A Surgeon's Christmas Baby, page 16
But she hadn’t set foot through those doors in over a year.
Somebody’s phone started ringing as they walked past her. They’d probably set the ringtone to a classic Christmas carol on the first day of December. Surely they were totally over it by now when they were almost halfway through the month?
A lyric from the carol sneaked into the back of Nikita’s head and it was almost a taunt.
’Tis the season to be jolly...
Yeah...right... Nikita took a deep breath, feeling the chill of the air against the back of her throat. She’d thought she was more than ready to do this. She should have done it last week, in fact, when the approved duration of her leave of absence had expired. She knew she had to do it, if only to prove to herself that she had recovered enough to genuinely move on with her life. She just needed a moment, that was all. A moment to gather her courage to face something that was apparently going to be a little more difficult than she had anticipated.
It wasn’t simply that she didn’t want to be within the walls of this hospital. Or any hospital at all, for that matter. Or that it would be full of people—staff and patients, adults and children and probably babies as well—who would have no idea how much she didn’t want to be too close to them. It wasn’t that it was getting so close to Christmas Day either, and there would be decorations everywhere and people would be wearing silly headbands and jumpers and flashing jewellery, like the earrings of that woman she’d seen in the car park. There might even be carol singers gathered in the foyer or wandering through the corridors of the hospital to make sure that nobody missed out on a bit of seasonal jolliness.
It was all of those things.
Too many things that, even on their own, let alone when they coalesced, had been capable of triggering a flashback in the early days of this year. Nikita was confident that she had made a good recovery but...
...but that fear had never quite gone away, had it?
She took another slow, deep breath. In through her nose and out through her mouth, her breath making a puff of steam in the icy air. A shiver ran down her spine as well, but Nikita knew that was due to the cold, not fear.
She could do this.
It wouldn’t take long.
And then she’d never have to do it again because that was why she was here.
To resign permanently from the job that had been held open for her for more than a year.
* * *
If there was a place Pedro Garcia loved to be in, other than an operating theatre, it was here—in the emergency department. And, as an orthopaedic surgeon with advanced qualifications in trauma, he got to spend as much time as he wanted in both places.
Right now, he was in the emergency department of Bristol’s Central Infirmary in response to a call to a trauma case. A fourteen-year-old boy had come off his skateboard on the way home from school and had a dislocated shoulder. Pedro had ordered an initial X-ray to rule out any significant fracture and he was showing the image to his patient.
‘See that, Thomas? That round bit there is the top of your humerus, which is the bone in your upper arm. It’s what we call a ball and socket type of joint and that’s the ball. The socket part, where it’s supposed to be sitting, is that bit there...’ Pedro pointed to the slightly blurred bony structure to one side of where it should have been. ‘The good news is I can’t see anything nasty in there so you probably won’t need an operation to fix it. I just need to put the round bit back where it belongs. Is that okay with you, buddy?’
‘It’s going to hurt, isn’t it?’ Thomas increased the pressure he was using to hold his injured arm immobile against his body, even though it was already in a sling.
‘We’re going to make sure it doesn’t hurt,’ Pedro reassured him. He glanced up at the nurse standing beside the bed. ‘Any idea of how far away Thomas’s mother is?’ It was certainly in the teen’s best interest to have this dislocation reduced as quickly as possible but it was also preferable to have parental consent if possible.
As if in answer to his query, the curtain to the cubicle was pulled back and a stressed-looking woman was ushered in.
‘Tommy, what on earth did you think you were doing? You knew that skateboard wasn’t safe. You could have killed yourself.’
Pedro raised an eyebrow at Thomas, who avoided his gaze.
‘It’s got a dodgy wheel,’ he muttered.
‘And I promised him a new one for Christmas,’ his mother sighed. ‘Oh, Tommy...this is all we need at this time of the year. They tell me you might need an operation. I can’t even stay here very long—my boss was less than happy I walked out and there’s no one else to pick your sisters up from after-school care.’
Pedro caught the woman’s gaze and held it. ‘It’s okay, Mamá,’ he said. ‘We’ve got this. I was just checking with Thomas that he was okay for me to try and put things back into place.’
‘Of course it is. Please...just do whatever you need to do. I’ll be ever so grateful if I can take Tommy home with me.’ She wiped a tear streak from her face and smiled at her son. ‘He’s been the man of the house since his dad walked out on us a couple of years ago. I couldn’t manage without him.’
Oh, man... Pedro knew a family’s expectations could take a heavy toll. The kind of sacrifices that had to be made to meet them, like putting their needs so far above your own that you learned it was better not to want anything too much.
‘Is it okay with you, Thomas?’ he asked.
