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Georgie felt her knees give way and had to hold onto the wall to keep herself upright, the sound of her blood roaring in her ears.
‘Yes, Ben,’ Leila said softly. ‘That’s exactly what I’m saying. Let’s get married and have the family you’ve always wanted.’
Georgie had heard enough. Why hadn’t Ben told Leila he was involved with someone else? She stumbled away with her heart in tatters, her stomach rolling with nausea at how stupid she had been to fall in love with yet another man who had unfinished business with an ex-partner.
‘What’s taking Mr Blackwood so long this morning?’ the nurse on duty, Loretta Harold, asked Georgie as she joined the rest of the neurosurgical team for the first post-operative day ward round.
‘I’m sure he’ll be here as soon as he can,’ Georgie said, as she looked towards the bed where Emma was lying, dozing, her small figure looking pale and heart-wrenchingly vulnerable.
‘Here he is now,’ one of the medical students said as Ben walked in through the door.
Georgie concentrated on Emma’s chart before handing it back to Loretta, who was already filling in Ben on the details.
‘Emma had a restless night, finally getting to sleep in the early hours of the morning after enough morphine to knock out a footballer. She’s one tough kid.’
‘Emma, are you awake?’ Ben asked as he touched the young girl on the arm.
Emma stirred and groaned and then half opened her eyes to take in the three doctors, three students and a nurse standing around the end of her bed. ‘Am I OK?’ she asked.
‘Emma, the operation went very well,’ Ben said. ‘I’ve spoken to your parents. They’ve been sitting by your bed most of the night, and have only just gone home to get some sleep themselves. They’ll be back in this afternoon.’
Emma tried to sit up, but winced in pain and slumped back down on the pillows. ‘Did you get all of the tumour out, Dr Blackwood?’ she asked in a scratchy voice.
‘I think so, Emma. We took a long time, nearly four hours, looking for every spot of the tumour and trying not to damage any of the spinal nerves. But we have to see if there is any damage by testing the power and sensation in your lower limbs and trunk,’ he explained.
‘Will I be able to run and compete again?’
In spite of her anger towards him, Georgie felt for Ben at that moment. There was no way of knowing at this point whether Emma would even walk, let alone run. She
could see the tension on his face, even though he did his best to conceal it. No specialist liked being the harbinger of bad news and certainly not to a young active person.
‘I hope so, Emma,’ he said. ‘Now, can we see if you can wiggle your toes on both feet?’
Emma concentrated, looking hard at the feet as she tried to move them, but the toes remained immobile. ‘Nothing’s happening, Mr Blackwood,’ she said, clearly starting to panic as her eyes widened with fear. ‘I’m trying to move my toes but it’s as if the message isn’t getting through.’
‘OK, let’s try tensing your thigh muscles,’ Ben said calmly.
Emma concentrated again, and this time there was a tiny flicker of movement in the quadriceps.
‘That’s good, Emma,’ Ben said with visible relief. ‘Your upper leg muscles are moving. The more peripheral nerves are hopefully intact but they may take a bit longer to recover. I want you to try several times today to move each muscle in both legs, and I’ll see you again tomorrow. It might take several weeks for full recovery and then some physiotherapy to regain your muscle strength. When we’ve finished our ward round today, my registrar Georgie Willoughby is going to come back and document muscle movements more fully and map out the sensation in the legs. But from what I can see at the moment, we have at least a good chance that the nerves are functioning.’
He smiled at the young patient and added, ‘You might make the national athletics team yet, Emma.’
‘I’ll make it, Dr Blackwood,’ Emma said with a fiery glint of determination in her eyes. ‘Even if I have to compete in a wheelchair, I’m going to make it.’
He gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. ‘That’s the spirit. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
Georgie followed him out of the room and tagged along for the rest of the ward round, maintaining a low profile as he discussed each patient’s care with the medical students and the intern. He barely addressed a single question her way, which suited her perfectly. She caught his glance once or twice but quickly looked away again and concentrated on the patient being reviewed instead.
When the ward round came to an end she slipped away to prepare for theatre with Sankil Vinay, one of the other neurosurgeons.
Linda met up with Georgia in the change rooms after the routine list. ‘I was hoping to have a quiet word with you,’ she said. ‘Are you OK? You seemed a little upset when you came into Mr Vinay’s theatre earlier.’
‘I’m fine,’ Georgie answered with forced brightness in her tone. ‘We had a tough day in Theatre yesterday. The young track-and-field girl, Emma Stanley, really got to me, but I’m feeling a little better now that she’s got some muscle movement.’
‘Yes, I heard about her,’ Linda said. ‘Ben is amazing, isn’t he?’
Georgie averted her gaze to concentrate on folding her theatre scrubs into a neat little pile. ‘Yes … he is.’
