“I’ve been waiting for you a long time,” he said, his voice husky with desire.
“I never knew I could be so lucky,” she said, wanting nothing more than to please him for the rest of her life.
After making love again, just before they finally settled down for the night John popped out of bed and padded down the hall to the kitchen. He came right back with half a dozen saltine crackers and a glass of lemon water, placing them on Polly’s bedside table.
“How thoughtful,” she said, tiny prickles of contentment breaking over her. “Thank you.” The small gesture meant the world to her. No one since her mother had shown they cared by doing little things. He made her lunch each day, fixed dinner more often than she did, and always asked if she’d taken her prenatal vitamins and folic acid. It might not seem like a lot, but to her his thoughtfulness was everything.
“I’ve got to look out for you and our baby,” he said, cuddling next to her, tucking the covers around them.
Polly drifted off to sleep that night grinning, happier than she could ever remember and thinking she knew for sure who the true people-pleaser was of the two of them.
The surgery on Eric Caldera had been long and difficult, but after four hours John was satisfied he’d repaired everything to the best of his ability. Twice the anesthesiologist warned that the vital signs, especially the heart rate, had increased and a small dose of beta blocker had fixed it. Eric had been watched closely after extubation to make sure all was well. Once it was established he was breathing on his own and his vitals were stable, they sent him to the recovery room.
John left the OR and yanked off his mask, leaving patient recovery to his nurses. His first order of business was to call the father in one waiting room and the mother in another. With everything having been carefully planned by social services prior to the operation, Eric’s parents had agreed to wait in separate locations. That afternoon, he’d inform each of them that surgery had been a success. Their boy would be back playing whatever sport he wanted after several months of recovery and physical therapy. The mother would be first at Eric’s bedside when he returned to his room and, though unhappy about playing second fiddle, the estranged father agreed to wait an extra hour before seeing his son.
Polly took report for Eric Caldera from the recovery-room nurse. “Vital signs are stable. No sign of bleeding. Unremarkable recovery.”
Polly first jotted down her notes then awaited the arrival of her patient by tending to two little girls in a double room.
“I want Dr. Griffin to make me a monkey next time.” The little one with red hair held her bright pink balloon princess crown from yesterday and smiled.
“I want a monkey,” the second girl said. Both her legs were in casts, one suspended above the bed in a sling. Polly noticed John had already signed both casts and added a goofy-looking happy face next to each signature.
“Dr. Griffin will be glad to make whatever kind of balloon figure you want, as long as you both take your medicine, okay?” She wasn’t above making a good bargain, especially with some of the sour-tasting pills having been an issue for these two girls over the last couple of days.
“Okay,” they replied in unison sing-song fashion. Sweet, it worked!
Darren stuck his head in the room. “Your post-op just arrived.”
“Thanks, Dare. Could you ask Raphael to let his mother know?” With that Polly said goodbye to the girls and trotted over to Eric’s room.
Still completely out of it, Eric merely moaned when Polly, Darren and the transportation clerk slid him from the gurney to the bed she’d prepared for him. In the middle of her initial assessment Eric’s mother entered the room with a huge bouquet of flowers accentuated with half a dozen bright balloons.
“How’s my baby doing?” Mrs. Caldera had either used extra body splash today or the star jasmine in the bouquet was emitting a particularly strong scent.
Mostly asleep, but responsive to touch, Eric crinkled up his nose as if he didn’t care for the smell. His blood pressure and pulse were low, but that was to be expected with a sedated patient, and Polly remembered the recovery nurse mentioning something about beta blockers having been given to lower his heart rate during surgery. Placing the oxygen monitor on his finger, she waited for a reading.
“He seems to be doing fine.” The news smoothed the deep crease between Mrs. Caldera’s brows. The oxygen saturation was at the low end of normal but holding. Polly put a nasal cannula in his nostrils and turned on the wall oxygen at two liters.
