AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Jamie
I’d spent the last four hours pressuring the toddler’s parents to finally give me their consent and sign the surgical authorisation form so I could actually do what I did best. I was beginning to think it would never happen when the mother had begged me to save her son. It always got to me. That vulnerability was nothing short of heart-stopping. It always put so many other things into perspective for me.
The problem was that by the time that she had realised her little boy was going to die unless she allowed me to step in, it was too late to stop the damage his seizure had started.
Seizures were an everyday occurrence for me, but it still gave me pause when it happened to a child. It wasn’t the thrashing or the way their eyes and eyelids pulsed, or even the suddenness that got to me. It was the knowledge of what was happening in their brain. It was knowing the severity even before the machines started going crazy. You can’t prepare for that. You can’t prepare for when a two-year old’s heart beats its self still because their body’s circuit board is short-circuiting, and their synapses are lighting and firing electrical bolts to all the wrong places. Lighting up their developing brain like the London sky on New Year’s Eve.
It doesn’t matter how quickly you react, the moment that their heart stops, doesn’t matter how momentarily, you know that you’re in the shit. You know you’re running out of time. And it doesn’t matter how much of a god you are, you are limited to what you can do.
Which is why I needed Quincy. I knew brains inside out. Give me any brain and I could move heaven, hell and earth to fix it. Hearts? Not so much. I knew them well, but when it came to the fine points and ins and outs, especially of such a small one, I was like any other surgeon in the building. Quincy on the other hand, she could tell the average Joe what to do step by step over the phone whilst dressing herself without so much as an ummm or a hmmm.
I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t been expecting something to happen. I’d known it was only a matter of time before the seizures started. I hadn’t expected it to happen like it had.
Jack Davies was an otherwise healthy toddler. His symptoms were all standard for a Posterior Fossa tumour. Or they were until the seizure and then his heart couldn’t cope with all the electrical current making his heartrate sky rocket in a matter of seconds. Its natural pacemaker blew and now I needed Quincy to fix it before I tried to remove the tumour.
I’d scrubbed into other surgeries with Quincy. I’d watched every one of her rituals more times than I even dared to admit. There was something so sexy about her as she ticked off each one of them. She started with her hair, she’d comb it back with her fingers and tied it into a knot on top of her head before she tied her mask on and slid a stretchy band over her fringe to keep it under her pop art Star Trek scrub cap. She kissed and then tucked her grandmother’s ring into her bra. And then she scrubbed her nails, hands, and arms like soap was going out of fashion whilst she did some patterned breathing exercises. By the time she was done with her prep she was cool as a cucumber. Her demeanour completely changed. Gone was the soft and sweet woman.
Quincy the surgeon was awing, she oozed confidence and strength. She was every bit the kick-arse. In other words—massive turn on.
“Ready?”
“Yup.” She gave herself the once over.
“Looking good Brainiac.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Ok, Hot Stuff.”
She rolled her eyes, squinting like she was trying to stop herself from smiling under her mask. “Really?”
“Come on, let’s get this over and done with,” I nudged her hip with the top of my thigh. “We have a conversation to finish after this.”
We started the whole gowning process before the circulating person tied mine and then hers before we gloved up and finished tying the sterile side of the gown ourselves. This procedure was our equivalent of doing the sign of the cross when entering a church.
I could see she was trying her best not to look my way, but the blush on the very top of her cheeks that faded into her ears told me she was failing miserably. I pushed the theatre door open with my back and held it for her to walk past me.
“Thanks.”
“You good?”
“Yes.” She took a deep breath and started toward the briefing nurse and Anaesthetist.
“I need to know you’re okay, this is going to take a while.”
“I’m fine, Jamie.” She snapped back at me. “I’m good to go.”
“You guys okay?” Raj looked between us both.
“Yup.” I replied. “How’s he doing?”
“Stable. The sedation probably stopped any more damage. We can’t be sure until we bring him round. As it is his oxygen saturation is almost at ninety-three percent. Given the situation? I’d say he has a good chance of making it through the surgery without any hiccups.”
Music to my ears.
I walked past him to the head of the operating table. I inspected the surgical instruments as I hummed the lullaby I’d sang to Molly and Pippa time and again. I looked over the overhead skull clamp that would hold the boy’s cleanly shaved head securely in place once Quincy was done. She wasn’t exactly happy that we’d have to bring him to a sitting position after she was finished, but we had no choice.
Raj stood a few feet behind me with the Operating Department Practitioner. Quincy was eyeing her instruments tray whilst one of the surgical nurses looked on.
