Weekend Fling with the Surgeon

She rewarded him with a smile, then, giving in to whatever that volcano-like warmth inside her was, she leaned in, meaning to press a kiss to his mouth.

“McKenzie!”

Pausing mid-pucker, she glanced toward the direction she’d heard her name called from.

Across the room, an elderly man was lying on the floor with several people huddled over him. Jeremy’s uncle Daniel!

McKenzie and Ryder rushed over to where he lay. “What happened?”

“We’re not sure. One minute he was talking and the next he went pale, then collapsed to the floor.”

Jeremy’s uncle and aunt had come over to her soon after they’d arrived and given her a big hug, asking her about her life in Seattle, and saying how proud they were of her and her accomplishments. Now, the sweet man in his early sixties was unconscious.

“He’s breathing, but shallow,” Ryder told her from where they stooped over him.

They loosened his shirt buttons and Ryder bent to listen to his chest.

“His heartbeat is bradycardic.”

“Pulses are faint, thready,” she added, her finger against the unconscious man’s left radial artery.

“Is he okay?” someone asked as McKenzie continued to press her finger against the man’s wrist.

“We’re not sure,” she admitted, propping his feet up onto a nearby chair to increase blood flow to his heart. “Has he ever blacked out before? Any known health problems?”

She was used to dealing with kids but had done multiple adult rotations during her residency. Some things were basic medicine. This was one of them.

“Diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol,” an older woman began spouting out. His wife looked as if she might collapse herself any moment.

“He had a stent placed in his right coronary artery a few years back but has done well since that time. I don’t recall him ever having passed out, not even before his stent.”

Had the stent placed in one of the main arteries supplying his heart with oxygenated blood become blocked again?

“Grab my purse,” she ordered Callie, for the sole reason she was the first person McKenzie made eye contact with when she glanced up. She had a resuscitation mouth guard in her bag that she carried with her at all times.

Just in case.

She motioned for her brother to help Jeremy’s aunt sit down as McKenzie dialed 911. Regardless of why Uncle Daniel had passed out, he needed a full medical workup as his risk factors were high. They needed to get an ambulance on the way STAT.

“Do you have his blood sugar meter with you?”

It was unlikely the man’s sugar had bottomed out since they’d just eaten, but anything was possible.

Ryder had leaned down and was pressing his ear against the man’s chest to listen to his heart sounds.

“I have one in my purse,” someone else said, grabbing her bag and dumping the contents onto a nearby table so she could quickly hand over a clear bag that held a glucometer, a tube of test strips, some lancets and a few disposable gloves.

“Daniel,” she said to the unconscious man just in case he could hear her. “I’m going to check your blood sugar. In just a minute you’re going to feel a stick in your finger.”

With her cell phone held between her shoulder and her ear, McKenzie reported his status to the dispatcher while she slipped on a glove, pulled the protective cover off one of the lancets and poked the tip of the man’s finger. Taking one of the test strips, she pressed the edge to the drop of blood.

Within seconds, the machine flashed with the reading.

“Two hundred and sixty-one.” Much too high, but not the cause of the man’s syncope.

What worried McKenzie the most was his lack of response to her sticking him with the needle. He’d barely made a sound at what should have triggered a pain response.

Her gaze met Ryder’s and she knew he was thinking the same thing.