Chapter 12 Elise
Elise steadied her breath as the soft whir of the anesthesia machine hummed through the blindingly bright operating room.
Shambles lay sedated on the padded surgical table, her coat clipped and her head positioned in a foam cradle.
The surgery site smelled faintly of antiseptic and warm wool—a strangely comforting contrast.
Dr. Choi had stopped in earlier, and Millie, a surgical teaching nurse who Elise had befriended through one of her classes, had agreed to come in as back up. Wade was leading this operation, with Elise assisting and learning, mentally taking notes for the paper she’d write about this procedure.
Wade stood opposite Elise, with the surgery table at the perfect height for him to work and for her to see easily from her chair. His posture was relaxed but she could tell his focus was razor sharp, his expression calm, controlled, and confident.
“Ready?” he asked, voice low, steady.
She nodded. “Ready.”
“I’m here if you need me,” Millie added, coming closer to the table. “Just keep those eye retractors wide and still, Elise.”
She nodded and gripped the device with careful precision as Wade began the delicate cutting and removal of the affected tissue around the sheep’s lower eyelid. With each pass of the scalpel, Wade carved millimeter by millimeter.
His hands were beautifully steady, taking breaks as Elise used sterile gauze to dab at fluid or flushed saline into the eye.
“How are you this calm?” she murmured as she watched.
“Practice. Plus, Shambles deserves our A-game.”
Her heart clenched at the quiet conviction in his voice. He approached Shambles—an old, dispensable sheep—with the same intensity he might give a prize racehorse.
“Oh!” She gasped at the sight of blood suddenly oozing from the tissue.
“I see it.” His tone didn’t change. Not one octave. Not even a sigh. “That’s…a soft bleeder,” Wade said, jutting his chin. “Sterile gauze.”
She snagged some in gloved fingers and held out the gauze to him.
“You can do it, Elise.”
She swallowed and dabbed the eye, surprised at how much blood came from a “tiny” bleeding vessel. Also a little surprised that she, a disabled graduate student with big dreams and no experience, was on the surgical team.
She’d only hoped that one day she could do this, and here she was—beating the odds that were stacked against her as strong and high as this wheelchair.
“Is she okay?” Elise asked when she needed a second and third piece of gauze.
“Yes,” he assured her. “That vessel wasn’t obvious, notably ‘soft’ because it’s not arterial, or catastrophic. A little messy is all.”
The bleeding continued—slower, but stubborn. It must have been a deep vessel, and way too close to the lid margin.
A flicker of fear shot through her. If they lost visibility here, if he couldn’t cauterize precisely enough…Shambles could lose the eye.
Her stomach tightened as he continued the excision and she worked so that her grip on the retractors didn’t tremble.
“Easy,” Wade said gently, still not looking away from the surgical field. “Stay with me, Elise.”
Elise inhaled and willed her hands to still.
Wade angled the light, shifted his fingers a fraction, and with a controlled motion, cauterized the vessel. The stubborn bleed sizzled, then quieted. This time, he dabbed and, finally, the surgical field cleared.
“You fixed it,” she breathed. “I didn’t think it could be done.”
“We fixed it,” he corrected, looking over his mask with a smile in his eyes. “Anyway, lost causes are kind of my thing.”
Her pulse skipped. Lost causes.
She wondered, fleetingly, if he had any idea how that phrase felt to someone like her—someone who’d spent fifteen years navigating a world where most people saw her wheels first and her worth second.
He moved on, resecting the remaining carcinoma until it was clean. “You see this margin?” he asked. “That’s good tissue. She’s going to keep this eye.”
“You make it sound easy.”
“Nothing worth doing is easy. But nothing is impossible, either.”
Some things were, but she kept that to herself as Wade finished the excision, stepped back slightly, and nodded with satisfaction. “Okay. Cryotherapy?”
“The cryoprobe’s ready,” Millie said, gesturing to the unit. “That’s all you need to freeze.”
Elise handed him the chilled probe and watched as he applied the instrument to the newly cleared margin. Frost blossomed like delicate ice crystals across the tissue, which was amazing and oddly beautiful.
Wade was made for this, she mused. What would it be like to have a man like Wade Reynolds at her side, made for her, too? She had no idea, but that sure wouldn’t stop her from fantasizing about it.
When he finished cryotherapy, Shambles was prepped for recovery, the eye neatly bandaged. Wade removed his gloves and stretched his back with a light groan.
