Chapter 22 #2
Unfortunately, there was no time to wait for the drug to take effect.
She flushed out the wounds with the saline and grimaced when sand and other foreign objects came out in a rush.
Now that the blood flow had slowed considerably, she could see there were eight puncture wounds in a crescent-shaped pattern on his calf, consistent with the teeth of a shark, as well as vertical lacerations on the shin and foot.
Closer examination of the largest wound revealed a tooth fragment. She removed it and tossed it on the table next to her.
“What are you doing?” His eyes were watching her, his words slow and thick. The immediate effect of the painkiller Shirley had injected into his IV was evident in the relaxed grin on his face and the way his eyes struggled to focus.
“Taking a shark tooth out of your leg.”
“Cool.”
There was nothing cool about it, but she told herself it was the drug talking.
“Did you give me something?” He rolled his head back and forth. “I feel strange.”
He looked strange, too, eyes unfocused, and she was amused in spite of herself. Relaxed and loose weren’t adjectives she’d normally use to describe him, but that’s what he was now. “Yes.”
She didn’t look up as she trimmed excessive loose tissue off of the edge of several of the wounds. “We gave you a painkiller.”
“No.” He moaned again. “Can’t take those. Does funny things to me.”
“Shirley, can you give him a tetanus shot while I suture some of these wounds?” Some were wide and needed suturing, others were narrow but deep and best left alone to heal to prevent the risk of infection.
Only one had suffered any significant tissue loss, and even that was fairly minor.
Houston would just have a large dimple in his calf once the wounds had healed.
He was obviously a very lucky man. The shark hadn’t inflicted any significant damage.
With the blood loss staunched and Houston awake, she was confident that her initial fears were unwarranted.
There didn’t appear to be any muscular damage and no major arteries had been severed by the bite.
He was going to be as good as new in a few weeks.
“There’s two of you, Josie.”
“Close your eyes, Houston.”
“Then I won’t be able to see your pretty face.”
Hello. She paused in her work, startled by his comment.
She reminded herself the man was out of his mind with pain and drugs, though they hadn’t given him that much diamorphine. But he still obviously had no idea what he was saying.
She couldn’t help but feel a tiny bit pleased.
Even though the compliment was given under the influence, she wasn’t above taking it.
Pretty sounded better than fluttering like a bird, which was how he’d described her the night before.
Finishing with the scalpel, she reached for the needle the nurse had readied.
“Oww,” he complained as Shirley gave him his tetanus shot.
The nurse, who Josie now could focus on since the immediate dangers appeared to be over, was shaking her head. “He complains about a simple injection, but he’s got two-inch puncture wounds all over his leg.”
Josie smiled at the woman with salt-and-pepper hair, glad for her practical and efficient presence. “It’s good to see you again, Shirley. How are the kids?”
“Oh, they’re fine. The older two are having fun at college, and the youngest is adding to my gray hair by joining a garage band.”
Josie smiled. “Sounds loud. Thanks for the great work here. You’re always efficient.”
“Just doing my job.” Shirley looked pleased.
“Do you mind?” Houston said in a petulant voice.
“What?” She finished stitching the first gash and moved on to the next, skipping one that wasn’t as bad.
“You’re not at the damn water cooler gossiping, you’re stitching me up. Pay attention.”
Tugging a little harder on the thread than was necessary, Josie gritted her teeth. It figured he was a lousy patient.
“I have it under control, Dr. Hayes.”
“Oh, it’s Dr. Hayes now?” he murmured. “That’s not what you called me last night.”
Josie snapped her head up. Geez, had she heard him right? Given that Shirley’s mouth was wide open in astonishment she must have. She wondered if he was hallucinating, but that wasn’t normally a side effect of diamorphine. However, one never knew how an individual would react to a drug.
It was probably best to just let that little remark slide. She bent back over his leg, heart thumping hard.
“Josie.”
“Yes?”
His voice was still warbled, and she wondered what drug-induced statement would come out of his mouth this time. Hopefully it wouldn’t involve any vivid descriptions of her coming on his carpet.
“I’m sorry if I hurt you. I didn’t mean to.”