The teenager nodded but Pedro knew how scared the lad was. How brave he was trying to be. How determined he was to step up to responsibilities that, in an ideal world, should never be placed on the shoulders of someone this young.
‘We got some good stuff to help,’ he told Thomas in a confidential tone. ‘I’m going to get you to suck on some Entonox, which is a mixture of nitrous oxide and oxygen. Some people call it laughing gas.’
Thomas was certainly not avoiding Pedro’s gaze now. He was looking shocked. ‘But that’s NOS, isn’t it? It’s illegal. There are boys at my school who got into big trouble when they got busted behind the bike sheds using that.’
‘It’s not illegal in hospital,’ Pedro told him. ‘It’s really good to stop things hurting, and that’s when you’re supposed to use it.’
The shock was turning into interest. ‘Am I really allowed to have it?’
‘As much as you need,’ Pedro promised. ‘Nurse Anna here is going to show you how to use it, but first, I’m going to put the back of your bed right up and I want you to sit on the side with your good arm against the end of the bed and your legs dangling over the edge.’
‘Hold the plastic mouthpiece with your teeth and seal your lips around it,’ Anna told Thomas a minute or two later. ‘Just breathe normally through your mouth. You might feel a bit dizzy or get some tingling in your fingers but don’t worry—that will disappear very fast once you stop breathing it.’
Pedro positioned himself behind Thomas as he was getting used to the Entonox. He undid the knot of the sling and supported the arm with one hand. When Thomas started giggling, he caught Anna’s gaze.
‘I think the Entonox is working,’ he said. ‘Can you take this arm, please? I’ll let you know when to apply some gentle traction.’
He palpated Thomas’s back and shoulder to locate the scapula and other anatomical landmarks he needed. Then he used his thumbs to push and rotate the bones, having given Anna the nod to apply traction. He could feel the moment the ball of the joint slid back into its correct position.
Thomas hadn’t felt a thing.
‘You can stop using this now.’ Anna took the mouthpiece from his hand.
‘Aww...’ Thomas made a very comically sad face but then grinned up at Pedro.
‘It’s all done,’ Pedro told him as he retied the knot of the sling. ‘You were a champion. All that needs to happen now is another X-ray to make sure everything’s as good as it can be and, if it is, you’ll be able to go home.’ He looked at Thomas’s mother. ‘He’ll only need the sling for a week or two, and he can start some physiotherapy about the same time.’ Turning back to his young patient, Pedro spoke seriously. ‘The more effort you can put into strengthening the muscles around your shoulder, the less likely this is to happen again, okay?’
Thomas nodded. ‘Okay.’
‘Why does he need another X-ray?’ his mother asked.
‘Sometimes there are fractures that are hidden by the dislocation and, if they’re not stable, they may need surgical intervention. I don’t think we’ll find any but we have to be sure, especially with someone of Thomas’s age. We want to avoid any complications down the road with recurrent dislocations.’
He glanced at his watch and his tone was apologetic now.
‘I have to run, I’m sorry. I’ve got a meeting I urgently need to be at, but I’ll be available to check the X-ray if there’s any problem. The radiologist will be able to give you an all-clear otherwise and Anna here will sort you out with a set of instructions of how to take care of that shoulder and an outpatient appointment for follow-up.’
Pedro walked from the emergency department to the nearest bank of lifts, which were in the main entranceway foyer. As usual, at this time of day, it was a busy place. Even busier at the moment, because there were people on ladders decorating a huge Christmas tree near the huge sliding glass doors. The gift shop was crowded and there was a queue in front of the café counter. Even the receptionists had more people than usual waiting for attention and the whole scene made Pedro smile.
He’d always loved Christmas. He loved the colour and brightness of the lights and decorations and the way people smiled at each other more often. He loved the excitement that hovered over the heads of children with increasing strength as the month progressed. He didn’t even mind that he had to wait longer in queues at the supermarket or post office. He was relieved, however, that there didn’t seem to be anyone else waiting for a lift right now. Pedro knew he should take the stairs but his meeting was on the fourth floor and he really didn’t want to be late. He punched a button for the lift and watched the light start moving towards the ground floor.
Pedro was hoping, very much, that the rumour he’d heard was correct and that he was about to be offered a permanent position here at Bristol Central instead of losing the locum position he’d held for almost a year now.
He got into the lift as soon as the doors were open wide enough. He pushed the button for the fourth floor and then pushed it again, even though he knew perfectly well that it wouldn’t make the doors shut any faster.
Copyright © 2023 by Alison Roberts
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ISBN-13: 9780369738424
A Surgeon’s Christmas Baby
Copyright © 2023 by Harlequin Enterprises ULC
Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Deanne Anders for her contribution to the Boston Christmas Miracles miniseries.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Deanne Anders, A Surgeon's Christmas Baby