After making sure Eric was comfortable, that the site of the surgery wasn’t oozing blood, the IV was intact and flowing, and checking there was good circulation to his toes, she headed out to input his medication orders into the computer. On her way she spotted John heading her way, still in OR garb, looking downright sexy and authoritative. Working to control her reaction, she grinned at him then waved.
With the blue OR cap still on his head, he gave her the smile that crinkled the corners of his dark eyes, and never failed to send her heart beating double time. Also on a mission, he headed for Eric’s room.
Polly set out for the medicine room to get afternoon meds for the two little girls in her other assigned room. Now that she’d bargained with them, she expected them to co-operate. In the middle of her getting the medicine, another nurse entered and she got into a conversation about a memo going around regarding blood-sugar testing and new finger-stick protocol. When the conversation ended and she’d finished pouring her meds, she heard a code blue over the loudspeaker.
“Code blue. Room 614. code blue. Room 614.”
Eric’s room! She rushed back to the ward only to find a crowd gathered around the door of her patient. What could have gone wrong in the few minutes she’d been away? Peering inside, she saw John was at the helm of the code in progress, calling out orders while working to re-intubate the teen. The ambu bag was in readiness in the nearby respiratory therapist’s hands.
One of the medical aides assisted the mother out of the room. The woman was crying and visibly shaken. “One minute he was fine, the next he stopped breathing. What happened to my baby?”
Knowing the code team was there in full force, Polly rushed to Mrs. Caldera’s side to offer support. “He’s in good hands. If he’s having trouble breathing, they’ll fix him right up. Has your son ever been diagnosed with asthma?”
“No. When he was a baby one doctor said he had twitchy lungs, but he’s never had a problem.”
Could the boy have asthma and not know it? Could the sharp scent of those flowers have set him off? Or perhaps the latex in the balloons? She searched her memory for “latex allergy” on his chart, but was positive she hadn’t seen any allergies noted. Latex was such a common allergy these days that John’s balloons were all latex free, and the hospital had been a latex-free zone from the beginning, but who knew about florist displays? Polly was surprised Mrs. Caldera had gotten that bouquet past the hospital entrance.
Oh, God, Eric had been given a beta blocker in surgery for his elevated vital signs, if he was having an asthma attack that drug would make the effect much worse and would block the antidote. She knew John was well aware of all the medications given during the surgery, and the code team was top-notch, so she settled for worrying her lower lip with her teeth along with Mrs. Caldera.
Five minutes. She held the mother’s hand and promised all would be well. Ten minutes. The rush and chaos inside the room continued in a tunnel of noise.
“We need more epi,” a resident hollered from the doorway.
Leaving Mrs. Caldera with the medical aide, Polly shot across the ward to the med room to retrieve more medicine, wondering who’d been assigned to restock the crash cart that day. How could they run out of epi during a respiratory arrest? If they had gone through that much epi, it couldn’t bode well for poor Eric.
With shaky hands Polly got the medicine and rushed to the entrance of Eric’s room.
“All clear,” John called out, holding the def
ibrillator paddles in place on the boy’s chest and torso. He zapped Eric with enough joules to start a horse’s heart. All eyes went to the heart monitor. No change. Flat line.
Polly delivered the epinephrine and went back to Mrs. Caldera, positioned close enough for Polly to peer through the door. They defibrillated Eric again with the same outcome.
The mood in the patient room had changed drastically. John stood sullenly at the head of the bed, head down, staring at his patient with deep remorse in his eyes. No matter that the respiratory therapist squeezed the ambu bag to force breathing, the flat-lined bedside monitor squawking its continual alarm told the full story. A young teenager had had a respiratory arrest, which had led to a full code, and he had died after surgery.
Never could anyone have foretold this outcome for a routine surgery on an otherwise healthy child, yet sometimes it happened. Truth was, surgeries were never routine.
