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Member
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Seattle, Washington
Gender: Female
Posts: 2
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Chapter 1
Chapter 1.
The pain. The tears. It was all too real. The heart ache. The heartbreak. The undeniable feeling of hopelessness. January air bit away at the already scarred soul when she heard the news. It was just yesterday that things were perfect. Her body was riding on a cloud of perfection and high. She had finally found it. Found him. He began to slowly repair her hope of better things. That was all gone now. She still loved him, yes. She always did and always will.
MacKenzie Lambert held the human heart in her hands. It pulsed. That was a good sign. As she stood at the operating table, she passed the heart to another intern. A nurse passed her a scalpel to maximize the incision.
“Doctor Lambert?” the head operating nurse asked.
Mac looked up to see that everyone was watching her next move. The pressures of a young, intelligent, and promising surgeon. She was twenty nine. Attractive. She spent most of her time in the operating room or the ER. She had the ego of a surgeon. Confident, determined. Her body was tired, her mind was tired. This was the twenty second hour of a twenty four hour shift.
“Sorry,” Mac replied putting the scalpel to the skin, “Prepare the rib separators.”
She extended the incision. Her head was hurting her along with her feet. But she didn’t notice much. She was too focussed on the surgery and the other interns in the room.
“Doctor Lambert, the BP is dropping,” a nurse informed her.
Mac put down the scalpel and passed the nurse a syrigine of glucosamine, “Push fifty milligrams.”
The blood pressure returned to a stable level. Mac smiled inwardly. This was going well. As it should. She was chief resident of trauma and emergency medicine. An admirable position for such a young surgeon. The interns looked up to here, especially in the operating room. She needed to set a good example. As she looked up, she noticed the observing interns grinning and glowing. She remembered those days just a year ago. Now she flew solo.
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Meanwhile, the ER buzzed with activity. Crying could be heard if you listened carefully. Footsteps were everywhere. A few patients let out moans. Nurses were hustling everywhere trying to get everyone seen in the minimum amount of time. It was an overly busy night. Nothing out of the ordinary. The trauma patients being brought in via the ambulance bay and then you had the triage patients entering by the dozens. There weren’t enough doctors to go around. It wasn’t a surprise for a New York City Hospital.
A man and a woman sat in the corner of the ER. The woman rested her head on the man’s shoulder. It was wet with tears. Her skin was pale. She shaked with nervousness. He gently stroked her blonde hair.
“She’ll be fine. She’ll be fine,” the man whispered.
“Where are the doctors?” the woman replied in a strained voice, “Where are they? Why aren’t they with her? Why haven’t they come back yet?”
He continued to stroke her hair, “They said they needed more tests. There are a lot of people here.”
He looked around the room. He glanced at the other families. The woman next to him was his sister. His niece had been hit by a car crossing the road. He made eye contact with the nurse that had been updating him. She briskly walked over to them.
“I just spoke with the doctors,” the nurse said, “They have the test results and they’re inconclusive. It's beyond their hands. They’ve called in a trauma surgeon. She’s going to need surgery.”
The man’s sister moaned with agony. It was all too much for her to deal with.
“Sir, can I speak to you alone?” the nurse asked glancing at his sister.
The man smiled at his sister, “I’ll be right back.”
They walked around the corner towards the ambulance bay. The nurse stopped them by the nurses station.
“Sir, your niece is in critical condition. I’m not going to lie, but I couldn’t say this in front of your sister, it’s not looking good. There’s extensive neurological damage,” she continued, “But we have hope with this surgeon.”
He held his head in his hand, “What do you mean hope? What surgeon?”
“She’s a trauma surgeon. She specializes in this every single day. She’s the best, in my opinion. Chief Resident of Trauma surgery,” the nurse said flipping through a chart.
His mind flashed back; he knew a woman in high school and college who was an aspiring trauma surgeon.
“She’s in the middle of surgery but she’s being paged,” the nurse told him, “Doctor MacKenzie Lambert.”
His heart skipped beat at that very moment.
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Mac reinserted the heart into the body. It pulsed in her hands. She wasn’t nervous. No, not at all. She just held a life in her hands. She removed the rib separators and handed them to the nurse. The other nurses smiled at the accomplishment. This wasn’t her first successful cardiac surgery but it felt like it was- a wave of victory. A just as Mac began to close, a nurse burst into the operating room.
“Doctor Lambert!” the nurse said slightly out of breath, “You’re needed in the ER!”
Mac looked up from what she was doing. Her pager was flashing.
Mac handed another resident a tool, “Doctor Jenkins, close up.”
She walked away from the operating table, threw her gloves and surgical gown in the bio-waste bin, and joined the nurse in the side room. The nurse handed her a chart. Mac picked up the pace. Her heart rate sped up.
“What do we have?” she asked as they ran into the elevator.
The nurse looked agitated and worried, “Four year old VPED. A car hit her when she was crossing the road. Massive internal bleeding. Possible brain damage. No cardiac damage so far except for a low BP. Multiple bone fractures in the femur, radius, and clavicle. Semi unconscious.”
“Shit,” Mac said under her breath, “Book OR 3! I’ll perform the pre op now but I want her in surgery within the hour. Who’s been her attending?”
“Cain,” the nurse replied, “He’s giving up. It’s over his head. That’s why he called you. Her name is Allie Cafferty.”
The name hit her. Cafferty. Could it be? Mac doubted it. After all, how many Caffertys could there be? Her heart heavy. Her stomach became queezy.
“Who’s wither her?” Mac asked anxiously.
The nurse sighed, “Her uncle and mother. Chris and Jillian Cafferty.”
At that moment, feelings MacKenzie had left behind years ago all of a sudden resurfaced. Her past suddenly was put before her eyes in an instant. Fifteen years of pent up feelings. As soon as the elevator doors opened, Mac burst through them.
“Who are they?” the nurse called after her.
“I fell in love with him,” Mac blurted out suddenly.
She pushed through the ER double doors. She hadn’t seen him in ten years but it felt so much longer. People were rushing everywhere. Her eyes glanced over the other patients and staff. A nurse came up behind her.
“Doctor Lambert, we need you to sign off on an increase of medication for one of your patients,” the nurse told her.
Mac turned around and signed a paper. She glanced the room once again.
“Mac,” a voice said from behind her.
Mac spun around to see a smile, a face, a man that she was hopelessly in love with years ago standing before her.
“Chris,” she replied in a strained voice.
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I found true love.
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The Decade (A Love Story)
Nice job!
