Prologue #2
“I had to have an emergency C-section last night. She needs heart surgery, but we don’t know if we can find a doctor to do it. These might be the only photos we’ll have of her, so thank you for giving us this memory.” The nurse put her arm around the new mother and took the outfit from her.
“I’ll go wash these and little Ellen will have her fashion shoot today. Thank you, Rowan. We’ll take as many as you have. Themed ones are a huge hit if you couldn’t tell.” The nurse smiled at him and together walked back to Ellen’s incubator.
The door opened and a doctor walked in. She paused when she saw Rowan just standing there. “Do you need something? Is your sibling in here?”
“No, ma’am. I made some clothes for the babies. Can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” the doctor said, setting down her phone and giving him her full attention.
“Will Ellen make it?” Rowan looked at the incubator where the mom and nurse were holding up the clothes he made.
“I can’t give you patient information,” she said kindly. “Are you interested in being a doctor or is fashion in your future?”
“Not fashion. I used to stay up late as a kid, so my mom put me to work sewing and mending our clothes,” he admitted honestly. “I’m going to take the junior responder’s class in thirty minutes, though.”
“Did you know the best sewers make the best surgeons? Steady hands. What I can tell you is that babies in the NICU need more doctors and nurses.”
“How do babies end up here?” Rowan asked.
“Some of them need surgeries to save their lives. Some just need a little extra oxygen, and see that blanket giving off the blue light? That’s for babies who are jaundiced.
So, it ranges from full-term babies who just need a little light all the way to babies who are born too early to live on their own, so we help them.
We’ve had babies who were only a pound and lived in the NICU for a year before going home.
And we’ve had some where we couldn’t save them, no matter how hard we tried to help.
” She looked at Rowan as if she were thinking. “I’m Dr. Abrams.”
“Rowan Townsend.”
“Ah,” she said with a smile. “I know your sister, Olivia. My daughter was on the academic team with her. Look, Rowan. If this interests you, stop on your way to the first aid class at the admin office. Tell the receptionist that Dr. Abrams told you to ask for a summer internship application. On the form, there’s a section to write what you’re interested in.
If you write ‘shadowing Dr. Abrams,’ I’ll be able to answer all your questions about babies in the NICU. ”
“Really?” Rowan asked with a gasp. Because something had settled over him the second he’d walked into the NICU. A spark that told him this is where he belonged.
“Really. See you this summer, Rowan.”
Rowan didn’t know the last time he’d slept. Two days ago? Rowan sniffed his scrubs. He smelled, so it had to be more than the 48 hours his deodorant guaranteed.
He finished college in two years since he’d had so many college credits from high school.
Medical school had been easy for him. Others struggled, but it just clicked with him.
It had been very competitive, but he’d won a spot for a residency that combined general surgery and pediatric surgery at a hospital in Boston.
It allowed him to become a pediatric surgeon two years faster than most others.
He’d been offered a job at the same hospital before he’d even finished his residency.
And now he was the low man on the surgical roster, so he drew the worst and longest shifts.
But he loved it. Every sleepless moment.
“Please! You have to do something,” he heard a woman crying from the pediatric waiting room.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Niles. There’s nothing more we can do. The tumor in the brain is cancerous and Brayden will die during the surgery,” Dr. Cohen told the distraught parents. “Take him home and hospice will be with you every day.”
“How long?” the father asked, barely holding on.
“Maybe a week.”
“You have to try something,” the mother cried again, this time begging.
“If he’s going to die, then why can’t we try the surgery?” the father asked.
“Mr. Niles, no doctor will put a five-year-old on the operating table knowing it’s going to kill him.”
Rowan sucked in a breath. He’d seen enough by now to know that many surgeries that could have saved a person’s life never took place because the doctors knew death was too likely the outcome and didn’t want to risk the lawsuit, so they refuse to do it.
Rowan pulled up the medical records on his tablet.
The cancerous tumor was in the brain. It was bad. That was for sure.
“I’ll do it.” Rowan stopped next to the senior pediatric surgeon and knew what was coming. Rowan had already been called reckless by Dr. Cohen several times before. But Rowan wasn’t reckless. He just refused to give up.
“Dr. Townsend,” Cohen said, low and through clenched teeth. “You don’t have permission to do it.”
“You’ll do it?” the mother asked with such hope.
