Page 50 of Prognosis So Done

CHAPTER NINETEEN - 0100 HOURS

While they waited onthe saw, Helmut told some jokes. He very good at jokes with just the right sense of drama to deliver the punch line well. He also had an endless supply and was exactly what they needed right at that moment.

Harriet laughed weakly with everyone else at a one-armed

surgeon joke, blinking hard to clear a wave of dizziness that

threatened to unbalance her. She opened her eyes and was pleased to see the furniture that had been swimming in front of her eyes was firmly back on the floor.

Siobhan returned with the newly sterilised instrument, placing it on Harriet’s trolley. Harriet passed it to Gill, without dropping it, and the procedure got back on track. She glanced at the clock on the wall as she shifted from foot to

foot in her rubber theatre clogs, trying to work out a stance

where the pain was more tolerable.

Thirty minutes, she thought. Tops. All she had to do was last till the end of this procedure and then she would retire unwell, more casualties or not. She didn’t like letting the

team down but this pain was only intensifying, and just getting through this op was going to be hard enough.

She just wanted to get off her feet, take some more painkillers and curl up in bed for a while. Although she might ask Joan if she could run the hand-held ultrasound over her abdo first just to confirm it was a cyst. Harriet was beginning to become a little concerned by the ferocity of the pain.

What if it wasn’t a cyst? What if she was brewing a hot appendix?

That’d be a pretty horrid way to end a very eventful last day. She hadn’t been looking forward to the end of her rotation here — too many permanent goodbyes to be said, too much

history coming to an end — but now it couldn’t come fast enough.

Gill started to saw through the femur and Harriet shuddered as she suppressed another rush of nausea. The sawing noise wasn’t much different from sawing through wood but knowing it was human bone lent a certain gruesome quality to the procedure.

After some furtive position changes, Harriet worked out a stance that helped with the pain mostly by leaning into the operating table for support. It was still there but the intensity was less and until the operation was over it was going to have to do.

Next came the bone-shortening stage of the operation which Harriet knew Gill always took great care with because if he got the length wrong, it could set the patient’s recovery back. And if he didn’t smooth the end of the bone properly, uneven prominences could be damaging to surrounding tissue, cause pressure and irritation and even make it too painful to wear a prosthesis.

She knew he had to get the basics right now so it didn’t complicate any further surgical procedures. But Harriet was about ready to scream by the time Gill was satisfied that the muscle and skin would adequately cover the bone and that the bone was smooth enough and everything was good for the next lot of surgeons.

She blinked as a bead of sweat ran into her eye and gripped the table as a surge of dizziness made her sway a little. She could feel the threatening nausea and didn’t know how much longer she could stand here.

God...something was very wrong.

The pain in the last ten minutes had kicked up another notch. It felt like someone had stuck a hot, sharp knife into

her side and was twisting it back and forth.

This was now much worse than the time she’d had her cyst aspirated. Was it much bigger this time or had it ruptured? Or was it something else? She’d never had appendicitis and if it was that, had it ruptured? The knife twisted again and Harriet

suppressed the moan that sprang to her lips.

‘Harry? Did you hear me?’

Harriet blinked, shaking the fog out of her brain, and the two Gills she could see merged into one.

‘Dressing. We’re done here.’

Harriet almost cheered as, with shaking hands, she passed him a non-adhesive dressing to place on the open wound. Lifting the leg so he could wrap a bandage around it took a supreme effort. Her arms felt like they couldn’t support a leaf, let alone half a limb, but she gritted her teeth, biting down on the sob that almost escaped.

‘Higher,’ said Gill, trying to wrap the last of the bandage

down the thigh to anchor it a little.

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