Singer's Anatomy
Ch. 1
"Female, thirteen years old. Took a tumble down a set of marble stairs. Obvious femur and collarbone fractures. Possible head injury and trauma to the abdomen. Heart rate 110 and hypertensive."
"Trauma Room 1 and someone page Singer!"
The little girl was rushed into the nearest Trauma Room as the mother, dressed in a dark purple and blood-stained evening gown, rushed into the hospital. She would have been almost unrecognizable, even to her family by how much blood was on her face and arms.
"Where is she? Oh my God, where-where—" a doctor gently held onto the woman.
"Ma'am, we're assessing her now and—"
"Bleng! Get in here!" a doctor called, checking the girl's pupils.
The little girl propped up just to throw up blood all over the ground on top of the doctor's shoes. The man looked up from his bloody shoes and clicked his pen light off, "Pupils look good, but the blood in the stomach needs to be tended to now."
A nurse ran to the door frame, "I paged-!"
"Page her again and have her ready in OR 3. We'll meet her there!"
"Got it!"
The doctors rushed the little girl past her mother and the now hysterical woman grabbed onto the doctor with the bloody shoes, "I need information here. I need—I need…"
"Ma'am, we are doing everything we can to save your daughter. Right now, we know that there is major bleeding in her abdomen. We are going to do everything we can to save your daughter. I can assure you that she is in the best hands possible. Okay?"
The woman nodded, leaning against the wall.
(*&*)
"What do we have?" Singer asked, putting on gloves and stepping to look at the patient's face.
"Thirteen year old, distended abdomen, and major bleeding. She took a nasty fall down marble stairs."
"Marble, huh? Poor baby. Alright, everybody: Lives mean everything."
(*&*)
"Ma'am, if I could have you fill out some of these papers," a nurse said, handing the mother a clipboard, "And then, ma'am, how about we get you some new clothes?"
"Clothes?" the mother looked down, "Oh, oh, yes. I suppose I need to…my husband, my husband didn't get to come in the ambulance. Do you have a phone?"
"Of course, ma'am."
"Also, I need to speak to your chief of surgery."
The nurse paused for a second, looking up at her, "Ma'am—"
"When he asks you why he needs to come, tell him that the princess would like to speak to him about her daughter that is in surgery."
The nurse took a deeper look at the exhausted, blood-covered woman before her eyes got bigger, "Of course, Princess Kriss. I'll be just a minute."
(*&*)
"Princess Kriss, please excuse my appearance, I just got out of surgery," the chief said, a bright smile pasted onto his face. "My name is Dr. Matthew Lewouski. I'm the chief of surgery here."
"Nice to meet you, sir. I wanted to make sure you were aware of the situation in your hospital." Kriss said, remembering her place as one of the most powerful women in the country and falling into her proper role. "I'm sure we can all understand the utmost importance of my child's wellbeing."
There was a commotion as several men and women pressed their way into the ER, Prince Maxon at the head of it all.
"Kriss," Prince Maxon said, enveloping his wife into a hug, "How is she?"
"In surgery. This is the chief of surgery. He was just telling me how he was going to take care of our little girl."
Matthew nodded, "Yes, ma'am. And I can assure you both that our absolute best is on the case. Of course, you know that Dr. Singer is the best surgeon from here to Alaska."
Maxon shifted as Kriss' face got red, "Dr. Singer?"
Matthew looked confused, "Yes, Dr. America Singer. She's the head of our Pediatric Surgery Department."
Kriss took a deep breath, "Are you telling me that America, Lady America Singer, is the one cutting into my little girl. The woman that came in second in the Selection?"
Maxon put his hand on his wife's back, "Kriss…"
"Get her out of there." Kriss said, pointing at the chief.
"Princess—" the chief tried to explain, but Kriss wouldn't hear it.
"I said: get her out!" Kriss screamed and the ER stood still for a second.
The chief stayed calm and waved the resident over, "Bleng, go and ask Dr. Singer to step out of the OR for me, please."
"Yes, sir."
And Bleng, with his wild hair and uneven glasses took off towards the OR floor, yelling at people to move.
He grabbed a mask before entering the chaotic OR and cleared his throat. Dr. Singer was shouting orders left and right and did not hear him the first time, so he had to do it again.
"What, Bleng?!" the doctor shouted, irritated at the man.
"The chief asked me to ask you to step out of the OR."