“Yes, if the lawyers will let me. You’ll probably have to sign off that you won’t sue me or the hospital if your son dies and that you understand all the risks. I also won’t lie to you. There’s only about a two percent chance your son will survive the operation.”
“But if we don’t do anything, then there’s a hundred percent chance he’ll die,” his father answered. “I’ll sign anything the hospital wants in order for you to do the surgery.”
“Townsend,” Cohen snapped. “May I have a word?”
Rowan nodded, but he was already pulling in his team and the hospital’s legal team. “What is it, Dr. Cohen?”
He already knew the lecture he was about to receive.
He didn’t care. It always seemed he was the only one willing to fight for those who were out of options.
And fight he did. The Niles had to sign so many legal forms, they were cross-eyed by the time the OR was prepped. However, Rowan had won the battle.
“This is brain surgery. You are not a neurosurgeon,” Dr. Cohen spat even as Rowan was walking to see the parents before wheeling Brayden back to the OR.
Rowan looked right at Cohen and nodded. “I’m not, but I am a surgeon. And if that means I have to learn on the fly, then so be it. I won’t give up on a child just because it’s hard.”
“It’s your ass on the line.”
Rowan walked away and into the presurgical room. Brayden was holding a stuffed dog toy as his parents told him how much they loved him. Brayden was nervous, but he still smiled and talked to his parents.
“Brayden! My little man. I’m here to give you the best nap ever,” Rowan told him with a smile. Brayden smiled and clutched his toy.
“I brought Twiggy, just like you told me to.”
“Twiggy looks very soft. He is the perfect nap buddy.” Rowan gave Twiggy a pat and then, over Brayden’s head, gave a nod to his parents.
They struggled not to cry as they put on big smiles, and each touched their son. “We’ll be right here waiting for you to finish your nap,” his mother told him.
“Will you sing me the nap song?” Brayden asked.
His parents nodded. They kissed him, told them they loved him, and then began to sing a song. Rowan injected Brayden’s IV with a preliminary anti-anxiety medication and he drifted off to sleep. “He’s asleep,” he told them and then both parents sobbed as they clutched their son.
“If he doesn’t make it, then at least he won’t feel it,” Brayden’s dad said as he held his wife close, both of them preparing for the worst.
“This will be a very long surgery. I’ll do the best I can.” Rowan gave them a tight smile. Then, with the help of the nurses, wheeled Brayden into surgery.
Eight hours later, Rowan set down his instruments. The hospital’s CEO and medical board were crammed at the window waiting to hear the final results.
“He’s alive?” the lawyer asked the second Rowan stepped from the OR.
“He is. Thanks to Dr. Hamburg at Cedars. He video-called in to teach me how to do a part of the surgery,” he said of the famous neurosurgeon in Los Angeles. The lawyer looked more relieved than anyone.
“Is this going to become normal, Dr. Townsend?” the CEO asked.
“What is?”
“You doing dangerous operations?” he asked.
“Yes. I’ll do the ones no one else will. Everyone deserves the option to fight for their life. I won’t always win, though, and I need you all to be okay with that, or I’ll find a hospital that will support me on this.”
“We’ll work up a Dr. Townsend Protocol,” the lawyer told the CEO, who then nodded. “You’ll either become famous or infamous, Rowan. You'd better think long and hard about this.” The CEO turned and left Rowan standing there.
The hardest day of Rowan’s life was the day he lost his first patient as a resident. At least he knew he’d tried everything to save him. It would hurt a lot if he began to lose more patients, but he didn’t know if his conscience could let him give up on them.
Rowan walked to the surgery conference room. Mr. and Mrs. Niles were pacing in the small meeting room when Rowan walked in. “Brayden did great, but there’s still a long road ahead. I’ve called in oncology to meet with you.”
Mrs. Niles flung herself into his arms. “Thank you, Dr. Townsend!”
Rowan didn’t go home after the surgery. He left Mr. and Mrs. Niles in post-op recovery with Brayden and headed for the nearest bed he could find and passed out. He knew they weren’t all going to be wins like this, but he’d risk it.
“Dr. Townsend,” a nurse said, shaking him. “There’s a case with a child who has a traumatic injury. Dr. Cohen said it’s a Townsend case.”
Rowan rubbed his eyes as he sat up. Four hours of sleep. He could work with that.
“Let’s go.”