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I learn over the next few weeks to get over my hurt and pride and be in the same vicinity as Arya. My twelve-week countdown makes me painfully aware that soon I will probably never see her again and as much as it physically aches to be around her, it is much better than the impending future of nothing.
I am making my way through the trauma unit hub of emergency to collect some paperwork from the front desk when I see her prepping for surgery. Pulling her blonde locks up into a high pony as she glances over a medical chart. I can tell from her demeanor it is not an emergency patient, there is a calm of preparation in her stance.
Suddenly the front doors power open with the force of the crash team. We are not based in Accident and Emergency but we are only a hop skip and a jump away as cardiovascular needs to be easily accessible for the paramedical staff. Those seconds, in a heart attack, can make all the difference.
In my resident days, the crash of those doors would, without fail, make my heart race. Whether it would result in surgery, whether it would be me operating was always an unknown in those first few minutes. But the rush of outside air, the medic team relaying the stats, the speed and urgency of the handover all made my adrenaline surge.
And it is no different even now. I look up from my paperwork to watch my team respond. Arya is there first; in two strides she clears the waiting room and is taking in the information from the ER staff with the bed. If I hadn’t been where I was at that exact second, I would never have believed it.
“Prep theatre one.” Arya calls out as she moved to the side of the wheeling bed, “Patient history…” Arya's hands tighten around the metal bar of the hospital bed and she comes to a complete standstill. The medic is unaware of the change in Arya and continues and the bed crashes sideways knocking Arya off her feet.
“Patient is 68-year-old white female, name Camila Harris, history of drug and alcohol… Oh shit…” the paramedic stops midsentence to grip control of the bed and to try and catch Arya. But I get there first. I can see the patient has long shimmering blonde hair that is so familiar to me. Her hair is streaked though with greys. “Sorry!” He starts to apologize. “I must have clipped the wheel, are you okay?”
Arya can’t seem to move her lips so I take charge. “She is fine,” I glance at his name stitching, “He is fine, Rob.” Using his name snaps him out of his worry and gets him back to the task in hand.” If you can take the patient through to theatre one. Sarah, can you prep the room, get me the history, I need a scan and a full bloods sent off. I will prep for surgery.”
“Arya, sweetheart,” I murmur softly against her ear as I help her up. “Come on, come with me.”
I guide her up and out of the entrance off into the prep room for surgeons. She practically collapses on the small wooden changing bench and I head to the fridge returning with chilled water. “Here, take a drink. You’re in shock.”
She takes the bottle from me but just places the cool plastic against her forehead. “Okay, now breathe okay … in … and … out …” I nod, encouraging her, making eye contact with her until she is mirroring me. “That’s it. I am going to go into surgery now, okay? I am going to leave you here and when I come back, I am not going to leave your side. I will be here for as long as you need me to. But right now, I have to go and save your mom. Okay?”
She looks straight through me with those silvery blue eyes that light up my soul. They are swimming with tears. Emotions. Memories. Regret. Finally, she manages a nod and she mouths “Thank you.”
Moments like this test you as a doctor. The ability to switch off from the pressure and just channel that energy into the task at hand is crucial to success as a surgeon. Camila Harris lays on my operating table and my eyes scan her stats. It does not look good. She has a history as long as my arm of alcohol abuse, narcotics abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, domestic violence, addiction to painkillers, rehab, cognitive therapy. The kind of damage all this will have done to her body makes survival from a heart attack so much more difficult.
Her recent history is a little less detailed, it seems her latest round of court mandated rehabilitation could have been the push to get her off the drugs and booze. But the years and years of addiction have taken their toll. She is underweight, her organs neglected and her heart working much harder than it should have been for years just to compensate against the effects of the substances she was pumping into her system.
I don’t judge my patients. Never. She is no different from others who neglect their health in other ways. Hell, I could be so much better. But there is an added sadness that those choices she made robbed her of a real life with Arya.
It is for her I go to work now. I want to give Arya the chance to have a relationship with her mother that she has been too afraid to consider before now. I want her to be able to decide later, tomorrow, next week, if there is more she wants to say, things she wants to know, any bridges that can be built. I don’t want her to have it taken away in this operating theatre, under my hands and my scalpel.
I work like I am under the spotlight, with every action I take under review. Every cut, every stent, every stitch. The team seems to sense the atmosphere. They are more alert, the stats constantly monitored the slightest change repeated, reviewed.
The minutes drag into hours and I don’t let Arya into my head. I have to focus. But she hovers on the very edge of my mind.
Things start to go wrong.
“We are losing her…”
I work faster, my hands more intent. I need to find the source of the bleed. She is Arya’s mom. I need to save her.
I take a deep breath and slip out of the OR and make my way down the hall to the prep room. It is our own space to change, to decompress, to cry, to scream, to do whatever we need to do after a long hard day. Arya is in the same position as I left her but staring into space. It is like a minute hasn’t passed but the moment I enter she looks at me, her entire gaze filled with questions. I still have on my bloody scrubs and I am exhausted.
“She made it,” I say softly and I watch the air leave her body and the tightness she was holding onto releases.
“Thank you,” she murmurs.
I sit down on the bench beside her. “You never ever have to thank me. I was doing my job. I do that every single day. I am just pleased I was able to save her. It was close at times.”
“I imagine she wasn’t in the best health,” she says wryly.
“Her history has serious implications. A lot of pressure on her organs for a long time, but the bloods came back. She is clean and sober. She seems to have been for months, maybe even a couple of years.”
Arya took a deep breath in and nodded. “Okay, that’s good. Good for her recovery I mean. She will need to stay that way now. Focus on her health and rehabilitation. I guess they will need to be mindful of her meds after. Minimal pain relief, no opioid-based medications and she is …” she turns to me and catches my smile … “has been treated by the best doctor I know and therefore all that is already on her file.” She finishes and I laugh.
“Yes. It is all there, although you can check if you want. Make sure I didn’t miss anything?” It is a gesture of comfort. I know I haven’t and she knows I haven’t but she nods anyway and shuffles and I take my cue.
“She is in room 6a. If you want to go and see her, although she will be out for another hour or so yet I would think …