With terror in her eyes Eric’s mother sensed the change. “My baby. Is it all over? Is my baby all right?” She tore away from Polly and the medical aide and lurched for the hospital room.
Polly intercepted her but the mother’s weight pushed her off balance. Polly stood firm, held her in a hug. “Give us a second, Mrs. Caldera. Please.”
In a desperate move the mother broke away. “I want to see my boy.”
John stepped into the hallway just as she reached the threshold. He braced her by both shoulders, a grief-stricken look in his eyes. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Caldera. He stopped breathing then his heart stopped. We did everything in our power to save him.”
Her scream reverberated off the ward walls.
John held her tight and let her cry. He glanced over her shoulder at Polly with a grim expression. “Go and find the father in OR waiting room two and let him know what’s happened. I’ll explain everything to him when he gets here.”
Dreading having to face a parent and tell them their child had just died, something she’d never had to do before and which wasn’t normally an RN’s job, she bit her lower lip and nodded solemnly, wanting some way, somehow to help John through this tragedy. Oh, God, what would she say to the father? How would she tell him the boy had been alive one minute and dead the next?
Rather than wait for the elevator, she hustled down the stairs, her legs shaky from the adrenaline pouring throughout her system. Arriving on the third floor, thinking her heart might just jump right out of her chest, she found waiting room number two. A tall, overweight, swarthy-looking man in a business suit paced the floor. The instant she arrived he looked up. “Are you Eric’s nurse? Can I see him now?”
Her heart practically burst. How was she supposed to tell him? “There’s been a problem, Mr. Caldera. Dr. Griffin will explain everything to you—”
He stopped in his tracks. “What do you mean there’s been a problem?”
“Eric stopped breathing and—”
He grabbed her by both arms and squeezed to the point of pain. “You’d better not be telling me what I think …”
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Cal—”
He shoved her aside, exiting the room, and she bumped against the doorframe.
Rubbing her elbow, focused solely on her task, she followed him down the hall. “Mr. Caldera, it will be quicker if you take the stairs. Follow me.”
With fury in his eyes, his jaw set, he came at her. She opened the door to the stairwell and he followed her inside. “It’s three flights up,” she said, stepping back for him to go first, “but much faster than the elevator.”
“You killed him. You killed my son!” He glanced up the stairwell. “Are you trying to kill me, too?” Three steps above her, with a contorted, out-of-control, grief-stricken expression on his face, he kicked out at her, the leather sole of his shoe landing solidly on her solar plexus. It knocked the wind from her lungs and sent her hurtling down the lower flight of stairs.
Head over heels she tumbled, arms flailing, searching for purchase, enduring sharp pangs of pain as first her shoulder, then her head, then her back and bottom hit cement, all the way to the lower landing.
She couldn’t breathe and clutched at the point of greatest pain, her stomach, as Eric’s father raced out of the stairwell. If she could inhale she’d call for help, and warn John what was coming his way.
Trying her hardest to get to her feet, still unable to catch her breath, the dim stairway light faded to black.
Polly worked to open her eyes. Everything hurt. She wasn’t at the bottom of the stairs. No, she was on a thin mattress. Cracking one eye open, the bright lights of the emergency department had her immediately snapping it shut. But not before she saw John, and felt the warmth of his hand over hers.
“How are you feeling, dumpling?” he asked, obvious concern in his voice.
“Like I got kicked down a flight of stairs.”
“God, I’m so, so sorry.” He leaned close, held her hand between both of his, lifting it to his mouth where he kissed her fingers. “Forgive me.”
“I’ll be okay.” She tried an achy smile, which quickly turned into a grimace. She did a quick test—her arms moved, her ankles rotated, her knees bent, her neck twisted just fine. Of course it hurt like heck to do any of the movements, but she could move. That was a start. “I’ll get over all these bangs and bruises in no time.”
The rows of lines in his forehead and wary dark gaze told a different story. “I shouldn’t have sent you to do my job,” he said.
