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“I told you what I was trying to say,” I said.
The doctor nodded slowly before he made a few more notes. I sat on my hands to keep them from trembling. Hip replacement surgery. That was the easiest. The most straight-forward. The surgery that required the least amount of risk.
Anything else wouldn’t do. Not with his attitude, not with his fortitude, and not with his combattance.
“Well, taking all of this into consideration, I want to talk to you about an experimental procedure,” the doctor said.
Oh, no.
Oh, shit.
“What procedure?” Hayden asked.
“It’s still in the testing stages, and lucky for you we’re one of the hospitals testing it out. But I need to be upfront with you, there’s only a fifty percent chance you’ll regain full mobility with this surgery.”
I shook my head as my lips parted in shock.
“Hayden, with hip replacement surgery-”
“Would I have full mobility after hip replacement surgery?” he asked.
I whipped my head over to him and tried to find the right response.
“No,” the doctor said. “You wouldn’t. That’s the limitation to that specific surgery. That’s also the reason why this technique is being developed. It has the chance to give people with hip issues full mobility back even with the extensive amount of scarring that takes place over time with something like this.”
“Then tell me about it,” Hayden said.
“I don’t think this is-”
“Know your place, Nurse Hunter.”
My eyes panned up to his as my heart shattered. Know my place. That was what he wanted. The doctor looked over at me with pity in his eyes as I sunk back into my chair. I hoped he was witnessing this. How combative and controlling Hayden could be. Because if he got himself into any experimental surgery and didn’t want to follow my instructions explicitly, he would risk everything.
“Continue, Doctor.”
“The surgery is still dangerous. Setting aside the fifty percent change of full mobility, the risk
of death is something to consider. We’re move around a lot of major muscle groups and veins in order to make this kind of surgery happen, and other hospitals have lost patients to this procedure.”
I felt my stomach turn upside down at his comment.
“What does the procedure entail exactly?” Hayden asked.
“It starts out like a normal hip replacement. We go in, remove the damaged parts of the socket, file everything down and make it smooth again. But instead of replacing everything with a template metal ball bearing, we bring in a sterilized 3-D printer and take internal scans of your hip pocket. It constructs a very sturdy, stable, non-biodegradable hip implant made specifically for your body, and then we put that in. We weave all the muscles and veins back together piece by piece to lock everything in, then we sew you up from the inside out. That gives the muscles the best chance at healing the way they need to with minimal scarring. Advantages are huge though, never another surgery. That new hip will outlive you by a hundred years. No wobbly walking, or concerns of reinjury. You’ll look and feel like this was all a bad dream. But after surgery, the physical therapy is extensive. That little comment you just made to your nurse?”
I rose my eyes up to the doctor’s as Hayden’s gaze panned over to me.
“It can’t happen. She’s in complete and full control of your recovery. If you make it out of surgery, that’s the only way this can take place. If you give her one hundred percent control.”
I felt tears spring to my eyes as I turned my gaze out the window. An experimental surgery that could kill him? Possibly maim him for life? How was this even an option? Hayden wasn’t their science project. He was a prominent man in their community. I tried my best to keep my emotions at bay as the men kept talking. I followed my order to the letter… I didn’t speak unless I was spoken to. I couldn’t. Because I knew if I did, I would be protesting my hatred for this procedure.
Because I’d fallen in love with Hayden.
I didn’t want anything to happen to him. I didn’t want him to die on the table. I didn’t want him to risk absolutely everything for a procedure that only had a fifty percent chance of working. But I knew Hayden and I knew his stubbornness and I knew he would consent.
And I knew I didn’t have a choice other than to follow his lead.
I felt he could still have a full life with only partial mobility. Or even in his chair. I knew he saw it as a hindrance, but we were making strides towards something better. Something greater. He was out grocery shopping without the disguises he was wearing and I was able to get him out to another movie. He was accepting the chair, and I knew he could accept partial mobility in his hip if it meant walking and returning to a life on two feet.
