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“Only one of the new nurses was allowed to scrub in, Jo,” Ali began. “I want you to know that there’s many reasons why you are going in there. Not just because Vincent wants you there. You have a gift, and I want you to continue to thrive on that gift.” Jo smiled, through her mask, but Ali wasn’t quite finished. “If things get rough in there, though, I’m going to be forced to pull you out and put Sue Ellen back in, it’s not personal. I hope you know that.”
She turned on her heel and went through the door. In a way, Jo felt like Ali was scolding her over something, but Jo knew that in the hospital, Ali would have to be the boss and take matters in her own hands, if necessary. She would accept whatever happened.
Jo entered the OR, where Vincent was still awake. But only for a few moments, just in time for him to look up and see she was there. He gave a smile as the anesthesiologist worked on giving him the medicine to drug him up. As they waited, Ali showed Jo the setup and gave her a brief rundown of how things would work.
“Dr. Maples is a phenomenal surgeon,” she said. “Vincent couldn’t ask for a better surgeon to be working on him. That eased Jo’s mind. The door opened, and he entered. He seemed to have a pleasant disposition as he greeted her and then looked over to Vincent.
“Do you like Jazz?” he asked.
Jo quirked up an eyebrow, and Ali gave a slight giggle. “Um, yeah?” Jo began.
She saw the grin in his eyes as he nodded. “The radio is over there.” He motioned with his head, and Jo turned to find that he wasn’t kidding.
“It soothes him,” Ali whispered.
Jo was fine with whatever he needed as long as they got Vincent through the surgery and on the road to recovery. She flipped on the radio, and it immediately began playing softly, echoing through the OR.
“Shall we begin?” he asked.
“Absolutely,” Ali replied. Jo quickly stepped up beside her, nervous as to what she should expect with her first surgery. For the start of it, it was relatively easy. He would ask for surgical instruments and Ali would hand them to him if it was on one cart, while Jo would take care of the other cart. She kept checking Vincent’s vitals as she wanted to make sure nothing spiked and was sighing with relief that he was stable through the first part of the surgery.
Once he got the abdominal cavity opened, Jo glanced over his body and looked. Her breath hitched. She didn’t know what she was looking for, but she saw a mass of organs that all seemed to be intertwined like a puzzle. She fell back on her heels and waited for him to call out more instruments.
“How are you doing?” Ali whispered.
Jo swallowed the lump that had developed in her throat but didn’t utter a response. “Ah, look here,” Dr. Maples replied. Ali first looked over, and her facial expression dropped.
“What?” Jo asked, leaning in.
“You can see that the small intestine is obstructed,” Ali quietly stated. It’s twisted right there, and that’s causing blood flow to back up on distal portions of the intestines.”
“How does someone fix that?” Jo asked. She wasn’t quite sure what all that meant but knew it couldn’t be good.
“I’ll remove a part of bowel,” Dr. Maples chimed in.
Jo shot him a look, but he seemed so nonchalant over it. “There’s no other way?”
“If I nick the intestine, he could be worse off. We don’t want to take that chance.” She had to trust him that he knew what he was talking about, but her mind immediately became as jumbled as Vincent’s intestines were. Dr. Maples went back to barking out orders for the instruments as he worked to remove the portion.
“Oh no,” he mumbled. “He’s starting to hemorrhage.
The room started spinning, but Jo had no other choice except to jump into action and help Ali remove the blood as it spurted out. She felt the sweat threatening to drip as her chest frantically raced. She had to do everything she could to save him, but she couldn’t face one more obstacle, without losing it completely.
Johanna
Should I be doing more? There were moments as Vincent was bleeding, that Jo wondered if she should be doing more than she was. But she was there to grab the extra supply of blood and hook it up to him. She kept her heart from beating out of her chest, and she desperately worked to fix everything. She had never moved so fast. And then, just when she thought one thing was getting better, he went into V-Fib.
“I’m going to shock him,” Ali said. She went and grabbed the defibrillator, then went back and turned on the machine. Jo’s eyes went to his small face. He had no idea what was going on with his body, and all she could do was watch.
“We’re losing him,” Jo said, glancing up at his pulse. The machine beeped, and she stared, dumbfounded. Ali shocked him twice, and then the machine stopped beeping, and his pulse came back. She released the breath she had been holding as tears threatened to fall from her eyes. She glanced at Ali, and Dr. Maples quickly went back to work. He continued to call out instruments, but she felt like things had stabilized, and Jo could breathe again.
From the corner of her eye, she caught Ali staring at her, but she didn’t dare turn to look at her, or she would have wound up in a puddle of tears. She got through the surgery, and so did Vincent, but there were way too many moments of uncertainty.
“I’m going to go let his mom know that the surgery is over. Thank you to both of you.” As he passed her, he reached out and touched her arm, giving it a gentle squeeze. It didn’t go unnoticed that she was a nervous wreck when it came to watching the struggles that the surgery had put Vincent’s poor body through.
“I’m going to take him to the room for recovery,” Jo mumbled. Ali glanced at her, like she wanted to say something, but Jo feared it would just be telling her what a horrible job she did, and she wasn’t ready to face those words. Not from Ali.
It was a long walk, alone, to the recovery room. But in the elevator, she could focus on what she would say to Ali. Maybe she wasn’t able to handle being a nurse. It was probably better that she figured that out now than wasting anyone else’s time. She would go to Ali and decide that she would find another career. She still had plenty of years to figure out what that career choice would be, but she would start taking a look.
