Page 54 of Prognosis So Done

Gill recovered first. ‘Let’s go, people,’ he barked tersely.

The team resumed their duties. Joan injected the milky anaesthetic agent into Harriet’s IV and Gill watched, relieved, as her eyes drifted shut and the muscle relaxant smoothed the lines of anguish on her face. He looked away while Harriet was intubated. It was a procedure he’d seen a thousand times, a

necessary requirement for surgery, but he just couldn’t bear

to watch.

Siobhan cut Harriet’s scrubs away, preserving as much of

her modesty as possible, and Gill prepped her abdo with Betadine then quickly draped her body. He couldn’t stand to see her lying there so exposed.

Harriet was comfortable with her nudity, sure, but this wasn’t a beach. It was a cold operating theatre in a strange country and these weren’t random strangers, they were her friends and colleagues.

When he looked back at Joan she had completed the intubation and Gill swallowed hard as she taped Harriet’s not quite closed eyes shut. The large plastic tube protruding from Harriet’s mouth and tied to her beautiful face looked so brutal.

She didn’t look like Harriet, his wife, his lover. Harriet, who he had made love to only that morning. Harriet, who had thrust the divorce papers at him. She looked pale and thin and small and... ill. An edge of desperation rose in him, a moment of panic at all the possible adverse outcomes.

He thought back to all the complicated operations he had

performed over the last ten years. This was so simple in comparison, a lot simpler than the amputation he’d just performed, but the stakes had never been higher.

Trying to mentally prepare himself for what he was about to

do, he understood why surgeons weren’t allowed to operate on relatives. The crush of emotions crowding his head and filling his chest made concentration impossible.

And what if he failed?

What if he couldn’t stop the bleeding and she bled out?

What if he couldn’t do what she’d asked him to do? What if he couldn’t save her tube?

Suddenly he wished Benedetto was doing the operation instead. That Harriet’s life and fertility weren’t his sole

responsibility. He wished he could just pace up and down the corridor outside and be free to worry and think the worst.

He couldn’t think the worst now.

He had to do his best, his very best, and that was all he could think about. He was it. It was his responsibility.

‘Go, Gill,’ said Joan.

He didn’t need to be told twice. ‘Scalpel,’ he said, holding out his hand.

He took a deep steadying breath and made a midline vertical incision from below her umbilicus straight down to her pubic bone. He thought about the scar it would make and wondered if that would prevent her from nude sun-baking.

His hand shook slightly as he made a smaller vertical incision in the fascia and then lengthened the fascial incision, using scissors. He could see the rectus muscle and used the scissors to separate it.

Below was the shiny peritoneal lining and he used his gloved fingers to make a small opening in it near the umbilicus and then used the scissors to lengthen the incision. The object was to be able to view the entire uterus but all he could see was blood.

So much blood.

Oh, Jesus. His pulse pounded through his ears and neck and belly. Don’t die, Harry. Please, don’t die.

‘Suction,’ he said, knowing that he sounded panicky but he couldn’t see a goddam thing and he needed to clear it so he could clamp the arteries and stop the bleeding.

He tried to control his panic as the continuous welling of blood slurped down the suction tubing and spat into the bottle, filling one and half filling the next. And he tried not to think the worst as he manually removed the clots and tissue too large to go down the sucker.

Tried to divorce himself from the grisly facts and failed. The fact that her blood loss was frightening and the tissue he was touching was the remains of a tiny, tiny embryo.

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