“They’re downstairs,” David told him, thankful that he had gone against Janet’s wishes and notified them this morning that the tests were to be made. He’d had a strong suspicion that a crisis like this might arise.
“Good!” Graham said. “Dave, you get their signature while we check with Ann Preston for an available O.R. Then come back and scrub. Elwood, I’d appreciate your help, too.”
Graham had to ask Dr. Browne, David thought as he went down to see Janet’s parents. The moment Browne had heard that one of the student nurses might have to be scheduled for craniotomy, he’d been hovering around. As senior staff surgeon next to Matthews, he had the right to observe any operation in the hospital. For some reason he seemed particularly interested in this one. Perhaps because it was the first major surgery Graham had scheduled since his collapse on the golf course. It was only recently that he’d resumed full practice.
Within a satisfyingly brief time the operating room was set up, the operating team ready to proceed. Janet’s beautiful copper-red curls had been shaved off smoothly and her poor bald head painted crimson. She looked pathetically childish, or rather, more like a battered doll some careless child had mistreated, her body draped in a sheet, her eyes closed, the silky lashes shining gold against the blue circles beneath; the constellation of freckles across her nose looming up in the pallor of her skin. Her lips were pale, too, but beautiful in repose. He remembered how they had felt beneath his own last night, warm, vibrant, questioning, and a new rush of tenderness almost overwhelmed him.
Then he had to forget about Janet as a person as he took his place across the operating table from Graham to concentrate on the work at hand. The sight, sounds and smells of the operating room were completely familiar: the bright, steamy warmth, the occasional hiss of steam from the sterilizer, the light click of the instruments against the tray, the murmuring sound of the waiting suction machine, Graham’s crisp orders to the scrub nurse. The routine itself was not so familiar. He had studied the craniotomy along with the rest of his surgery, but in his practice he had turned that over to the neurological surgeons.
So now, instead of holding a scalpel, he was watching Graham cut neatly between marks he’d painted on Janet’s skull, their location decided from his study of the arteriograms. David felt a hemostat slapped into his hand by the scrub nurse, and clamped off the severed vein, stopping the flow of blood. Then Graham was pulling back the scalp with a retractor, exposing the bone while David reached for gauze to pack the opening.
He set his teeth as Graham called for the burr trephine and, using it like the brace and bit it resembled, started drilling through the bone.
Suddenly the noise stopped, and the room was filled with another sound—the hoarse, unnatural breathing of the surgeon.
“Watch it!” Dr. Browne cried as he appeared from somewhere to rush up behind Graham.
David just managed to get a firm grasp of the trephine before Graham released it and collapsed backward against Elwood Browne.
For a moment all was confusion, then an orderly and a float nurse had somehow managed to get Graham out of the room, and David found himself breathlessly completing the drilling that had been started.
“Collect the bone dust, Miss Preston,” he snapped, removing the drill. “Where’s the elevator?”
He started to reach for it, then noted with relief that another nurse was scrubbed to preside at the instrument tray. She handed him the elevator and he used it to lift the bone and enlarge the opening he had drilled.
“We can’t go on with this alone!” Dr. Browne cried. “We’ve got to have a neurological surgeon! Or at least consult Matthews and get his—”
“If there’s a good brain surgeon in the hospital, call him quick,” David said without stopping his work, “but I’m not going to sit around waiting for him with this girl’s head sawed open. If you’ll give me a hand we can complete this before you could get another surgeon here to scrub.”
“I’m not having anything to do with it! I refuse to take the responsibility!”
“I’ll take the responsibility,” David said, trying to sound a great deal calmer than he felt as he caught a glimpse of the pulsing red membrane, filled with blood, that would have to be extracted. “I don’t care how much seniority you have, Dr. Browne, this operation has to be completed—right now!”
“All right—you heard that,” Dr. Browne said grimly. “If this girl dies, everyone in the room is witness to the fact that you have taken complete responsibility. I wash my hands of the whole affair.”
Browne was out of David’s mind the moment he quit speaking. David was too busy excising the abnormal tissue, draining the free blood and making sure there would be no further bleeding, then closing the wound as neatly as possible. Long before he was through the anesthetist started reporting a drop in blood pressure that not only increased the need for hurry, but made him thankful he had not let Browne force him to wait for another surgeon. Even though his fingers may have fumbled on the unfamiliar task, Janet had a chance to survive. He knew that delay to call another surgeon in to scrub, would most likely have proved fatal.
* * * *
Two days later he was standing over Janet’s bed, looking down into the pale sleeping face below the turban of bandages that swathed her skull.
She was still in a coma, and it seemed to him he had spent most of the last forty-eight hours here. She had special duty nurses around the dock, and her parents remained in almost constant attendance.
“When do you suppose she’ll ever wake up?” Mrs. Raleigh mourned. She was a small, neat, auburn-haired woman who looked as Janet probably would in twenty years. If she lived.
“She’s holding her own,” was all the comfort he could give her as yet.
