Page 22 of Dr. Grump's Surprise Baby

“I wasn’t trying to debate it,” Emily said, and then she realized that with every word she said, she was delaying him. “Sorry. Right. Go. Do you want me to get a nurse?”

“Scrub up,” Dr. Berger said. “You’re coming in with me.”

“What?” She hadn’t been a part of any surgical procedures yet, beyond observing during her rotations at medical school. It was something that would have happened as a standard part of their internship, of course, but it was early for it.

“I’m going to need an assist in there, and I want you to come,” Dr. Berger said. “You need to decide right now if you’re coming or going. I don’t have time to talk you into it. And once you’re in the OR, you doeverythingI tell you to do, exactly as I tell you how to do it. You don’t question me. You listen and you obey, and that’s it.”

“I… okay,” Emily said.

As she scrubbed up for surgery, she felt a sense of disbelief that this was happening. She was really about to stand in on a surgical procedure. She didn’t know if she was ready — but at the same time, she knew she wouldn’t consider turning down an opportunity like this one. She would just have to rise to the occasion.

And Dr. Berger was right about one thing — she would have to comply with every instruction he gave her today. There was no room for her ideas, not in a situation like this one. It wasn’t like it had been with the Wilson family, when it had been sensible for her to offer her perspective and stay behind to give them advice and consolation after Dr. Berger had broken the news. This was a surgical procedure. He objectively knew what he was doing and she didn’t, and even if she disagreed with something along the way, she would have to ignore that and fall in line.

She could do that.

She went into the operating room. Dr. Berger was already there, and so was the surgical assistant. “All right,” he said to Emily. “You’re ready for this?”

“I’m ready,” she said.

“What do we do first?”

“You’re asking me?”

“Yes, I’m asking you. If you can’t keep your head on straight and answer my questions, excuse yourself now. What do we do first?”

Emily knew the answer to that. “Locate the source of the bleeding.”

“Good. I want you to monitor his vitals while I do this.” He began to scan the patient’s body. “Okay, here. Looks like a punctured spleen. We should be able to repair this. You’re all right, Dr. Swinton?”

“I’m fine.” She wasn’t fazed. In fact, she was surprised at how easily she was taking this in stride. She hadn’t known until this moment that she was ready.

She began to monitor the patient’s vitals, as she had been instructed to do. It was a straightforward task, so she was able to watch what Dr. Berger was doing as well. He seemed as if he had done this a hundred times before, which she knew couldn’t possibly be true. She didn’t know how many surgeries he had been a part of, but she did know that every procedure was different. He had never been a part of one exactly like this.

They went through the procedure. It was lengthy, and Emily found herself amazed at Dr. Berger’s steady confidence. He moved quickly and skillfully, his hands never shaking as he handled the tools. He talked through everything as he did it, ensuring that Emily understood every step of the process, not allowing her to fall behind.

By the time they were finished, Emily felt physically exhausted, but her mind was so alert that she hardly noticed. It was exhilarating. The patient was taken to recovery, and Emily cleaned up and went to meet Dr. Berger in his office.

He was waiting for her with a cup of coffee, which he pushed across the desk toward her. “Drink,” he said.

Emily picked it up and took a sip, realizing as she did so that her hands were shaking slightly.

“It’s the adrenaline,” Dr. Berger said. “You had steady hands in the OR. I was watching.”

“I always thought I had steady hands.” She held them out in front of her, willing them to stop. “This has never happened before.”

“It happened to me the first time I scrubbed in, too,” he told her. “It’s normal. That was a lot of pressure for you to deal with. What’s important is that you managed to hold off your body’s reaction while you had to. You stayed calm and did your job. You did well in there, Dr. Swinton.” He took a drink of his own coffee. “Emily.”

“Thank you,” she murmured. “Thank you for trusting me with it.”

“I wasn’t doing you any favors, you know. I needed your help,” he said. “I wouldn’t have let you in there if I didn’t believe you were up to the task. But you were.”

Emily nodded. “Do you think the patient is going to be all right?”

“He should be. The bleeding has stopped. He’s in for a hell of a recovery, and if the blood results show that he was driving under the influence… well, he’s lucky he only hit a tree, that’s all I’ll say about that. But in terms of staying alive, yes, he’s going to be fine.”

“You were amazing,” Emily said.

He raised his eyebrows. “No constructive criticism? No opinion about how I could be doing things better?”

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