A few minutes later a nurse came in and deftly started an IV in Cassi’s left arm, hanging up a bottle of D5W with ten units of regular insulin.
Then she gave Cassi her preop medication.
“That should hold you,” said the nurse. “Try to relax now. They should be coming for you presently.”
By the time Cassi was picked up and wheeled down to the elevator she felt a strange sense of detachment, as if the experience were happening to someone else. When she reached the OR holding area, she was only vaguely aware of the profusion of gurneys, nurses, and doctors. She didn’t even recognize Thomas until he bent over and kissed her, and then she told him that he looked silly in his operating paraphernalia. At least she thought she told him SO.
“Everything is going to be fine,” said Thomas, squeezing her hand. “I’m glad you decided to go ahead with your surgery. It’s the best thing.”
Dr. Obermeyer materialized on Cassi’s left. “I want you to take good care of my wife!” she heard Thomas say. Then she must have fallen asleep. The next thing she was aware of was being pushed down the OR corridor into the operating room itself. She didn’t feel at all scared.
“I’m going to give you something to make you sleepy,” said the anesthesiologist.
“I am sleepy,” she murmured, watching the drops fall into the micropore chamber of the IV bottle hung over her head. In the next second, she was fast asleep.
The OR team moved swiftly. By 8:05 her eye muscles had been isolated and tapes had been passed around them. As soon as complete immobilization had been achieved, Dr. Obermeyer made stab wounds in the sclera and introduced his cutting and sucking instruments. Using a special microscope, he sighted through the cornea and pupil to the blood-stained vitreous. By 8:45 he began to see Cassi’s retina. By 9:15 he found the source of the recurrent bleeding. It was a single aberrant loop of new vessel coming from Cassi’s optic disc. With great care, Dr. Obermeyer coagulated and obliterated it. He felt very encouraged. Not only was the problem solved, there was no reason to expect it to recur. Cassi was a lucky woman.
Thomas had finished his only coronary bypass for the day. He’d canceled the next two. Happily the case had gone tolerably well although he again had trouble sewing the anastomoses.
Unlike the previous day, though, he was able to finish, but the moment Larry Owen began to close, Thomas changed into his street clothes. Normally he waited until Larry brought the patient to the recovery room, but this morning he was too nervous to sit around with nothing to do. Instead he stopped down in the OR to see how things were going.
“Just fine,” shouted Larry over his shoulder. “We’re closing the skin now. The halothane’s been stopped.”
“Good. I’ve been called on an emergency.”
“Everything under control here.”
Thomas left the hospital, something he rarely did during a working day, and climbed into his Porsche. It thrilled him to hear the powerful engine as he turned on the ignition. After the frustration of the hospital, the car provided an enormous sense of freedom. Nothing on the road could touch him.
Nothing!
Driving across Boston, Thomas left the car in a No Parking zone directly in front of a large pharmacy, confident his MD license plate would save him from a ticket. Entering the store, he went directly to the prescription counter. The pharmacist, in his traditional high-necked tunic, emerged from behind the high counter.
“Can I help you?”
“Yes,” said Thomas. “I called earlier about some drugs.”
“Of course. I’ve got it right here,” said the pharmacist, holding up a small cardboard carton.
“Do you want me to write a script for it?” asked Thomas.
“Nah. Let me see your M.D. license. That’ll be adequate.”
Thomas flipped open his wallet and held it out for the pharmacist who just glanced at the license, then asked: “That’ll be all?”
Thomas nodded, putting his wallet away.
“We don’t have much call for that dosage,” said the pharmacist.
“I’ll bet,” said Thomas, taking the parcel.