Chapter 10 #2
“Patient is Caspian Benjamin. Date of birth confirmed. Right knee marked and verified.”
My eyes found my initials, and I said, “Confirmed.”
“Scheduled procedure is right knee osteochondral allograft transplantation to the medial femoral condyle.”
“Confirmed,” I replied.
“Consent matches. Donor graft is present and verified.”
“Verified,” Nina said from the graft table.
“Preoperative antibiotics administered,” Michael said.
Rochelle continued through the checklist we’d performed hundreds of times before. Sometimes multiple times a day.
No joking. No emotions. No shortcuts because I knew the patient. No shortcuts because I wanted him and he wanted me. I smiled behind my mask as the photo of a countdown widget I received from Cash a few days ago popped into my head.
Just reasons for me to be meticulous as always.
“Anesthesia concerns?” Rochelle asked.
“None,” Michael responded.
“Surgical concerns?”
My eyes were still glued to the black initials I’d put on Cash’s skin in pre-op. He bore my name on his knee.
TV
“None.”
Rochelle looked around the room one final time. “Everyone?”
A chorus of confirmations followed.
“Time-out complete.”
That was it.
Caspian Benjamin. Twenty-three years old. Professional goaltender. Fourth operation on his right knee in eleven months. Focal articular cartilage defect of the medial femoral condyle.
My patient.
Nothing more. Not until I finished. Not until he was healed.
I held out my hand.
“Scalpel.”
Davina startled me as I stepped out of the shower with a towel pressed to my stomach. “What the fuck, Davina?”
“Get dressed,” she said, tossing clothes at me that I only half caught to keep from flashing her. “His oxygen levels keep dropping.”
She stomped out of the ensuite in my office, the outer door slamming shut. I sighed, hastily dried off, and pulled on the scrubs she’d tossed at me.
Davina had developed an affinity for Cash since that first visit.
And she hadn’t always been my business manager.
She started with me as a nursing student, then stood at my elbow through years of surgeries and complications until injuries from a car accident kept her from standing for long periods and she moved to the front office. She knew her shit, and I trusted her.
I trusted Michael too. He was an excellent anesthesiologist, but Davina and her husband butted heads like two horny rams during mating season. Davina, overly cautious. Michael, not cautious enough sometimes.
“Okay…tell me—” I said as I walked into the clinic’s PACU, only to stop abruptly.
The recovery room might as well have been a battlefield.
Michael Devenport stood on one side, his hands on his hips, his head bowed.
Davina Devenport posted up on the opposite side of the room, Cash on the bed between them, her arms crossed over her chest, her foot tapping as she stared the man she married down.
“Jesus. I’d tell you two to behave, but I know it wouldn’t do any good. Both of you go find something else to do. Fuck if it helps. Just make sure it’s not in my office.”
Davina cackled and stormed out of the room, tossing over her shoulder, “He wishes.”
I shook my head and looked at him. “You didn’t?”
“Yes, I did. I’m a fucking idiot.”
“Well, dude, telling your wife you’re the doctor isn’t factually inaccurate, but…”
“Maritally stupid. Yes, you’ve mentioned this in the past.”
“I’m starting to side with Davina since you seem to need reminding on the regular.”
He flipped me off and followed after his wife. Hopefully to buy her something expensive. I turned toward Cash’s monitors, checking over everything. His heart rate and oxygen saturation were lower than I’d like, but… I pulled up his medical record, searching his post-op recovery notes.
Glancing between his current readings, the ones the staff had documented since he was put under, and the ones in the chart from prior surgeries, Cash was in the window, albeit at the bottom of it. I pulled the rolling stool over and sat next to Cash’s bed.
He looked…like a surgical patient in recovery.
His face still lay slack and pale. A nasal cannula replaced the intubation tube I was glad I hadn’t witnessed being placed.
The thought of it gave me a chill as it was.
But the steady beeping of his monitors, even if they weren’t quite where I’d want them to be, kept me from being too unnerved.
“You are a troublemaker,” I whispered. “You already know that though. You’re probably cracking up at the fuss everyone is making.”
His hand lay on the bed next to his leg, and I wanted so badly to take it in mine.
The urge grew until I found myself glancing at the wall of glass that was open so the recovery staff could monitor Cash.
They weren’t my people. My surgical suite shared the PACU with several other surgical units on this floor.
Which meant I needed to watch myself. In hopes of keeping myself from doing something stupid, since leaving Cash’s bedside was not something I had any desire to do, I sat beside him and drafted the operative notes for his surgery.
The surgery went off without a hitch. The graft fit perfectly.
Cash’s flexion and range-of-motion tests after I placed the graft were textbook, if not better.
Nothing indicated anything other than a flawless repair.
I crossed my fingers that the success of the operation would carry over to his rehab.
Just as I submitted the note and set my tablet down, my phone buzzed.
Phoenix
How’s our boy?
Me
In recovery, sleeping off the good stuff.
Phoenix
Good. We have an issue.
Me
You couldn’t have led with that? What’s up?
Phoenix.
The room downstairs won’t work.
Me
Phoenix, what the hell? There’s three bedrooms down there. Surely one of them…There’s no fucking way he can sleep on the second floor. He can’t navigate all those stairs.
Phoenix
Yes, I’m aware there are three rooms down there, but what you don’t know is the water heater busted. Apparently, it’s been leaking for a while. We have to gut that corner of the house. It’s not just the drywall, but the flooring and subfloors have to be ripped out too.
Me
Okay. I’ll figure something out for Cash, but we really need to put something in place for residents who aren’t ambulatory. A carriage house or an addition, or something so we can accommodate people with limited mobility.
Phoenix
Agreed.
Let me know what you figure out.
“Fu-uh.” A soft, grunting partial curse came from Cash, barely audible over the equipment in the room and the noise from the recovery unit outside the room.
My eyes flew to him, and I waited. He moaned. His head rolled.
“Cash, can you open your eyes for me?” I asked, standing so he could see me if he woke.
Fluttered eyelids and a furrowed brow. The second highlighted the beads of sweat on his forehead.
But it was the ashy color of his skin and his oxygen levels, after a glance at his monitors, that freaked me out.
Taking a deep breath, I huffed out a sigh of relief, remembering Cash was an elite professional athlete.
His respiratory and heart rates were normally low.
I studied them so closely I had them memorized.
Still, Michael needed to get his ass back here—sweating, ashen, respiratory and heart rate dropping off—none of it was good.
I shot off a text, receiving a thumbs-up.
I reminded myself that with any other patient, I wouldn’t have an issue with Michael’s response, but Cash wasn’t any other patient.
A fact that became clearer the longer I knew him.
The longer he remained like he currently was.
I sat back down to wait for Michael. If my eyes stayed locked on Cash, sue me.
“You rang?” Michael asked as he walked into the recovery room.