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Great concentration shone on his face.
“Damn,” he muttered under his breath, his skin pulling tight over his face.
Usually so relaxed, Oz’s tension permeated the room. He’d placed three stents in the right bundle branch. Each time he did, the artery collapsed distal to the correction, once again blocking blood flow.
“Pulse is fifty-two,” Blair said, although from experience she knew Oz was as aware of Buster Anderson’s vital statistics as she was. Oz absorbed everything about his patients.
“Buster—” Oz addressed the man “—I’m afraid this isn’t working. I’m going to try one more thing, a newer technique, but if it doesn’t work I’m going to have to open you up.”
The man swallowed. “Then let’s hope it works.”
Not only did the procedure not work, but the man threw a clot, cutting off blood flow in a vital artery.
“Double damn,” Oz cursed, starting CPR when the man’s heart stopped.
Blair called a code, administered epinephrine at Oz’s order.
With life-saving speed, they had Mr Anderson in the operating room, intubated and hooked up to a heart-lung machine that would oxygenate and circulate his blood, keeping his organs viable while they worked on his heart.
While Blair cleaned Mr Anderson’s chest with antiseptic solution, another nurse did an instrument check. A nurse anesthetist monitored him from the head of the operating table.
Oz made the incision into his chest, through his sternum, exposing his heart.
Oz opened up the blocked artery. The second surgical team removed the bypass vein from Mr Anderson’s leg. Oz used the vein to reroute Mr Anderson’s blood flow while the other team closed the leg wound.
With clockwork precision Blair performed her job duties, anticipating Oz’s every need prior to his asking.
They worked well together. They had from the start. Blair was only beginning to realize just how in sync they really were.
“You were amazing in there,” she praised his efforts much later when they were removing their surgical gear. “Mr Anderson owes his life to your quick actions.”
Oz raked his fingers through his blond hair, which was flattened from his surgical cap. “Hell, as soon as I saw that blockage, I should have sent him straight to the operating room instead of attempting to stent him.”
“There was no way for you to know he was going to throw a clot. That he did wasn’t through any fault of yours,” she reminded him. For all his jokes, Oz took his patient care seriously. He thought he should be able to predict every patient’s outcome. No doctor could.
“Some coincidence that he threw the clot while I was catheterizing him.”
“Lucky for him,” Blair insisted.
“Lucky.” Oz paused outside the cardiac operating room, gave a quick smile of appreciation. “Thanks for your help. He owes his life as much to you as he does to me. You were fantastic when he coded.”
Blair nodded. She hadn’t done anything beyond what any trained nurse would do. Oz had been the miracle worker.
“What’s next on tap?” he asked, his demeanor returning to normal.
“Two more arteriograms and a stress test,” she reminded him. “Why don’t you take a few minutes’ break while I get the next patient set up?”
The next two arteriograms were uneventful.
Blair hooked monitoring equipment to Ralph Constance’s chest, preparing him for his stress test. Due to the man’s diabetic neuropathy and arthritis in his lower extremities, he was unable to do the stress test on the treadmill. A chemically induced test was being performed instead.
When they’d finished with the last patient for the day, Blair stepped into the hallway and let out a long sigh. She rubbed the back of her neck, massaging the tension twisting her muscles.
Why did her neck ache since Oz had massaged her?
What was wrong with her? Each day that passed seemed to leave her thinking about Oz more and more.
Each day that passed made her feel a little more susceptible to his charms.
