With a heart much heavier than the bone saw he requested from his scrub nurse, Connor moved on to the next phase of what was now a heartbreaking operation.
* * *
Kate surveyed the chaos that was still reigning in her laboratory.
Not only was there equipment out of place, but they were still cleaning up broken glass and someone was mopping up blood. Coming back for her possessions, Marie had slipped on something wet and had fallen, cutting her hand quite badly on a shattered test tube.
Technicians were coming up to her constantly asking what to do about tests that had been interrupted and whether new samples would have to be obtained. The X-ray equipment had been malfunctioning when an urgent biopsy sample had come down from Theatre and it took a while to discover that a fuse had been tripped during the alarm with power being cut off to various points. Kate had sectioned the sample herself and dismissed the students in favour of doing the diagnosis with her own registrar, Mark, because it was no longer a good time to include the young doctors in the process. There was simply too much other troubleshooting that needed to be done.
It was at that point that Kate noticed Lewis again. The head of department should have been in the same kind of firefighting mode she was in herself, restoring calm to the chaos in here, but he was standing to one side of the large area, looking preoccupied. And… grey. He wasn’t rubbing his arm any longer. Instead, he had a hand pressed to the centre of his chest.
Kate was by his side in seconds. ‘You’ve got chest pain, haven’t you?’
Lewis nodded.
‘Radiation?’
‘Left arm. And jaw.’ It sounded as if it was hard for Lewis to say anything. As if he was in excruciating pain. He was sweating, too. He had all the classic symptoms of someone who was suffering a heart attack.
‘Run,’ she ordered a young technician. ‘Find the nearest wheelchair or trolley. I’ve got to get Dr Blackman up to the emergency department. Try Medical Records.’
Wheelchairs were often abandoned outside the medical-record department after someone had delivered a heavy load of notes. If she could transport Lewis herself, Kate knew it would be a lot faster than waiting for an orderly. And time mattered if Lewis was having a heart attack. With every passing minute more of his heart muscle could be being destroyed.
Her registrar was clearing an area near one of the microscopes she had been using with her students, clearly preparing to finish the bone biopsy examination. Mark was fairly new to the department and the specialty but he was competent enough. Nonetheless, Kate should sign the diagnosis off herself but…
But Lewis could be dying here. He was her boss. Her mentor. A dear friend.
And the technician had just rushed back into the lab with a wheelchair.
‘I’ll be back as soon as possible,’ Kate told Mark. ‘Carry on. If there’s any doubt at all about the diagnosis, wait for me.’
* * *
It didn’t take very long to deliver Lewis to the emergency department.
He was rushed straight into a resus area. An oxygen mask and electrodes were on him within seconds. A registrar was gaining IV access to administer pain relief and a nurse produced GTN spray and an aspirin tablet for Lewis to chew and swallow.
‘We’re onto it,’ the staff assured Kate as she stood watching.
‘Go,’ Lewis urged. ‘You’re needed downstairs.’
‘I’ll be back as soon as I can,’ Kate promised. ‘Hang in there.’
By the time she got back to the basement of St Pat’s, the results for Theatre Three had just been phoned through.
‘What was it?’
‘Oesteosarcoma,’ Mark told her grimly. ‘Classic. Late stage.’
‘What? But the X-ray…’ Kate cleared her stunned reaction with a single, sharp shake of her head. ‘Show me.’
Sure enough, the microscopic evidence was clearly that of an aggressive, malignant tumour.
That poor kid, Kate thought. Thirteen years old and she was probably going to lose her leg. Or would they wait and give her a course of chemo before operating again?
They?
It would be Connor holding the scalpel up there. He was a specialist in paediatric bone cancer. The best. At least the girl had the chance of having her life saved, if not her leg.
