Chapter Sixteen

Turning to the anesthesiologist, Gonzo asked, “How’s her blood pressure?”

“One ten over sixty. Pulse is sixty-five.”

“Good. Let’s get started. Scalpel.” Ernie carefully placed the scalpel in Gonzo’s hand. When he made the incision down the right center of her chest, Trapper asked for the tissue forceps. “I don’t want to be the first person she sees when she wakes up. She’s going to be fighting mad,” said Gonzo. “Retractor.”

“You’re her doctor,” said Trapper, glancing up over his glasses. “Sponge. Besides, she doesn’t yell at you.”

“I’ve never heard her yell at you…she snaps. Can you wipe that rib? The retractor is slipping. Good. It’s stable now.”

Leaning forward, Trapper said, “Let’s see what we’re up against.” He whistled. “The tissue around the aneurism is pretty thin.”

“What if we clamp around the edges of the thin tissue and suture underneath it? Then we can resect the bad tissue after it’s closed.”

“You’ll have to be careful not to clamp the thin part. It’s liable to tear, and then we’ll have a real problem on our hands.”

“Just be ready with suction. If it tears, blood’s going to come out fast.”

Looking up at Gonzo, Trapper said assertively, “You have to be faster.”

Gonzo took a deep breath. “Right angle DeBakey. Before I clamp this, Ernie, prepare a number sixteen suture needle.”

Holding his hand out for the DeBakey, Trapper said, “I’ll clamp. You start suturing as soon as the clamp is in place.”

***

The surgical waiting room was full of men in black suits and ties with white shirts anxious for Leah to come out of surgery. When the automatic doors opened at the end of the hall, their lookout motioned for everyone to follow him.

Gonzo and Trapper stopped for a moment and looked at each other in surprise. “Why does it feel like we might be in trouble with the Feds?” Gonzo asked quietly.

Trapper laughed. “For what? Growing mushrooms in the basement?”

“As hard as she is to get along with, you’d think this hallway would be empty,” said Gonzo.

Smiling, Trapper replied, “As I understand it, she has a different rapport with her people in the basement.”

Stepping out of the middle of the swarm of men, Mark asked, “How is she?”

Gonzo crossed his arms. “It went well. We fixed the aneurism and gave her heart a good once over. Seems her husband took care of himself. She’s got a very healthy heart.”

“So this problem wasn’t already a problem with the heart?”

“No. I think I can safely say the weak spot was brought on by stress, not only from her job, but also from stress related to the accident,” said Gonzo. “She’ll be in recovery for awhile, and after that she’ll be sedated to give her more time to rest. You can stop by tomorrow to see her….but not all at once. She’ll be in CICU for a couple of days.”

***

Ernie stood behind the counter at the nurse’s station, waiting for X-ray to answer the phone. When Gonzo and Trapper stopped by, she moved the phone away from her ear and covered the mouthpiece with her hand. “Trapper, Leah Haverty is awake this morning. She’s asking for you.”

“Oh no,” said Gonzo sternly. “You are not to see her until I check on her. I don’t want you causing another aneurism.”

“Gonzo, come on. Do you think I’d do anything to make that happen?”

Gonzo tilted his head. “Right now, the sight of you might just do it.” He took Leah’s chart from Ernie and boarded the elevator. When he arrived in CICU, he checked with the nurse on duty before he went into Leah’s room. “Any problems?”

“Well, if you call yelling in a whisper a problem, then yes. She’s mad as a hornet. What did you two do to her?” she said, nodding toward the double doors at the entrance to CICU.

Gonzo twisted and seeing Trapper standing just inside the door, he rolled his eyes and walked over. Keeping his voice low, he said, “Trapper, I was serious. I don’t want you upsetting her.”

Trapper stood with his hands clasped behind his back and a seditious smile on his face. “Sounds to me like she’s already upset.”

“Just stay here…please.” Gonzo walked into Leah’s room and met a glare, albeit a sleepy glare. “How do you feel?”

“Like someone cut open my chest without my permission and used my ribs as monkey bars,” she said in a raspy whisper.

“Why are you whispering? We didn’t operate on your throat.”

“Because everything hurts. It hurts to talk, it hurts to breathe, it hurts to move.”

“Well, I saw the consent forms, so naturally, I thought you wanted this surgery.”

“Don’t give me that. Where’s McIntyre? He’s responsible for this.”

“Dr. McIntyre is right here,” said Trapper, stepping around the glass wall.

“Trapper, I told you…”

“I know what you told me, Gonzo, but she’s already upset. Maybe we should just let her get it out before her heart explodes.”

Leah grabbed the plastic cup of water on her over-bed table and threw it, screaming at the pain at the same time she soaked Trapper.

“That was stupid,” Gonzo scolded. He jerked down the blanket covering her and pulled down the front of her hospital gown. “You could have torn your sutures,” he said, examining her incision. “You’re lucky. Now I want you to settle down. And if you don’t, I’ll keep you sedated.” He glanced at Trapper, and then looked back down at her chart. “He’s not going anywhere. You can tear into him when you’ve recovered.”

Stepping closer to the bed while wiping water from his face, Trapper countered, “I think that she should get it out now or she won’t get any rest. She can hardly move. She can’t even yell. And the only reason she’s angry is because I acted on the decision she had already made.”

“You’re wrong,” she whispered angrily.

“Am I? It’s been four years, Leah. And you signed a consent form for the autopsies. That doesn’t sound like you were expecting to die.” Trapper leaned over her bed and looked into her tear-filled eyes. “And you would have died if we had waited,” he said earnestly. “The tissue around the aneurism was too thin to have lasted much longer.”

She sniffled and turned to Gonzo. “Is that true?”

“Mm hm. But the surgery went well, and I expect you to have a full recovery. We’ve removed the weak tissue, but you need to give the sutures in the wall of your heart and the sutures in your chest time to heal. That means that I want you to rest today. Depending on how you feel, we’ll see about letting you sit up on the side of your bed tomorrow. And if that goes well, you can take a few steps the day after that.”

“How long until I can work?”

Gonzo took a deep breath. “That depends. Leah, I have no doubt this lesion on your heart was caused by stress. Now whether it started because you haven’t addressed your feelings from the accident or from the pressures of your job, I can’t tell you. But before you jump back into your normal life, you need to deal with it. I want you to talk to Dr. Matthews.”

“No.”

“I won’t release you to go back to work until I get a positive report from him.” As Gonzo turned to leave, he added, “The choice is yours.” Stopping at the glass wall, he looked back at Trapper. “You…out. My patient needs her rest.”

Trapper brushed her hair back off her forehead. “Call me if you want to talk.”

She snarled and looked away.