Chapter 21 Surgery
Charlotte's sedated on the endoscopy table. Cooper's talking to the anesthesiologist about Charlotte's medical history when Dr. Powers walks in the room. As he strides in the room he calls out "What have we got ?" All heads in the room turn to look in his direction. Mark Powers is dressed in dark blue hospital scrubs and a white lab coat. His shoulder length brown hair is tucked neatly in his black scrub cap. His bright blue eyes jump out at you when you look at him. He welll built, muscular, looks like he works out during his spare time.
Dr. Jollie responds. "Hey Mark we've got a thirty-three year old female with a history of a bleeding gastric ulcer. She had it cauterized by EGD two weeks ago at another hospital. She's having severe pain and bleeding today. The endoscopy shows a perforated gastric ulcer as you can see on the screen. She's receiving a blood transfusion right now."
"Okay" Mark says as he looks at the endoscopy pictures. "Any other medical history?" he asks.
"No." Cooper answers. "Besides the ulcer she's pretty healthy."
"Who are you?" Dr. Powers asks.
"I'm Cooper Freedman. Charlotte's fiancé."
Mark looks around the room and spots Amy and Luke standing in the corner. Mark can't see Charlotte's face yet. It's blocked by the anesthesiologist who's checking Charlotte with his stethoscope. "Why are you both here? Is this one of your patients?" Marks asks.
"The patient is Charlotte, our Charlotte." Amy answers
"My Charlotte?" Dr. Mark Power's asks and he nudges aside the anesthesiologist to get a look at her face.
"Charlotte King" Luke responds.
"My god. I didn't know she was back in town." Mark says as he looks at her asleep on the table. She hasn't changed that much, he thinks to himself.
"She's not." Amy tells him. "She was here for a quick visit with her family. She's got a flight back for LA tomorrow."
"Not anymore." Mark responds. "Looks like she's going to be staying with us a while. Let's get her to the OR now." He tells the nurses.
Cooper sits in the OR waiting lounge with Amy and Mark. They're all pretty quiet right now. Cooper keeps thinking about how Mark called her my Charlotte. She wasn't Mark's Charlotte anymore. She was his Charlotte now. Cooper clutches a clear plastic baggie in his hand which holds Charlotte's watch and engagement ring. He couldn't help but run his fingers over the ring through the plastic. He wondsered what's going on in the OR. It bothers him that Charlotte's life is in the hands of her ex husband. He thinks about Charlotte's ex- husband seeing Charlotte on the table and handling her. It wouldn't have bothered Cooper so much if Mark didn't refer to her as my Charlotte.
After waiting about two hours Mark comes out to the waiting room to talk to them. "Charlotte did well. It was a perforated gastric ulcer, which I repaired. She can't eat or drink for anything for at least a week but we'll talk about that later. She's in the recovery room now. After she wakes up she'll be moved to a room on the surgical wing on the third floor."
"Can we visit her in recovery?" Cooper asks him.
"No" Mark answers as he looks at the transparent bag with the engagement ring Cooper is holding. "We don't allow visitor's in the recovery room."
Amy glares at him. She knows darn well Mark could give them permission to see her if he wanted. He's the surgeon in charge. "Can't you make an exception and at least let Cooper go in?" She asks.
"I've always been one for following the rules, Amy. I don't need to tell you that." He glares back at her. Mark still harbors bad feelings for her because she was the one who told Charlotte about the cheating. "I'll go check on Charlotte for you all now." Mark walks away and enters a set of double doors that say Recovery Room.
The nurses are trying to wake Charlotte up from the anesthesia. "Charlotte, Charlotte wake up honey." The nurse calls out gently rubbing her shoulders. Charlotte slowly opens her eyes. "There you go, honey. You're in the hospital. You just had surgery and everything is fine." Charlotte looks around the recovery room. It doesn't look like St Ambrose and she's still feeling groggy. Mark walks over and holds her hand. Charlotte looks at him and thinks she must be hallucinating from the drugs they gave her. She decides to close her eyes again so she could have a different dream.
"Hey open your eyes sunshine, you need to be awake so they can move you to your room. Amy, Luke and that boyfriend of yours are all waiting for you to wake up." Charlotte opens her eyes wide now. She realizes this is no hallucination. She looks at Mark holding her hand and tries to pull it away."
"What are you doing here?" She asks in a raspy voice.
"I operated on you. You're going to feel sore and crappy for a few days, but I'm good at what I do, soon you'll feel brand new." He smiles.
Charlotte doesn't return the smile. Her heart rate goes up and Mark can see it on the monitor. She pulls herself up in bed and grimaces from pain at her incision site. "I'll have the nurses give you something for pain." He calls to the nurses. "Ms. King is awake now. Give her some pain medicine and then get her ready to move to the surgical wing."
Charlotte corrects him. "It's Dr. King; remember? Not Ms. King."
"I recall when it was Dr. King-Powers" He tells her.
"It's Dr. King now." She answers in her raspy, post anesthesia voice.
"You should've kept Powers. It sounds better." He raises his eyebrows at her.
Charlotte doesn't answer. She just stares blankly back at him. She thinks about the time after they got married when she told him how much she loved her new name, Charlotte King-Powers. She knows he remembers it too. "I'll check on you again once you're in the room. In the meantime, I'll tell your friends and boyfriend you're being moved now." He walks away.
Charlotte wants to yell back at him that Cooper's her fiancé, not her boyfriend, but her throat's sore. She looks at her finger and misses her ring.