The thing about arrogant men was that they had altogether too high an opinion of themselves to be likeable.
Yet Louis was wholly unaffected by his stark male beauty, and he didn’t take himself too seriously. He made her laugh.
It didn’t fit.
Still, she couldn’t afford to dwell on it. Forget her illicit fantasies about him, he was standing right in front of her, right now, and he was all professional. The way she always prided herself on being.
She pulled her head back in the game, relieved to realise that she hadn’t missed a beat.
‘Yes, I completed the handover twenty minutes ago. She appeared calm despite the circumstances. Blood pressure was one-twenty over seventy and heart rate was eighty-four beats per minute. Intravenous access was difficult, probably as a result of the hypovolaemia and the suspected internal bleeding, but she did have a cannula in situ, which we used.’
‘You used it for general anaesthetic induction?’
‘Right, then we intubated.’ Alex nodded. ‘There was an initial delay of results for the carbon dioxide output but the tubes were in correctly, there was misting and the chest was rising symmetrically. I began manual ventilation, which I thought felt restricted, and when I listened to her chest I heard wheezing. I had already started to suspect anaesthesia-related anaphylaxis, which was when I told them to alert you to the situation.’
There had been no need for Louis to come in. As the anaesthetist, this was within her remit rather than his, but she could understand why he wanted to see for himself. In many respects she was still an unknown quantity to his team. Typically Louis.
‘You’re using her foot—?’
‘To gain additional venous access? Yes,’ Alex cut in, straightening up with a satisfied nod and taking the bag of colloid fluid from her team. ‘Good. Right, let’s start infusing and get her blood pressure back up and her cardiovascular volume. Freddie, start drawing up another point one milligrams of adrenalin.’
But before she could ge
t much further the patient went into cardiac arrest.
‘I’ll start compressions.’ Louis moved instinctively to the table, allowing her to continue administering the adrenalin.
They both knew that while in ordinary circumstances the surgical procedure would be called to a halt, due to the acute nature of the internal bleeding, it wasn’t an option in this situation. She had no choice but to get it under control.
Good thing she’d never been one to crumble under pressure.
Still, it was a relief when Louis confirmed cardiac output had been regained and Alex was able to insert both a central and femoral line, even as she issued further instructions to her team to treat the anaphylaxis before continuing their pre-op procedures.
‘You’re re-administering anaesthesia?’ He frowned, still watching her closely.
Her pride kicked in. She couldn’t help it.
‘I thought I might.’ The tongue-in-cheek tone was clear but now the patient was stable, and after the tension the team had been under a little dark humour always worked to buoy morale. It was just the way hospitals seemed to work, in her opinion.
It wouldn’t make the team work any better to keep stress levels high. Still, she kept her eyes on the monitoring equipment as she spoke.
‘If it’s internal bleeding then I can’t imagine you could afford to postpone the operation, and with all the excitement the last thing the patient needs is to come out of the anaesthetic in mid-operation, wouldn’t you agree?’
‘Never preferable,’ he agreed, as she concluded her tasks and gave him a slight nod. ‘We’re ready?’
‘Ready,’ she confirmed, knowing that, even if the surgery was carried out quickly and without incident, the post-operative management was going to be crucial.
It was going to be a long night. And yet, when the patient came out of it treated and cared for, it made it feel like the best job in the world.
If only she didn’t have Louis to deal with at the end of it.
* * *
‘Good call on the anaphylaxis case.’
Alex visibly stiffened as he called to her from across the atrium. It was a deliberate ploy on his part so she couldn’t continue to duck out, having pretended not to see him, as she had been doing for the last nine hours.
And the atrium was the perfect trap. During the day it was a bustling hub of staff, visitors and mobile patients. Right now, it was relatively deserted, save for the trio around Alex’s small table. It was one of the reasons he’d chosen this moment to corner her, when the fewest people were gawking. But she didn’t need to know that.