Elise exhaled the breath she’d been holding for…maybe the entire procedure.
“She did great,” Wade said, giving the sheep’s woolly cheek a pat. “Tough little girl.”
“You did great,” she countered.
His eyes met hers—green, warm, and so full of quiet humility it made her chest ache.
“Couldn’t have done it without you, Elise.”
Her heart fluttered as they moved Shambles to recovery. The ewe stirred faintly, the sedative wearing off. Elise brushed her wool, whispering, “Good job, girlie,” as Wade monitored the vitals.
When Shambles settled peacefully, Wade turned to Elise with a smile that lit up everything inside her.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go do our own recovery over coffee. You look like you’re about to vibrate out of that chair.”
She laughed—really laughed—and followed him out of the surgical suite.
An hour later, they were across from each other in the Canine Café, each holding a paper cup of coffee, the post-surgical adrenaline dump finally over so they could relax.
“I can’t believe we did that,” Elise said, inching her chair closer to the table…and Wade. “I mean, I can, obviously, because I was there. But still.”
“You were more than there.” Wade put his elbows on the surface and pinned her with eyes the color of a Heineken bottle and just as intoxicating.
“You were rock solid. I’ve had residents with three more years of training who shake like leaves the first time they assist. Nurse Millie never needed to step in. ”
“I was shaking,” she admitted. “Everywhere except my hands.”
“I actually think surgery could be your calling,” he said simply.
She thanked him again, the compliment settling on her heart.
He studied her for a beat, eyes crinkling at the corners as his gaze shifted to the windows. In the distance, the rugged peaks rose, white and sharp and beautiful. When he looked back at her, his expression was warm and even a little sad.
“Can I ask you something?” he said.
Oh, boy. Here we go. How serious is this disability? Is there a cure? Will you ever be…normal? Can you have children? In other words, How lost of a cause are you, Elise Hale?
She braced for all the questions she didn’t want to answer, and nodded.
“The other day,” he said slowly, “you told me you haven’t really dated.
Ever. And I… I’ve been thinking about that and trying to make that make sense in my head.
Since you’re obviously beautiful, fun, and smart, I’m guessing the decision not to date is yours.
Will you change that? Are you willing to… get involved?”
Immediately, her mouth went dry. “Do I have to write a paper on this, too?” she joked.
He laughed. “Maybe a pop quiz later.” Then he leaned closer and lowered his voice. “I want to know if I have a chance.”
A chance? She gave a quick laugh. “Easy answer, Wade—yes.”
“Oh, good.” He seemed visibly relieved.
She was relieved, too, that he hadn’t asked all the questions—but that didn’t mean he didn’t have those questions. Now would be as good a time as any to answer them.
“So,” she said, dipping one toe into the scary waters of her history and prognosis. “You might have sniffed around enough to know the basics of what, uh, happened to me.”
He nodded. “I was chatting with Nicole the other day. I stopped in the ski rental place she runs and I might have casually asked a few questions. I hope you don’t mind. I wasn’t prying.”
She waved it off. “Of course, it’s fine.” Nicole had texted her that he’d asked more than a few and it didn’t seem so casual, so this news was no surprise.
“She just told me there was a bad accident,” he added. “If there’s anything else you want to share…”
“I always start with this,” she said. “From a big-picture standpoint, we were all lucky to live. A jackknifed truck that crossed the lanes might have cost me the ability to walk, but no one in my family was killed, and that’s the most important thing to remember.”
He searched her face, a million questions in his eyes. “Can you tell me about the injury?”
He sounded like he had in the OR—a medically trained professional—so she went in that direction.
“My legs were crushed in what was considered a lower thoracic incomplete injury at first.”
He nodded slowly, not doubt understanding the words and what they meant for a little girl.
“So…that’s down around T10, T11, T12. Injuries at that level usually mean you lose motor and feeling from about mid-thigh down.
” His voice stayed clinical, and careful.
“But lower thoracic injuries don’t mess with the autonomic system the way higher ones do.
That means no blood pressure issues, no temperature regulation problems.”
And no bladder and bowel issues, but he was too classy to say that out loud. He was right, though, and it was good news to have those “auto functions” working perfectly. As she often told people—it could have been much worse.
“And as the swelling went down,” she continued, grateful for the protection of medical language, “it became clear the injury was functionally complete.”