The embarrassment of having Shirley as a witness was worth hearing that. Even if Houston had no idea what he was saying. Her hands slowed down and she tried to swallow the lump in her throat, which clung there like a large grape.
“It’s hard for me to get close to people, but if I was going to, it would be with you.”
Her leg jerked back and hit the metal table with a loud bang, rattling the equipment lying on it. She gaped at him in shock, even though she told herself he was not in his right mind. He was watching her earnestly, his mouth pulled down in a frown, his blue eyes glazed with pain.
Those damn tears were back, which meant she really was unqualified to do her job. Swiping at her eye with no attempt at discretion, she frowned at him. “Go to sleep, Houston.”
She didn’t want to hear any more. Or rather, she wanted too much to hear more. A little seed of hope had sprung to life in her heart, and that was a bad thing. Because when Houston was off the drugs, he’d grind that hope beneath his foot.
Ignoring Shirley’s questioning look, she went back to work, wishing she could just staple his leg and his mouth shut and get the hell out of there.
Houston obviously didn’t like her answer. He was beginning to show signs of agitation. He was trying to sit up, and Shirley was pushing him gently back down. His hand snaked out and tried to grab Josie’s, which at the moment was occupied stitching his flesh back together.
“My father. It’s not your fault.” His eyes closed for a minute and he sighed.
When he spoke again, his tone had changed, become flirtatious. “You know, I really like your hair.”
Shirley smothered a laugh behind her hand. Josie felt a flush rushing up her neck.
“And your tits, and your hot, round a—”
Josie cut him off, her voice about three octaves higher than normal. “Let’s get him some Augmentin, Shirley, and arrange for him to be moved to a room. He’ll be ready to go in about twenty minutes.”
Glancing at his wet swimming trunks above his wounds, she added, “He needs these trunks taken off, they’re soaking wet.”
“You can take my trunks off.” A loopy, sexual smile crossed his face.
“Shirley can do it while I talk to your relatives.”
His head rolled back and forth. “You do it. It’s not like you haven’t seen me naked before.”
Geez, oh Pete. So much for discretion. Within thirty minutes this juicy piece of gossip would be making the rounds of the hospital faster than the SARS virus in Beijing. Josie wanted to hide under the bed, and couldn’t quite bring herself to meet Shirley’s curious stare.
Finishing her last suture, she told him firmly, “The nurse will handle it.”
Eager to get away from him and his colorful descriptions of her body, she dropped the needle on the tray. “Is there someone in the waiting room I should talk to?”
He nodded. “Yeah. My buddies. They’ll be worried. Tell them I’m fine, will you?”
Fine was probably overstating it. “Sure. Let me finish up here, then we’ll get a unit of blood going. You just lie back and try to rest.”
His eyes remained closed but he didn’t seem ready to fall asleep yet. “So I’m okay? No devitalized muscle?”
“No. You’ll have some really interesting scars, but I expect you’ll recover.” Josie backed towards the door, rolling her shoulders.
“I’m finished. I’ll go talk to your friends, then I’ll be back.”
Houston didn’t answer, finally having given in to the effects of the painkiller and fallen asleep.
She gave him a once over, remembering the EMT mentioning his hand. Josie frowned, stepping back to the bed. Houston’s right hand was covered in blood under a bandage.
How could she have missed that earlier? She mentally berated herself for not being as thorough as she should have been.
But her annoyance faded to horror as she moved his hand to get a better look at the wound. It looked like someone had vigorously rubbed sandpaper back and forth over his palm. Which, in a manner of speaking, they had. Shark skin was about the texture of sandpaper.
Which would be well and good except in the center of his palm, arching towards his thumb, was a laceration that extended deeply into the flesh. “Oh, no,” she whispered.
“What’s wrong?” Shirley asked, narrowing her eyes.
Josie’s heart sank. She looked at Houston, who was sleeping fitfully. “It looks like he’s severed some tendons and the median nerve in his hand.”
“It will heal, right?”
Josie nodded, pulling her own hand back, her stomach churning with fear for Houston. “Yes, but there’s a high probability that he will lose some control of his thumb and his index finger.”
Which would be a minor inconvenience to the average person.
To a surgeon, it would mean the loss of his career.