Page 96 of The Love Operation

My next case—a laminectomy and microdiscectomy—doesn’t go as smoothly as Mr. Calder’s.

It starts fine: small incision, trocar down, microscope in. Straightforward.

But they’ve assigned me a nurse anesthetist I’ve never worked with before. Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem. But just as I’m lining up my Kerrison to take a bite of the lamina, my patient starts bucking on the table, like he’s trying to sit up and sneak a peek at what’s going on inside his own spine.

“My patient is waking up!” I bark over the drapes. “Get your fucking act together up there! I enjoy my patients waking up—but not while I’m inside their spine!”

“I’m working on it!” the anesthetist calls from behind the blue drapes, Anesthesia’s domain.

But the patient keeps bucking. We’re physically holding him down.

“Lana!” I yell. “Call Anesthesia. Get someone in here who knows what they’re doing.”

“Already on it, Cord.”

Seconds later, Dr. Alan, the head of Anesthesia, bursts in. Seconds after that, my patient finally stops moving, blissfully unconscious again, but not before the field floods with blood, soaking the sponges I quickly jammed into the wound.

“Nuh-uh,” I say, watching Dr. Alan head toward the door. “Don’t you leave.”

“Cord, I’ve got several other rooms going.”

“Not my problem.” I don’t look back up. “It doesn’t have to be you, but I want someone I can count on. I want him”—I jab a finger toward the anesthetist who couldn’t keep my patient under—“out of my room.”

Dr. Alan sighs. I can practically hear the logistics spinning in his brain—short staffed, stretched thin, triaging chaos. “Don’t you think you’re being a little—”

“A little what, Dr. Alan?” I lift my gaze. “My patient just woke up while I was operating next to his spinal cord. You tell me what part of that I’m supposed to find acceptable.”

He deflates. “You’re right. Let me see what I can do. I might need to call someone in.”

“I’m really sorry,” the anesthetist murmurs once his boss exits.

“The only good thing that might come from this,” I say, still working, “is that you’ll likely never let it happen again.”

“I won’t,” he says, voice thick behind his mask.

“Now keep my patient asleep until someone relieves you.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Dahlia scoffs. “I know you didn’t just call my surgeon ma’am.”

I smile behind my mask, refocus, and return to the spine.

“There she is! My hero!”

I glance behind me, briefly wondering if I’ve walked into the wrong hospital room. Who is this jovial man in Wilton Calder’s bed?

A nurse is checking his IV and vitals.

Wilton grins broadly. “Dr. Wren, I don’t know how you did it, but my pain is gone. You’re an angel. A magician. A wizard in scrubs.”

The corners of my mouth lift. “I’m thrilled you’re feeling good, but we’ve got you on high-powered pain meds.”

He shakes his head. “I told them to hold it. Don’t like how that stuff makes me feel.”

I make eye contact with the nurse, and she shakes her head. “It’s in your IV, Mr. Calder. You’re on a hefty dose of Dilaudid.” She finishes up on the computer and smiles on her way out.

“Oh. Well, all I know is that I feel better,” he says.