Divorced! Now what?

Chapter 33

Theo POV



Bethany was cute in her heart scrubs; it was a pity that they were covered by the surgical gown we wore, but then she blew me away with her skilled hands. It made me look like a junior surgeon. She was magic to watch, and I was glad I handed the operation over to her. She has made some choices I would never have thought of making, but then she is the researcher and most likely has tried several ways to best work in a person's heart, time to see the family. I had expected to go with bad news, but this man can hold out a little longer, all thanks to Bethany.

'Doctor, how did Dad go? Did he make it?' One frantic woman asked as she rushed over to us as we entered the room, her eyes red from tears as she dreaded the worst.

'Let me introduce you to Doctor Peterson. She did the operation.' I said grimly.

'But I thought you were doing the operation? I am confused,' the husband asked softly, trying to stay calm and support the wife.

'I assisted. Dr Peterson had some ideas on how to proceed with his tattered heart and is highly skilled.' He tried again to bring Bethany into the conversation, but she took over, so I did not need to push any harder for them to forget I was not the one to do the operation.

'Your father made it through the surgery. The next forty-eight hours are up to him, but I have high hopes he will pull through.' Bethany spoke with a gentle voice, one I would not have expected from her. She was talking as if speaking to her Dad and trying to reassure him all would be well. She spoke respectfully and kindly, not the clinical voice one often hears when listening to a doctor's report on an operation and recovery. 

My respect for her just rose a little more.

'He made it? When can we see him?' The woman blubbered, her face in shock but a lot calmer.

'You have been through this before, and we will let you know when he is moved to ICU. He is still in the recovery room at the moment.' I interjected. 

'Thank you, doctor. We had expected the worst,' the husband said, shaking my hand.

'Don't thank me. If Dr Peterson had not done the surgery, we might have had the worst news for you.' They looked at me with confusion, but Bethany did not look like she was not going to say more and had most likely spoken too much already.

'What do you mean?' The wife pushed 

'Dr Munroe meant that I am a children's heart surgeon and do things slightly differently. I treated your father's heart like a six-year-old child's heart; it was in a bad way, and the usual methods for an adult would not have been as successful.' She was still calm and respectful, taking all the tension in her stride.

'Thank you, he still needs a new heart though, doesn't he?'

'Yes, he does. Let us see how well he recovers from this surgery, and we shall talk more about that later.'

We left the family and headed out to check on our patient. I am still in awe of her skills, both in and out of surgery. No wonder Robson had been pushing to get her here. She has already gained my trust in theater and respect for the kind person she is. How she spoke to the family was gentle, not clinical, as I most likely would have been.

'Hello, Doctor.' one of the nurses flirted with me. This one always did that but never pushed it. 

'Morning, have you got the notes updated on Me Green yet?' Ignoring her flirting.

She handed over the chart, and I flicked through it. The changes to medication were clear and in red. I turned and walked to the recovery room to check on him. He was still a little pale, but that was to be expected, but all in all, he was holding on.

'You can move him to ICU now and let the family know they can sit with him.' I gave Bethany the chart to flick through as well. I noticed the nurse staring at Bethany in shock that I had done this. I had yet to introduce Bethany to this nurse as she was not there before we started the operation. She must have been late again. I moved to the computer, looked up Mr. Green's information, and entered a few things. The nurse was still standing near us, watching us.

'Do you need something, Nurse?' I asked, a little annoyed that she had yet to remove things ready to shift our patient.

'Waiting for the chart, Dr.' She was looking at Bethany and not me as she spoke.

'Move the patient. Bethany will leave the chart on the desk when she is done.' I said, annoyed, trying hard to keep it out of my voice. The nurse gave Bethany the stink eye, and I was unsure what that was about. But I shrugged it off and looked up the time she clocked in this morning. It was wrong. No way was she here ten minutes early.

I headed to Robson's office to report on the operation, bringing Bethany with me. I stopped and knocked on his door.

'Enter.' He sounded tired, most likely worried about the operation.

'Ah, how did the operation go? Is our client still with us?' yep, that was what had been on his mind.

'Yes.'I replied firmly and took a seat.

'Nice, the family will be pleased.'

'Bethany did the operation.' Robson looked up at me and then at Bethany, who sat quietly waiting, watching us.

'You took over the operation?' he asked incredulously. Switching doctors during an operation is only normal if it is a training doctor and the teacher needs to take over.

'I was happy to step aside, Robson; she was amazing. I have never witnessed such skill.' 

We talked about the operation for a while and him being a good candidate for an artificial heart. While Bethany was still hesitant about putting one on a real person, she was resigned to the fact that this man would not last long without a new heart, even with the great work she had just done. 

'The artificial heart is still working after all these years and does not look like it is going to fail anytime soon. I will bring the ones I have at home and set up a place in my section. To create more, I personally will make each one. I am not prepared to hand it over to anyone else.' Bethany sighed; it seemed we had won her over, and I was glad I asked her to scrub up.

'Do you still have the materials you used to create the hearts?'

'Yes, I have everything. It is my invention, and so I kept it all. The school had signed a waiver that anything the students created was theirs to keep and benefit from if it was sold. That was part of why I entered the competition. I would not have joined it if all my hard work had been to reward the school, and I had lost out and could not continue with my experiments.

We talked more about Mr. Green, when it would be a good time to do the surgery, and if the family was okay with it. We needed Mr Green to recover from this one first, and if all went as well as it appeared, he could gain his strength in a few months to operate again.

'On another note, Nurse Simmons.' I heard Robson sigh, and I think he knew what was coming.

'She somehow changed the time she clocked in. It says ten minutes to eight, but she was not at her station or on the floor and, from what I heard, half an hour late again.'

'I have asked the security to put a camera near the log-in clock. I'll look it over. If she is changing the clock somehow, we need to change the system. It is old anyway, but fraud against the company is another issue, and instant dismissal will occur.'

We have had a few nurses over the time I have been here who were late every day; even when we changed their schedules to accommodate the lateness, it was getting on everyone's nerves, but this was the first person to change the times to say otherwise. You may ask why we were picking on the nurses. The doctors often worked many hours, and being late was frequently due to having been there late. There's not much we can do about that. It was what we call honest lateness, and the person usually stays late to make up for it, but late after a night out on the town, it was not acceptable. All the staff have a breath test before they commence, and we have zero tolerance for substances in the body, alcohol or otherwise.

Most of our staff are great people, but lately, we have had a few who got a bit lax because we try to make this place fun and friendly. The occasional person, male or female, makes it more challenging. Our jobs are stressed out enough, and we don't need internal squabbles, so we get rid of a person quickly. Most of the time, we transfer them to the public hospital. This will be our first dismissal in a very long time.

2024-05-19 15:00:35

Chapter 34 - Divorced! Now what?