like yours. And it’s all confidential, of course. In fact, it’s one of the few places in the hospital where you can refer yourself. You can make your own appointment without a GP referral, and they don’t even tell your GP your results unless you give permission. So it really is confidential.’
‘But if my mum found out that I’d been there…’ Penny sighed and looked totally dejected. ‘Do I have to go?’
‘Well, we can’t force you,’ Lucy said, her tone sympathetic, ‘but it would be the right thing to do. I need to ask you something else, Penny. Have you had sex with anyone else since your one-night stand?’
Penny shook her head. ‘No way! I’m never having sex again.’
Lucy gave her a sympathetic look. ‘You feel like that now because you’ve had a fright,’ she said softly, ‘but you won’t feel that way for ever. Maybe you started a bit young. You need to wait until you’re ready, and then think carefully about contraception and make sure you use condoms. In the meantime, I’m going to take a swab for something called chlamydia.’
Penny looked blank. ‘What’s that?’
‘It’s the most common, treatable sexually transmitted disease,’ Lucy told her. ‘The problem is that, left untreated, it can cause something called pelvic inflammatory disease which can sometimes make you infertile. We certainly don’t want that happening to you, so we need to do some tests and then treat you if necessary. It would also be sensible for me to take a routine smear test.’
She explained what she wanted Penny to do and then took a smear and an endocervical swab.
‘The results should be back in about four days,’ she told Penny, ‘so why don’t you give me a call and we can take it from there? But I think you should consider going to the sexual health clinic.’
Penny bit her lip and adjusted her clothing. ‘But now you’ve done the tests…’
‘I can only do some of the tests,’ Lucy explained. ‘It really would be best if you went to the experts, but have a think about it and we can talk about it when you call in for your results.’
‘All right. Thanks, Sister.’ Penny gathered up her things and left the room leaving Lucy feeling uneasy.