Read Nursing The Doctor for Free Online Page B

time for you to wake up now, your operation’s over and you’re in recovery.”
    His mouth was dry and there was an immense weight sitting on his chest. He tried to move, couldn’t manage it and began to panic.
    He forced his eyes open, staring at the male nurse whose image wavered in and out of focus. He was propped up, and he looked past the nurse, down the length of the bed. There was a huge white thing hanging from pulleys that he realized after a while was his own leg. His right arm was encased in plaster, and a sense of panic rose as he realized he couldn’t seem to move his body.
    “What...operation?” His voice was barely audible.
    The nurse was checking the IV, touching his hands and toes. “You had an accident, Doctor. Do you remember?”
    Greg grunted. He remembered.
    “Where’s... Ben?” Speech took enormous effort.
    “Dr. Halsey’s right here.”
    The nurse’s face faded and Ben’s familiar features, haggard and unshaven, took its place.
    “You’re doing great, Greg. Everything went fine in the OR. Bellamy’s around somewhere, I’ll have him come in and talk to you about the operation. Just stay calm, you’re doin’ great.”
    Ben faded.
    Drugged sleep again.
    Another voice calling his name from a distance.
    “Greg? Dr. Brulotte, can you wake up?”
    Layers of cotton wool. Bellamy’s storklike figure shimmering beside the bed.
    “Greg, do you know who I am?”
    Irritation filled in the spaces the cotton wool left blank. Of course he knew who the hell Bellamy was. He talked with him almost daily, for God’s sake. What the hell was wrong with John, thinking he didn’t recognize him?
    “John. How’s...the golf game...going?” His voice was a croak, and he tried to clear his throat, but he remembered quickly that the pain was there in his chest like a sleeping tiger, waiting to pounce. He couldn’t waste an instant, because when that pain came, he’d have to leave again.
    “What...did you...operate...on...me for?” Bellamy was bending and swaying, and Greg felt his stomach rebel. He wondered how long he could hold the nausea at bay.
    “Do you remember what happened to you, Greg? The accident?”
    Greg was losing patience. Why was everyone treating him like an imbecile?
    “Skiing. With Ben. Fell,” he managed to reply. Acid bit at the back of his throat and he gagged.
    The nurse held a kidney basin under his chin, but he couldn’t spit. His chest hurt too much. Spittle trickled out of his mouth in a long stream. The nurse wiped it away.
    “Good, good. Well, you managed to do a fair bit of damage, nothing we couldn’t repair, of course. You’ll be back working in the ER in a couple months, I’d wager.”
    Months. Months? That had to be wrong. John meant weeks, surely?
    The surgeon lapsed into the terminology Greg needed to hear. “They did a four-quadrant tap down in the ER, all four quadrants had blood, so we did a laparotomy, removed your spleen.”
    It was shocking, having Bellamy casually tell Greg they’d removed one of his organs. He tried to steel himself for what else was coming.
    “You fractured three ribs on the right side, that’s what did the damage,” Bellamy was explaining. “But of course, I don’t have to tell you that you can manage perfectly well without a spleen. Had several lacerations to the liver, so we put a couple of stitches in. There was some bruising in and around the kidneys but nothing serious, a small tear to the omentum, we put several stitches in there, as well. That chest tube can come out in two or three days.”
    Chest tube. He’d put them in enough times, but it was different when it was his chest....
    Bellamy was still talking. “You managed a rather tricky compound fracture of your right leg. Ben says that’s the side you landed on, hence all the damage. We called in the Ortho team, Marvins and Copeland. They opened it up and plated it back in place. You’ll be in traction for a few days, pin through your knee and so forth.