Sharon was almost done running the intestines now. “I’d be a lot happier, of course, if we didn’t have such a small supply of the chloram. Uh, that’s a nickname we made up for chloramphenicol. But at least we’re in pretty good shape with the sulfa drugs.”
She then took a couple of minutes to double-check herself and make sure she hadn’t overlooked anything. “I don’t need to check the liver or the bladder, given the location of the wound. I will need to check the stomach but I’ll do that later. Right now, the spleen’s in the way.”
She pulled her head back. “How are the vital signs looking, Stoner?”
“Holding up. I don’t think he’ll make the marathon, though. Not next month’s, anyway.”
Sharon chuckled, making no attempt any longer to maintain her earlier reserve. By now they were well into the operation and her team was shaping up as a good one. Fermelli was splendid. D’Amati was still catching up, but doing better than she’d expected. A little relaxed banter was just part of the process.
That was the way her father ran operating teams, anyway. Sharon knew that some other surgeons didn’t. There was one surgeon back in Chicago whom James Nichols always privately called “the pencil sharpener.” The reference was not to his bookkeeping fussiness—though the man had that in full measure also—but to a portion of the surgeon’s anatomy.
Graveside humor, granted. But what else do you expect to hear on the edge of a grave? Of course, if the patients could hear the jokes, they’d probably die right then and there. Of terminal indignation, if nothing else.
For the first time since she’d begun the operation, that treacherous little voice crept back.
Ruy Sanchez wouldn’t. He’d probably kill himself from making the surgeons laugh too hard. His English was even getting the right idiom.
Never has a man been felt up so well by his woman! I, Ruy Sanchez de Casador y Ortiz, swear it is—
SQUASH.
Once she was sure the damn thought was flat as a bug, Sharon straightened and took a deep breath.
“Okay. The main damage was to the spleen and I’m going to remove it entirely. We call that a splenectomy. The ‘ectomy’ part of it is just a fancy way of saying ‘yank it out.’ And why am I telling you that, anyway? I’m sure your Latin is way better than mine.”
Her assistants chuckled; then again, and more loudly, when Fermelli added: “Actually, it’s Greek. We Latins are more inclined to putting things in. Unfortunately, the common term for that does not adapt well to medical terminology.”
Sharon bent over, smiling, back to the work. “There’s going to be a lot of blood coming out here. From the looks of it, the capsule that surrounds the spleen tampanaded the bleeding. That’s good—I was hoping for it—because it means the capsule would have acted as a temporary pressure dressing and slowed the bleeding. That’s really important with spleen injuries, since the spleen is the most vascular organ in the body and is normally perfused by something like three hundred and fifty liters of blood a day.”
It was an odd little speech. The sentence structure was Italian but so many of the words were English. Sharon knew Fermelli and d’Amati would barely be able to follow her here. So why had she spoken at all?
Was she losing her nerve? Stalling?
The self-doubt made her hesitate until she realized the truth. She was just immensely relieved, and the relief was as much personal as professional. She’d agonized over her decision to wait until daylight. Wondering if Ruy Sanchez would bleed to death internally because of her own fears.
Well, he hadn’t. The man’s spleen was as tough as the rest of him.
To be sure! The spleen of Catalonia is famous! Ask the wretched Castilians if you don’t believe—
“Oh, shut up, Ruy,” she murmured, still smiling.
After she perforated the capsule, she reflected that shutting up Ruy Sanchez was easier said than done. Even when the man was under full anesthesia.
“Would you wipe off my face, please, Dottor d’Amati? And we’ll need to use plenty of that sterilized gauze to soak up as much blood as we can. Despite appearances, most of it went into the abdominal cavity, not onto me. Loose blood like that is a culture medium for infection.”