“I’m not going to wait any longer to place charges against that boy!” Mr. Raleigh said angrily. “I’m going to file a report with the police right away, leaving the charge open. If she doesn’t pull through, it will be murder or manslaughter. If she does—well, there’ll be time enough then to settle on a lesser charge. But he needn’t think he’s going to get off scot-free after a brutal attack like that!”
“I don’t blame you,” David said. “I had a strong feeling that the incident should be reported at the time. But Janet wouldn’t hear of it.”
“That was no excuse for someone not reporting to us!” Mr. Raleigh said belligerently. “As I understand it now, you knew of the attack and her injury, and so did the superintendent of nurses, and others. But no one did a thing about it! No one told her parents, or placed charges against that boy! The first we knew of it she was practically on the operating table. And nobody told us that the surgeon who was going to drill her head open had just had one heart attack and was due for another!”
“Nobody knew he was due for another,” David said mildly. “He’s as good a brain surgeon as any in the state.”
“But you aren’t! You aren’t a brain surgeon at all, and judging by Dr. Browne’s remarks, you had no business going ahead with that surgery by yourself! If my daughter doesn’t live through this, by God, the hospital is going to hear from me—through my lawyer!” He turned sharply and stomped from the room.
Chapter 16
David stood beside the bed watching Janet breathe. Her father’s angry words still echoed in the room which was otherwise silent, except for her mother’s occasional muffled sob, and the quiet sounds made by the nurse who was replacing the suspended intravenous feeding bottle.
Gradually her breathing deepened, and finally she drew a long, shaky sigh and opened her eyes to gaze about wonderingly. When her eyes met David’s she blinked and murmured, “David?”
Her mother was immediately bending over the bed. “Oh, baby! Baby!” she choked, “You gave us such a bad tune!”
“Why, mother!” Janet’s eyes widened. “How’d you get here so quick?”
“So quick!” he
r mother echoed on a sobbing breath. “Your father and I have been here almost three days!”
Janet’s bewildered gaze returned to David. “Three days? What day is this? Isn’t it Thursday?”
“It’s Saturday, honey—almost Saturday night.”
“Where’ve I been? Didn’t they do the arterio…”
Her lips continued to move but her voice had failed completely. Panic clouded her eyes.
“Don’t be frightened, Janet, and don’t try to talk. Your voice gave out because you’re so weak. You’ve been desperately ill, but you’re going to be all right now. I’ll tell you what happened, then I want you to go back to sleep.”
Her eyes were closed before he finished explaining. He felt the pulse at her wrist, finding it stronger and considerably slower than its frightening pace of the past hours. He checked her blood pressure, assuring her mother it was almost back to normal.
He was smiling as he left the room. He would have to keep careful watch as her recovery progressed, of course, check and double-check her condition and reactions. But from the way it looked now, Janet was going to be all right.
Now he could concentrate on Graham and the heart condition that had caused a second collapse—this time at a most inauspicious moment.
He found Graham sitting up in his hospital bed.
“How’s the girl?” he demanded anxiously, then relaxed as he scanned David’s beaming face. “She must be better.”
“She was awake for a minute, and now her sleep seems normal. I think she’ll recover okay—and no harm done because I had to take over.”
“You probably did as good a job as I could, David. You’re a born surgeon. That’s why I told Matthews I’d go to surgery only on condition that you do the job.”
“You’re finally giving in!” David exclaimed with relief. “I checked the new films this morning, Graham, and I’m more convinced of my diagnosis than ever. I don’t know why the tumor doesn’t show up more clearly, but I’m sure it’s there.”
“I know, and Matthews is inclined to agree now. Browne’s still holding out for sclerosis of the coronary artery, and nothing would make him happier than to see you open my heart and search for neoplasm in vain. He’s bound to scrub in, David, and Matthews is in favor of it.”
“That’s all right with me,” David said, though he wasn’t particularly happy about it. Browne was now an avowed enemy, searching desperately for anything that might discredit his young rival.
“When will you schedule me?” Graham asked. “I suppose the sooner the better?”
“No, I’d like for you to rest in bed for about ten more days. There are a few further tests I want to run, and—well, there’s always the possibility that I could be wrong. If Browne’s diagnosis should be correct, surgery wouldn’t be safe too soon after your attack. Better to wait for a quiescent period. The rest in bed will be all to the good anyway. And I want you scheduled when the mechanical heart is available. Just in case. When your doctors disagree on diagnosis, we’d better prepare for any eventuality.”
* * * *
The night before Graham was scheduled for surgery, David finished his work and headed for Janet’s hospital room. He had already checked on her twice today, and at least that many times each day of the past two weeks, but he could always find some excuse for looking in on her again.
Her rapid recovery had been nothing short of marvelous. Each day she had gained in strength until now she was able to be up walking around in her room. Her special duty nurses had been released, and her parents had gone home, planning to return for the court hearing on the charges they had filed against Arnold Crane. They had left Janet a box full of attractive scarves and turbans to wear on her bald and bandaged head. This morning he had removed the sutures, and left off part of the bandages.
He heard voices before he opened the door, and recognized the angry one as belonging to Daisy Andrews. What business did she have in here bothering Janet!
