Ch 1
It would have been hard for Doctor Stephanie Strange to separate this day from any other. It was nothing special. Just another operation. For the latest operation, Strange and Doctor Varma had to remove a tumor from a patient's brain. Strange and Varma slid the endoscope until they found what they were after.
"And that would be our friend the tumor." Strange said. "Like most friends, this one has outworn its welcome. A few bursts from a laser probe she was holding and the growth vanished in no time. "And that is how you save a life before your coffee gets cold." Then the door opened and Doctor Chris Palmer came in.
"Better get this, Stephanie. We'll take it from here." Varma said. Chris had told Strange that they had a patient with a bullet in his head and Nicole diagnosed brain death. "Nicole?" Strange repeated. Nicole West was a fellow surgeon whom Strange held in a not-high regard area. "What the heck are you doing?" Strange asked when they met up with Nicole.
"Organ harvest." Nicole replied with a roll of her eyes. "He's a donor now."
You're wrong, West, just like you always are.
Strange put a computer tablet with the X-Ray into Nicole's face. "What do you see?"
"A bullet." Nicole replied. "Yeah, a hardened bullet that punched right through bone." Strange said.
You harden a bullet by alloying lead with antimony. A toxic metal. And as it leaks directly into the cerebral spinal fluid…"
"Rapid-onset central nervous system shutdown." Nicole finished.
"The patient's not dead but he is dying." Strange said. "Still wanna harvest his organs?"
They went to another room and Strange was working on the patient. In less than a second, Strange found the bullet and got it out of the patient's brain with a tweezer. "Bingo." Strange said and flashed a smile at Nicole, who just glared back but at the moment Strange didn't care. The job was done.
"I guess the good part for you was humiliating West in the operating room. You didn't have to do that." Chris said.
"True, but I didn't have to save his patient either." Strange replied.
"I could use you as my neurosurgeon on call. You could make a difference." Chris said.
"Chris, I'm already making a difference. I'm fusing transected spinal cords. Stimulating neurogenesis in the central nervous system. In the ER you save only a few people. The skills I'm making will save thousands of people for years to come." Strange replied.
"You got a point there. And plus there's no fame or TV interviews." Chris said.
"I've got a presentation at the Neurological Society tonight, if you'd like to come."
"Eh, I'll pass."
"We used to have fun going to these things together."
"No, you had fun. They weren't about us. They were about you."
"They weren't only about me."
"Stephanie, everything is about you."
With that, Chris was gone.