The Sisterhood - Michael Palmer [40]
“Scalpel, please,” he said, taking the instrument from the scrub nurse. He paused, closed his eyes, and breathed in the electricity of the moment. Then he opened them and surveyed the expectant faces watching him, waiting for him. With a slight nod to the anesthesiologist and a final glance at Butterworth’s bloodless foot, he made his incision. The taut skin parted, immediately exposing the femoral artery. “Bull’s-eye,” he whispered.
In minutes the artery, stiff and heavy with clot, was isolated and controlled with two thin strips of cloth tape placed two inches apart. David made a small incision in the vessel wall between the tapes. Gently he eased a long, thin tube with a deflated balloon at the tip down the inside of the artery toward the foot. When he determined that the tip was in position, he blew up the balloon and carefully drew it back through the incision. Two feet of stringy, dark clot pushed out before David lifted the balloon free. Repeating the procedure in the opposite direction, he removed the thicker clot that had caused the obstruction in the first place. An irrigation with blood thinner, and he was ready to close. He tightened the cloth tapes to prevent blood flow through the artery, then closed his incision in the vessel with a series of tiny sutures.
For the second time in less than twenty minutes David shared a momentary gaze with each person in the room. He then took a silent, deep breath, held it, and released the tapes. Instantly, Butterworth’s foot flushed with life-giving color. A cheer burst out from the team. Textbook perfect. The whole case, textbook perfect. In absolute exhilaration, he called out the good news to Butterworth, who had slept through the entire procedure.
“That was really fine work, Dr. Shelton. That was really fine work, Dr. Shelton. That was really fine work, Dr. Shelton.” David repeated the words of the veteran scrub nurse over and over, trying to reproduce her inflection exactly. “Maybe you should give her a call and ask her to say it again so you can get it just right,” he advised himself. He had dictated an operative note, showered, and dressed. Now he was headed down the corridor of Four South to share the news of Butterworth’s successful operation with Dr. Armstrong.
He glanced at his watch. Ten of eight. His second straight late evening in the hospital. A first for him since joining the surgical staff more than eighteen months before.
Margaret Armstrong had already arrived on the floor and was seated at the nurses’ station sharing coffee and relaxed conversation with Christine Beall and the charge nurse, Winnie Edgerly. As David approached the group, his eyes were drawn to Christine. Her eyes and her smile seemed to be saying a thousand different things to him at the same time. Or maybe they were his words, his thoughts, not hers. Lauren’s jewel-perfect face flashed in his mind, but faded as the tawny eyes tightened their hold.
Dr. Armstrong’s voice pulled him free. “Yo, David,” she called out merrily. “Word is sweeping the hospital about my little man’s new foot. Bravo to you. Come, we shall toast your successful operation with a cup of this coffee.” She glanced in her cup, grimaced, then added, “If, in fact, that is what this is.”
She wore a black skirt and light blue cashmere sweater. A simple gold butterfly pin was her only jewelry. Her white clinic coat, unbuttoned, was knee length-the type reserved unofficially only for professors or those with sufficient seniority in the teaching community. Her dark wavy hair was cut short in a style perfect for her bright blue eyes and finely carved features. There was an air about her, an energy, that commanded immediate attention and respect. An article written six years before about her contributions to her field had dubbed her the