"Excuse me?" the doctor looked up for the first time, "Lap pads. And why the hell—clamp— would I do that."
"The parents are…anxious."
"I am currently holding their child's stomach together with my hand, so I'd say they should be pretty worried, Bleng."
"Doctor—"
"If I leave this OR, this child dies. Tell the chief that!"
"Yes, ma'am!"
And then Bleng took off again, jumping around carts and racing toward the ER.
"Chief," he slid to a stop, his sneakers screeching beneath him, "Singer is—uh—" he looked over at the expectant parents and sent a pointed look at Lewouski, "Singer is busy at the moment."
The chief nodded, "When she is able to step away—"
"No. She gets out of there now," Princess Kriss interrupted.
"Ma'am," Lewouski started.
"That woman was seconds away from becoming the princess, to getting Prince Maxon, and now, you expect me to leave my daughter, the very proof that she lost, in her hands? That woman has a knife an inch from my daughter's heart—"
"Your Majesty, I'm sorry to interrupt, but Dr. Singer is one of the best surgeons in the country. She is nothing except professional. She would never endanger a child out of spite for their parents."
"Princess Lucille is a reminder of the mistakes Lady America made and of the life that she could have had. I know that woman. I know how volatile her temper is." Princess Kriss turned to Bleng as Prince Maxon rubbed his neck and looked at the floor, "Get her out of that OR. And, God help you if you come back without her."
Bleng's heart almost stopped. He turned and raced back towards the OR.
He entered the chaotic OR, noticing the many rags on the floor next to a large puddle of blood. "Dr. Singer. I really need you to come with me."
"Damn it, Bleng! What could be more important than this little girl?"
"My job."
"Your job?" America looked up for a brief second before looking back at the mess of bleeding in front of her.
"The parents. They say if I don't come back with you…well, I don't know what they will do, but they could definitely make me lose my job."
"Who the hell is this girl?"
Bleng looked at her for a second, then glanced at the chart laying far away from Dr. Singer, "She's… of an upper caste."
Singer looked at the intern in front of her, a rookie just starting out at his job. He was a good intern. He knew his stuff, but he always lacked the confidence to make the hard decisions, even when he knew what that hard decision was.
"Bleng, come closer. Don't step into the sanitation area but come and look."
The young man stepped closer and peered inside the body cavity.
"Do you think that I can step away from this little girl without her dying?"
The OR stood still as Bleng shook his head. "No, no you can't."
Bleng finally understood the chaos and tension in the OR. He understood the adrenaline in his mentor's eyes, the worried lines not quite hidden by her mask.
"If you can't go back without me by your side, then why don't you go back and scrub in."
"Yes, doctor."
He raced to scrub.
"Dr. Singer?" Bleng asked, stepping up to the table.
"You're going to take the vein and hold pressure until I can get around to fixing it. If you drop it, if you don't hold pressure for more than second, then this little girl dies. Do you understand?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"I'm going to lift my hand on three, not before, not after, on three, and you are going to grab it. One, two, three."
Bleng soared toward the vein and placed his fingers along the large hole.
"You okay?" Dr. Singer asked, already working on repairing the girl's stomach.
Bleng felt the adrenaline course through his mind. This was it. This was the feeling that always came with holding a life in his hands. All the hours poring over textbooks and articles told him this. And, now, he was here. He was learning from one of the top surgeons in her field, inches away from the hands that he had studied on surgery films trying to imitate. This feeling, this gift, was why he loved his job. If he got to keep it.
"Her parents are going to kill me," he thought aloud, his breath hot against his mask. "They could actually have me killed, I think. They probably have assassins on their speed dial or something, just waiting for these people to call. They would just have to pick up the phone and say, 'Hey, there's this scrawny intern with a death wish. Please fulfill that for him.' And then, then, I would be the one on the table, with a huge bleed and a flat line."
"Parents are high-strung when they come in. I'm sure they won't kill you. Just focus now."
"They might kill you too." Bleng met his mentor's eyes. "I'm serious. They're mad. So mad that you won't do as they say. Then, everything you have will be gone."
Dr. Singer looked back down at her work, "I took an oath. You took an oath. And if we lose our lives over it, then we will know that we have done our jobs to the fullest."
Bleng swallowed, his eyes bright behind his mask, "Lives mean everything."
Dr. Singer lifted her eyes to the intern, "Lives mean everything."