Second First Kiss

Chapter 24

Sage

Part of Sage wanted to pull Jasher aside and say, You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to help him. Send him to the city. Or just let McGreeley be the surgeon. But there was some kind of steely determination setting his jaw and his eye. She shouldn’t try to pry it away. It was what made Jasher … Jasher.

Jasher Hotchkiss is the bravest, most magnanimous doctor I’ve ever seen in action. And maybe not just among doctors, but also among men.

What man would boldly save the life of a person who’d made his life miserable for a decade? A man who sent people after him with pitchforks, if the rumors were true?

Only Jasher Hotchkiss.

Everyone assembled around the operating table, and the theater’s lights were switched on all at once, banishing the dimness of the pre-op. Sage had been among the first in the room and had already begun the anesthetic application by guiding the laryngoscope down the trachea and inserting the endotracheal tube to keep the patient safe from potential aspiration of vomit during general anesthesia—glad, all of a sudden, that she’d been given a practice round on Babbage a couple of weeks ago.

Sage worked carefully but swiftly. Time was of the essence for Mr. Calhoun. Cade. Someone she knew—whose future hung in the balance.

Soon, it was time. Jasher took the floor to describe the procedure.

“We have a patient, Mr. Cade Calhoun, with vertebral compression fractures in both his T1 and T2 vertebrae. Today we will perform a vertebroplasty, inserting bone cement into the fracture.” Jasher kept a calm demeanor, as if he were about to perform a textbook example, not blazing a new surgical trail for himself. “Assisting me will be Dr. David McGreeley. Head nurse is …”

Jasher went through the process of introductions and description of what would occur in the operating room over the next dozen hours.

“With all your assistance and focus, we should have a patient who keeps not only his life but also his mobility. Let’s begin.”

It was a grueling surgery. Long hours of careful dexterity, hot lights, fragments of bone to remove and adjust and cement back into place. The clock’s second hand crawled around and around the face of the timepiece.

Sage kept steady the delicate balance of isoflurane for maintenance of the patient’s sleep and fentanyl for pain management. The pulse oximeter read Cade’s blood oxygen levels from his fingertip. So far so good, five hours into the surgery.

Sage dabbed her own brow. Everyone in the room needed a forehead swab. This was basically uncharted territory for Mendon Regional Medical Center. Cases like this were flown out. Always.

After a day on the reservoir, holding the tow rope, Sage’s arms were tired. Jasher’s had to be feeling the same. She could use some caffeine—but Jasher didn’t look the least bit like he was fading. That had to be the adrenaline.

Jasher talked McGreeley through the delicate task of filling the long hollow needle with the bone cement, inserting it into the fracture using a microscope, and repeating it over and over until both bones had been patched. Any wrong move or slip of his wrist, and the dura, the watertight protective sac of tissue surrounding the spinal column, could tear.

Jasher needed an extremely steady hand—so, basically, no to the caffeine.

Sage could barely breathe. Good thing she didn’t have a pulse oximeter on her own fingertip.

At last, a dozen hours later, Jasher stepped backward. “Dr. McGreeley, will you close, please?”

The entire team applauded Jasher. He met Sage’s eyes for the first time in a couple of hours. He looked exhausted and relieved and … a lot of other things, too.

“Sage, please begin emergence procedures for Mr. Calhoun.”

“Good job, doctor.” McGreeley patted Jasher’s shoulder. “Didn’t think you had it in you, frankly.”

“Thanks for keeping that to yourself until after the surgery, Dave.”

“No problem.” McGreeley stitched up the incision as Sage began to pull back on the isoflurane. Soon she would administer desflurane intravenously to bring Cade out of the anesthesia.

Jasher left, but a few minutes later, he reappeared, this time out of his gown but still in hospital scrubs. He looked as tired as Sage felt—and her very soul was beginning to droop.

“Aren’t you tired, Dr. Hotchkiss?” she asked. “That was a grueling surgery. Maybe you should go lie down for a bit.”

He met her eyes. “I want to make sure he comes around all right.” He didn’t look away. “And thank you. I’m glad you were here to help.”

“Looks like two people in this room have matching sunburns.” McGreeley spoke up. “Got an explanation for that?”

How could anyone even see her sunburn beneath the surgical cap and gown and mask?