From: "M. Cogburn" Date: Sat, 5 Dec 1998 13:50:45 -0600 Subject: Portraits Of The Past, Part 18 Chapter Eighteen He hated the disorientation he felt when leaping. He was in a solid white room laying on the bed. He sat up worriedly. Where was he? No one else was in the room to answer his question even if he had asked it aloud. The door suddenly opened and a young nurse stood before him. "Dr. Connell, we have a depressed fracture of the skull with subcranial bleeding and lacerations coming in." Sam jumped off the bed as he realized who he leapt into. Margaret. Her name flashed through his mind and he quickly responded to the nurse's statement. He followed her through the hall and entered the scrub room. He wasn't going to let anyone else work on her. He scrubbed his hands up to his elbows then held his hands up in the air to shake the drops of water from them. He leaned forward as a particularly short nurse gave assistance in placing the green surgical mask over his mouth and nose, then turned to let another assist in putting on the surgical gloves. "Are you all right, Dr. Connell?" The short scrub nurse asked as she began to follow him. "Just fine." He remarked although he wasn't fine. He could tell that he was extremely nervous and shaky. He didn't like operating on someone he knew -- especially someone he had spent a night with. He closed his eyes. "Is she here?" He questioned as they headed toward the swinging doors. He knew that every moment counted with any kind of subcranial injury. "She? How'd you know it was a girl?" She asked as she raised her eyebrows. The surgery doors opened and they stepped inside. Margaret Dawson had IV needles, blood pressure gauges, tubes down her throat, fluids going in and out. Sensors were taped to her head, wires trailing over the edge of the table meeting together in a plastic tube. Her chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm. Her eyes weren't exactly closed. The machinery hummed in the background. Sam approached her and his chin began to quiver. "Oh, Margaret." "You know her?" The short nurse asked incredibly. Sam nodded. "Let's go. There's no time to lose." "But, you can't . . ." Sam glared at the nurse over the surgical mask. "I said, lets go." Even as Sam stated it, he heard the Imaging Chamber door open and close in the room. "Pray for me Al." "No problem." Al stated quietly. In moments, the surgical ER was all business. The machine's hummed making sure breathing, heartbeat, blood pressure and blood gases remained steady. Within moments, Sam laid bare the skull beneath the skin. The bone was pink. It looked as an egg would, as if someone had struck it hard with a pen: a shallow, concave area, a well filling with blood, visibly cracked with one or two fragments missing. "Damn, I hope they weren't driven into the brain underneath." He probed the well carefully, and grunted with dismay when a fragment of bone shifted under the tip of the scalpel. "How we doing?" "Just fine." The anesthesiologist, was paying more attention to his instruments than to the patient before him. "We're steady and within limits, seventy-five over one-hundred ten." As the words came out, the machine squawked. "Shit. Oh, hell. This is not good. BP's dropping --" "Sam, you're losing her." "I know, Al." The team swung into emergency status. A controlled frenzy came over them as each person took the necessary steps to try to bring Margaret back from the brink. "Come on, honey, come on." Sam said as he worked on her. The electroencephalograph readings, reflected on a monitor overhead, jumped and slid crazily. At last the anesthesiologist said, "I've got pressure." "Stable?" "Pretty much. I think I can keep her going until you close, at least." "I thought we had flatline." The short scrub nurse muttered. Sam looked down at the open surgical field, the cracked and splintered bone, the gleam of brain tissue peeking through. He knew he had to be extremely careful. He knew that if his knife skipped the sum of human knowledge could be reduced perhaps irreparably. The left temporal lobe controlled speech, the voice. She could suffer seizures for the rest of her life -- chronic temporal lobe epilepsy. He teased away a fragment of bone lying across the tear in the dura mater. The fragment was dull with cells. He removed the other remaining fragments then began to close the wound with sutures. Once done, he sighed, then glanced to the surgical team. "Good work, guys." He closed his eyes and stepped outside of the surgical room along with Al and took a deep breath. He leaned against the wall for support as he sighed. "Please, God, let her be okay." One week later . . . Being Dr. John Connell was easily set as for as Sam was concerned. He wasn't married and he wasn't dating. From what Al had told him, Dr. Connell mostly stayed at the hospital with his patients -- which was fine for Sam. When he first went in to see Margaret two days ago, she had looked horrible. She looked as if a vampire had been at her, draining every drop of color from her face, except for the dark bruises under her eyes. She had looked shrunken and helplessly vulnerable. Now, as he looked in on her, her color had improved but the shadow like bruises still remained. She still had an IV tube taped to her arm to keep it in place. Tubes hanging from an IV tree, dripped clear liquid into her system. They had taken the tubes that went into her mouth, but the ones to her nostrils still remained. There was a sharp knock at the door. The nurse stuck her head in. "There's someone here to see Ms. Dawson. Wanted to get you're approval." Sam went to the door and spotted Jason standing at the nurses station. Without even asking his name, he motioned him into the room. Jason went immediately to her side. He picked up her hand from off the bed and held it gingerly and kissed it. "Margaret?" Margaret's eyes slowly opened. Her vision blurred then focused on Jason. She half-grinned at him. "Jason?" Her voice was scratchy and hoarse. "I've been here since you got here. They told me that I couldn't see you until Dr. Connell said it was okay." He turned to Sam and asked, "Is Margaret going to be okay?" Sam was about to respond when a gravely voice answered. "Yes, she will." "Yes." Sam supplied with a smile. He grabbed her chart at the foot of the bed and went to the far corner of the room to give the two of them some privacy and so he and Al could talk. "Is she really okay, Al?" he questioned. "Okay? Yeah. She graduates valedictorian, then in four years graduates with a suma cum laude." "What field?" Sam asked surprised. "Does it matter?" Al asked critically raising one bushy eyebrow. "No." "Well, isn't it about time for you to leap?" Al questioned. "Almost." Sam walked back to the end of the bed and placed the chart back on it's hook. "Jason, I think you should go home and get some rest. Then when you come back, we'll have an extra bed in here for you. Okay?" Jason grinned. "Thanks Doc. I appreciate all you've done." Jason stood and shook Sam's hand. As he looked into his eyes, he asked, "Have we met before?" Sam quickly looked away. "No. I don't think so." Jason nodded, turned, kissed Margaret on her forehead then left. Sam checked the fluids in her IV then turned to leave. "Doctor?" Sam turned back. "You should rest." Margaret shook her head. Talking, even moving exhausted her but she had to talk to him before he left. "Doctor?" Both Al and Sam approached Margaret as she laid still. "Yes?" Margaret grinned. "My wish came true -- the night we had together just holding each other." Tears came quickly to her eyes as she watched the two men look at each other then back to her. "Sam," Her throat was failing her but she had to ask him. "Sam, would you have . . . you know . . . if I had let you?" She asked as hot tears slowly caressed her cheeks. "I don't know, Margaret. But, I do have a feeling that it could have happened." Al, who thought that they had sex, looked around the room as if curious of what material it was made of. Watching him, Margaret smiled. Her eyes slowly came back to Sam as he stepped closer to her to take her hand. "I love you, Dr. Samuel John Beckett." Sam smiled as a tear welled up in his own eye. He leaned down and softly kissed her nose. "I love you, too." He felt the tingling sensation rising from his extremities and filling him completely. He glanced at Al one last time. Al turned to him knowing he was about to leap. "You did a good job." "You too." And he leaped.