“John, you had your hands full with the mother. You’d just coded your patient. If the parents could get along they would have been there together. You can’t do everything.”
He shook his head, biting his lower lip. “I should have sent the resident to tell Mr. Caldera.”
“You were in shock from the failed resuscitation. Your resident was busy with the clean-up.” She reached up to hold him, and his desperate need to hold her tight warned something more was at stake. “I’m okay, I swear. I’m okay, John.”
He pulled back, shaking his head. She wasn’t okay? The only thing she saw in his eyes was pain. “You’re bleeding, sweetheart. The baby …” His voice cracked on the word. He shook his head again.
Her pregnancy was in jeopardy? Little Callie? “Did I miscarry?” Her eyes welled up as she said the word.
He shook his head—a world of weariness in his gaze. “No. They’re keeping you for observation for now.” One tear slid down the outer part of his left eye, soon followed by another on the right. “I’m so sorry.”
She believed with all of her heart that he was sorry. But she was bleeding. Her hands covered her face as the deep emptiness of possibly losing her pregnancy took hold. Soon her hands were covered in tears as she rocked forward and back, unleashing the dammed-up tears of a lifetime filled with disappointment.
John held her and moaned. She used his shoulder to brace her forehead as she bawled until there was nothing left. The brightest spot in her life, her pregnancy, was in jeopardy.
CHAPTER NINE
IN THE CRAMPED and drab ER cubicle, John held Polly until she was ready to let go. Until she’d digested the awful news. She’d had the life nearly kicked out of her womb, and he’d been responsible for sending her to do his job. She could have been killed falling down those stairs.
The words “guilt” and “anger” didn’t come close to how he judged himself.
“Can you help me to the bathroom?” she said.
“Of course.” He hopped to her side and dragged the IV machine along with them. She felt so vulnerable under his care that it made his heart wrench. Against all odds he hoped this pregnancy would survive. They’d have a new start, get their chance to be parents. Hell, he’d even marry her before the baby was born. Yeah, that’s what he’d do.
Would the Big Guy hear his prayer and promise?
If our baby survives, to make things up to Polly, I’ll marry her and be the best damn father on the planet. If only you’ll let our baby make it. Not for me, for her. No. That’s a lie. For me, too. I want this.
I really do.
Helping Polly into the bathroom, he closed the door and waited outside.
Soon her moan carried through the thin wall loud and clear.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” He rushed inside to find her sitting on the toilet, dejected and bereft. “Are you okay?”
“I just miscarried.” She whimpered the phrase so softly he didn’t understand what she’d meant at first. As the words sank in, he dropped to his knees in front of her and put his forehead to hers. Was this some cruel joke? How many times was he supposed to lose everything dear to him? He ground his molars.
“Oh, baby, I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.” Rather than call for the nurse, he helped clean her up and walked her back to the bed. He put on the call light for the nurse, then made Polly comfortable, but there was no way on earth anything he could do would take away her loss or her pain. She’d lost the baby. Their baby. Her tears ran without effort down her cheeks. So did his as sorrow wrapped around his chest and squeezed the last of his feelings from him.
When the nurse arrived he told her what had happened.
“We’ll need to schedule a D&C,” he said, knowing the routine protocol for such things.
“I’ll get right on that, Doctor,” the nurse said on the way out the door.
John held Polly’s fragile body until she fell asleep. Pacing the tiny ER cubicle, thoughts stabbed at his conscience. He hadn’t been able to protect his wife and future child before, and look at him now—he’d sent Polly into the eye of the storm. He hadn’t been there for Lisa and now he hadn’t been there when Polly had needed him most. Hell, it was his job to tell parents when their children died, yet distracted by the failed code, in partial denial, and concentrating on Mrs. Caldara he’d taken the easy way out and sent Polly to fetch the father.
She could have been killed! Now she’d lost her baby.
NYC Angels: Making the Surgeon Smile Page 13