Page 72 of Rookie Days

Yep.Even after two years, her sheer intensity and the heated glint in her eyes when she said things like that still made Lia’s blood sing. She was convinced that it would never change.

“Tell me again,” she whispered.

“You are my wife.” Quinn seized her wrists and held them just above her head when Lia tried to touch her back, holding her down just tight enough to make Lia shiver with desire. “You belong to me. Say it.”

Lia watched her blue eyes burn and a sizzling smile dance on her lips. Quinn was all tenderness and strength with a hint of wickedness thrown in.Mine,Lia thought.To keep and love forever.And such a perfect play partner... She easily stole a kiss, watched hunger and lust flash across her wife’s eyes, and delivered the perfect answer.

“Make me.”

???

“Shit! We’re losing her!”

The young anesthesiologist who stared at her with frantic eyes from behind his pair of small round glasses, Janet reflected, needed to either change his tune or shut the hell up. They were finishing up after operating on a seventy-four-year-old female patient, to remove a cancerous tumor from her brain. Everything had gone well during the op. Even better, the cancer seemed not to have spread. The woman was healthy, in brilliant shape for her age actually, and Janet was feeling hopeful that she would recover well from this ordeal. Satisfied, she had just finished re-attaching the bone flap at its original location when, for some inexplicable reason, the patient went into cardiac arrest. Now, even after two straight shocks from the defibrillator, the line on the heartrate monitor was just as flat.

“Dammit. She’s gone.”

“No, she’s not. Shut up.” Janet snarled at her inexperienced colleague. “She’s doing great.” Taking hold of the unconscious woman’s hand, she held it firmly in hers. And with a gentler but no less commanding tone, she added, “Mrs. Walters. The op was a success. It’s time to come back now.”

The stressed-out, baffled anesthesiologist, quietly complied with her directive to shock her again. Then, the entire medical team, which included him, an attending nurse, a junior surgeon who’d assisted for part of the op, and Janet herself, all went still. Everyone held their breath as they stared at the green line on the monitor screen for a few more agonizing seconds. When nothing happened, and the patient still failed to respond, Janet returned to chest compressions.

“Increase adrenaline to one mg, Debbie,” she instructed the nurse, a seasoned operator who was a lot calmer than the newbie doctor. Again, she spoke to her patient. “Mrs. Walters, I know you can hear me. Remember Mike? Your husband is counting on you to pull through, okay? Come back to us now.”

Janet pumped, one eye on the HRM machine and the other on the woman’s pale face.

“Come on, Jennifer!”Dammit.“One more time. Shock her.”

“Yes doctor. Ready.”

“Do it.”

Janet moved away to avoid being shocked herself, and they all watched the woman’s body arch on the table, then fall back. Janet started pumping again. She also stared at the machine with mounting fury.

“Jennifer! Stop messing around!” Finally, the line quivered. One tentative heartbeat. Then two. “There you go!” Janet yelled in triumph and encouragement. “More! Come on, I know you can do it!”

She laughed in relief as a steady rhythm was re-established, and held. Nurse Debbie’s large blue eyes crinkled with a smile under her surgical mask.

“Well done, Dr Fox.”

Janet leaned forward to speak close to her patient’s ear.

“Good for you, Jennifer. You did great. Keep it going now. Remember your wedding anniversary coming up soon. And the Caribbean cruise you’re going on with Mike. All the margaritas, hey? You have a lot to live for.”

As Debbie went on to deal with post-op arrangements and care, Janet followed her other two colleagues to the prep room. The junior surgeon, Dr Wong, had done a good job. She told him so and dismissed him. Anesthesiologist, Dr Bruce Edie, looked slightly green as she turned to him. Janet gave it to him straight and simple.

“So, listen. You ever start going on about losing patients, and people being‘gone’in the OR when I’m working on them, I’ll make sure you never work again. Got it?”

“Yes.” He swallowed. “I’m sorry, doctor, I was—”

“I don’t need an apology,” Janet interrupted. “Or an excuse. Just learn, okay? If you need to, go back to the library and read up on the literature.”

“Doctor?” he frowned uncertainly.

“OBEs, NDEs, all that stuff. Educate yourself. Patients may look like they are out of it under anesthetic, and sometimes no longer with us, if their heart stops. But that’s not true. While you were panicking and running your mouth today, there is a chance the good Mrs. Walters was watching you from a corner of the ceiling.”

His eyes widened but he said nothing.

“Do. Not. Ever,” Janet went on, clearly enunciating each word, “predict a patient’s death out loud in the middle of an op. People hear and see a lot more than you think. I don’t give up on my patients, Dr Edie. I don’t work with anyone who’s inclined to do otherwise.”

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