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“Omega.”
Severe blood loss.
Quickly, I pull out my pager. It vibrates against my palm, flashing the code and my initials.Omega SA. My pulse quickens, and I stuff the device back into my blue scrubs.
“Get back into bed, Gwen,” I call over my shoulder as I rush down the corridor towards the trauma ward. My mind goes into overdrive, calculating the multiple sequences of action. First in the room. TPR. Fluids. Blood transfusion. O-Neg. Am I expected to run this room? Is that why Perry let me sleep? The first- and second-year residents flow from their stations like fish joining downstream, and we all fall into a meaningful stride together. I push open the prep room door and am met by Nurse Mandy.
Rushing over to the sink, I scrub up. After a few minutes, I twist to face her, and she instantly slides on my gown. I hold my clean hands out, not touching anything. Despite my nerves, I peel my surgical gloves on, precise in my application of them. As she slides my mask on, I suck recycled air back into my lungs; the feeling used to bother me, but now I’m used to it.
I push the doors open and enter the theatre room, ignoring the beady-eyed med students behind me while focusing on the monitors and displays. I note that the patient’s oxygen saturation level is below eighty-five - he is hypoxic. Then it all happens so fast. Their voices come at me like sirens. Their eyes set seriously over masked noses and lips.
“Tension pneumothorax in the right lung due to a gunshot wound.”
“Tachyonic”
“Trachea has deviated.”
“Obstructive shock.”
“Circulatory issues.”
I jolt to work. “Get me a sixteen-gauge angi,” I state, ignoring Perry at the foot of the bed as he measures and studies my every move. I pretend he’s not there, not ready to jump in and save the situation at any moment.
PretendI’mThe Attending.
I’m in control.
The angi is placed in my hand.
As I lean closer to the patient, my eyes are suddenly snagged on a bright red blade tattoo that follows the contours of his ribcage. The beeping, the breaths, the shuffling - all the sounds slow. I drop the angi. Reaching out to touch the delicate red lines, I trace them with my finger. An action so natural to me, so familiar-
“Dr Adel?”
Startled, I snap my wide-eyed stare up to the patient’s face and -
The room whirls around me.
I hear my name again, but it is floating in the air.
In the distance.
“Dr Adel?”
I’m drawn to that face like gravity. A whole facet of myself, previously lost and forgotten, now awoken inside me, and once again wearing my skin.
My breathing becomes shallow.
His perfect face.
Was he always so perfect?
Frantically, I stare at the wound. I wince. My heart fucking twists as though a massive fist is using it as a stress ball, pumping panic into it, each pulse reducing seven years of medical training to absolutely nothing.
Vibrating uncomfortably, my eyes find the monitors again.His oxygen levels.
He could die.
And while my mind screams at me to act, my muscles seize up under the immense pressure of having him on my table. Of having him need me again. Of having my entire body rendered utterly useless when it should be anything but.
