Chapter 9 #2
‘The baby decided to arrive four weeks’ early, and he’d had to fly back from his brother’s stag do in Dublin to be at the birth.
He told me he’d been forced by the rest of the stag party to do it as forfeit, after being the first one to be sick.
His mates had assured him that the dye would wash out, but even scrubbing it in the shower hadn’t made a difference and he’d had to grab the next available flight to get home in time for the birth.
I’ll never understand men sometimes, but it made me laugh so much I thought my own waters were going to break and I wasn’t even pregnant! ’
‘I should have known we could trust you to come up with a corker, Gwen.’ Aidan laughed again.
‘Trust me that’s just the tip of the iceberg, in fact there’s a story I could tell you that would make having a four-leaf clover down there seem like—’
‘Help, someone help us, please!’ The woman’s shout cut Gwen off and Eve shot straight to her feet, instinctively knowing that this wasn’t just someone being overly dramatic; the utter desperation in her tone couldn’t be faked.
She rushed towards the wild-eyed woman, who had one arm around the waist of a much taller man, his face completely drained of colour.
The man’s hand was wrapped in what looked like a tea towel and there was already blood dripping down onto the floor where he stood, with a blank expression on his face, as if he couldn’t see anything at all.
‘It’s okay we can get you some help, what’s happened?’ Eve did her best to keep her voice level, as the others followed her over to where the woman was standing, visibly shaking with what was almost certainly shock.
‘I couldn’t get the car anywhere near the emergency department and Dan was bleeding so much.
’ She was crying now. ‘We’ve been renovating our house and I didn’t realise he was using the table to steady himself when he bent down to pick up the pieces of wood I’d been cutting to make the framing for a new stud wall.
And when I lowered the mitre saw again it took three of his fingers off. ’
She took a huge gulping breath and lifted up the clear plastic bag of ice she was holding in her other hand, all three of the man’s fingers were clearly visible, one of them still wearing a shiny gold wedding band.
* * *
‘Please tell me you can sew his fingers back on.’ Dan’s wife, whose name turned out to be Sienna had begged Eve to make her the promise, as they hurried her husband away from the hospital shop to the emergency department, with the aid of a wheelchair Aidan had quickly found.
Eve had wanted to be able to reassure Sienna and tell her that it was all going to be okay, but she wasn’t a surgeon and she knew there were a lot of factors that could affect the viability of reattachment.
Fingers were far easier to attach than a whole arm and the fact that it was a clean cut with a mitre saw, rather than a crush injury, or a blunt blade, like a lawnmower, all went in Dan’s favour.
It would still be up to the surgeons to decide if they wanted to attempt reattachment and, even if they did, there was no guarantee of how successful it would be.
Dan might be better off without the fingers, if the reattachment served no purpose other than to get in the way of him adapting to his new normal.
Imogen Turner, one of the orthopaedic surgeons, who held a specialism in hand and microsurgery, had arrived in A to speak to someone who knew more about it than Eve did, and hear that there could be a good outcome, no matter how bad it looked right now.
‘Would it help you to talk to someone who’ll be involved in Dan’s rehabilitation after the operation? He’ll be able to tell you how likely it is that Dan will regain certain functions and what can be done to adapt to any permanent injuries.’
‘I think it really would.’ Sienna turned towards her with such hope in her eyes and Eve nodded.
‘Okay, just give me couple of minutes and I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Thank you.’ Sienna seemed to slump with relief as Eve headed off to make the call, she just hoped she’d be able to deliver on her promise.
‘It’s Eve, I need to ask another favour.’ She blurted out the request as soon as Felix picked up the phone.
‘I’m not sure Domusamare have got any beds left.
’ There was a slightly teasing tone to his voice and she could picture the slow smile spreading across his face.
He had a beautiful smile and she knew that in a different time and place she’d have asked Eden more about her brother, but her life was far too complicated already and this was strictly work related.
‘I’ve got a patient who’s in surgery to have three severed fingers reattached.
His wife was operating the mitre saw that cut them off and she’s convinced herself his life is ruined and that he’s going to hate her.
She just needs to know there’s some hope and I wondered if you’d be willing to talk to her, please? ’
‘Of course. I’ve just finished with my last patient of the day, so I can head down now.’
‘Thanks, Felix, you’re a star. See you in a bit.
’ As she ended the call, Eve hoped she didn’t sound as patronising as she feared she might.
She was probably overthinking things; it seemed to be her speciality these days.
It was probably no surprise given how much of her time she spent attempting to hide her true feelings from Annie and trying to second guess if she was saying and doing the right things to keep up the pretence that her feelings for Max hadn’t changed.
* * *
‘So, as you can see, there are lots of things we can do to help someone adapt to losing fingers, even if the worst comes to the worst. But the chances are we’ll be working on rehab to get the function back with Dan.
Either way, I promise it isn’t the end of the world.
’ Felix’s tone was reassuring as Sienna handed his phone back, having watched the video he’d shown her of the kind of work he did with other patients like Dan.
‘Thank you so much.’ Sienna’s face had flooded with relief almost as soon as Felix had begun talking, and her whole demeanour had changed from the woman who’d felt completely hopeless just half an hour earlier. ‘Both of you have been so kind.’
‘It’s what we’re here for.’ Felix smiled, not offering any indication of the fact that neither of them were on the clock any more.
It was just one more suggestion of what a good guy he was and there didn’t seem to be any evidence to the contrary.
Eve had heard Max giving Felix a really hard time during their OT sessions.
She was sure he got his fair share of that from a lot of his patients, who must often had been frustrated and in physical and emotional pain, but it never seemed to faze him.
She was half hoping that some deep, dark secret would come to light, something that would make Felix far less attractive, but the more time she spent with him, the harder it was to imagine.
‘Sienna, oh baby, are you okay?’ A man who looked to be in his mid-sixties swept into the relatives’ room, followed by a woman of a similar age, both of them hugging Sienna in turn as she offered a muffled response.
‘I’ve done something terrible, Dad… Oh, Mum, I thought I was going to lose him.’
‘It’s all right, darling, everything’s going to be okay.’ Sienna’s mother still had her daughter wrapped in a tight embrace as she spoke, and her father turned towards Eve and Felix.
‘Can you give me any update on my son-in-law, please? When Sienna rang us, she was so upset she wasn’t making any sense.’
‘Dan’s in theatre and the surgical team were hopeful of being able to reattach his fingers, but there are never any guarantees with these things.’ Eve tried to make her tone hopeful without over-promising, and Sienna’s father seemed to take it in the spirit it was intended and nodded slowly.