He thrust the door open and the strident voice stopped in mid-sentence. Standing at the bed where Janet sat in obvious dismay, she had been saying, “…and if you don’t resign without further delay…”
“What are you doing in my patient’s room?” he demanded.
“She shouldn’t have been your patient!” The woman tinned her wrath upon him. “You’re no brain surgeon, and the Medical Board doesn’t approve of your unauthorized surgery.”
“That’s no concern of yours! Now please get out!”
Locking a tense gaze with him, Miss Andrews clenched her teeth, practically whistling through them in her rage as she backed toward the door.
“David! She’s going to testify for Arnold Crane!” Janet cried. “She’s going to tell about…”
“I’ve offered an alternative!” Miss Andrews snapped. “I’ve known from the beginning that she isn’t good nurse material. If she won’t resign immediately I’ll testify as that boy’s lawyer requested. For when a young woman, under cover of the nursing profession, indulges in sordid intimacies with a male patient, she’s not only a disgrace to her calling, she’s asking for exactly the sort of attack she claims…”
“That’s enough!” David broke in, managing to keep his voice and hands under control. “I can’t stop you from making a fool of yourself on the witness stand, but who’s going to believe you when there’ll be plenty of witnesses to refute you?”
“If you expect to be one of them, Dr. Sterling,” she rasped, moving forward belligerently, “you’d better think again. Unless you wouldn’t mind some publicity about your affair with Dr. Burns’ wife, and about the malpractice suit against you in the east. Don’t forget, my brother-in-law is chairman of the Board. I got him to write for a report on you from the Medical Society there—and he’s also been in correspondence with Dr. Walter Peck. They don’t want to discredit the hospital by publicizing a malpractice suit against one of the staff doctors, but…”
“Then you’d better keep quiet about it, too. There’s such a thing as loyalty.”
“Don’t talk to me about loyalty, Dr. Sterling! I’ve been a loyal servant of this hospital for years, and to my mind it’s more loyal to rid an institution of undesirable elements than to hide them. When people are guilty of the sort of mistakes you both have made, they shouldn’t be trusted with human life!”
“That’s not for you to judge,” David said sternly. “Anyone can make a mistake. Do you consider yourself infallible?”
“I certainly make it a point to be!” she stated righteously. “I give my very best efforts, and I expect those who work with me or under me to do the same.”
He stared at her in stark incredulity and disgust. “If you’re through now,” he said tightly, “suppose you get out before my patient has a relapse.”
Her mouth made a hard straight line as she turned to the door. She opened it, then paused. “I’d better have assurance of Janet’s resignation before my eleven o’clock appointment with that boy’s lawyers tomorrow morning, or, I warn you, I’m going to testify in his behalf!” She closed the door behind her without looking back.
Janet stared at him bleakly. “I’d better resign,” she quavered. “She could ruin us both.”
“Don’t you dare resign! We’ll fight for all we’re worth!”
“But she’ll make such a stink, David. And she could wreck your career.”
“Never mind about that! We’ll fight it out, even if it means my being publicly tried all over again for the mistake I made back home.”
He sat on the edge of the bed, taking her trembling hands in his. “Don’t let her frighten you. You’ll be a good nurse, and I’m a good doctor, and we’re not going to let her scare us. Chin up, and that sort of thing.”
He tucked a long forefinger under her chin and tilted her face to look down into the gold-flecked brown eyes lustrous now with tears. Her lips trembled, and impulsively he laid his own
upon them, feeling the tender warmth as she responded to his kiss.
His heart began a wild clamor that made him want to draw her in his arms and kiss her in a different way, a far more fervent way. But he remembered, just in time, that she was his patient, and still weak from her recent surgery. So he kissed her again, lightly, as he’d kiss an adored child, and gently forced her back on the pillow.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, dear—and don’t you do anything drastic in the meantime! We’ll fight this out together.”
Chapter 17
On reporting to surgery the next morning, David found Elwood Browne in the scrub room, zealously brushing his nails in a cloud of lather.
“Matthews said I should assist,” Browne said smugly. “He’ll scrub in too, in case he’s needed.”
“Okay,” David agreed, though he wished it would be Matthews working with him instead of Browne. Was this to be some sort of test? Did Matthews want to stand back as an observer, checking their work against each other? He had already shown a preference for David’s work, but perhaps he’d heard too much about his personal involvements and his past career. And if Andrews couldn’t be stopped, he’d be hearing more.
“Has Preston got everything set up?” he asked, more to fill the rather hostile silence than for information.
“Ann Preston was called away on some family emergency,” Browne told him, more smugly than ever, “So Andrews has taken her place.”
“Damn!” David couldn’t stop the exclamation that exploded from his lips. Andrews was efficient, of course. He’d operated with her several times and had no technical complaints. But he was in no mood to have her at his elbow this morning. He’d be working with his two bitter enemies, and if his controversial diagnosis should turn out to be wrong…
But it’s got to be a tumor! he told himself firmly, once again reflecting back over the symptoms, seeing the action of Graham’s heart under the fluoroscope, visualizing the shadow in the various films.
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