Peter dries his hands and tosses the towel into the bin as he pushes open the Scrub Room door open. He had just finished yet another appendectomy, this time on a nine-year-old boy. It's boring and monotonous at times, but now that he's mostly doing General Surgery, it's the whole point. But he does miss the action and excitement and sheer fun of Trauma Surgery every now and again. And lucky for him, he can scrub in on trauma procedures sometimes and it gives him his fix for a while.
He changes his scrub top that is drenched with sweat from being in an OR with broken air conditioning and pulls out his lunch bag from his locker. As he walks to the cafeteria, Peter chuckles to himself, knowing what the other guys are going to say when they see what he brought for lunch.
"Nice lunch bag, Peter," Daniel teased, watching his colleague pull out a chair and sit.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, laugh it up," Peter waves his hand, smiling, egging his friends on.
"I gotta say, Peter: I never pictured you as a 'Shopkins' type of guy. I like this new side of you," Alex nods, gesturing to the purple lunch bag.
"I'm a man of many sides," Peter laughs along with the other guys.
The teasing and the laughs continue as Peter pulls out the food inside: a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, cheese popcorn, a yogurt tube, grapes, and a Capri Sun juice pouch. And sitting on top, written on Hello Kitty stationery, is a note that is obviously written by a child.
Daddy,
Good luck on your spelling test today. I am rooting for you!
Remember: you is smart, you is kind, you is important.
Love,
Adara.
"'Spelling Test'? Your kid does know what you do for a living right?" Alex asks.
"Of course she does," Peter says, giving his friend a look of 'are you dumb?' "But I told her that saying good luck on your surgery is bad luck, so we starting calling it spelling tests when she wants to wish me luck." All the boys the table laugh at that, making everyone around them turn and look.
"That's smart, I should do that," Alex nods
"No, that your kids would know what a spelling test is, right, Alex? I mean I didn't think they did those at that fancy school you send them too," Peter counters.
"Hey! That's not true. Their school just doesn't believe in traditional ways of teaching and learning. They still do the same things the other schools do, even spelling tests, just different."
"Okay. Damn. It was just a joke!" Peter apologizes, sucking down the juice in three slurps.
"So what kind of Spelling Test was she wishing you luck on?" Alex asks, eating his own lunch.
"I got a Lap Coly in an hour," Peter nods.
"And that's something to wish you luck on? Haven't you done like a million of them?" The young doctor asks.
"Yes I have, but to her everything I do is important. Even if it's the thousandth time I've done it."
"Well alright."
The three boys finish their lunches over talk of the disaster of a football game that had occurred the previous night, and their teasing over printed lunchboxes turns into an argument over stupid calls a referee made to their favorite football team.
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A Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy (or the removal of the gallbladder) is a minimally invasive procedure involving a few small incisions and the use of a laparoscopic camera and various tools made specifically for use along with the camera. It's a simple procedure, from a surgeon's point of view, and so Peter hands the reigns over to the med student in the room with him.
He guides the young man through every step, gently correcting him when the need arises.
"I did it!" The student cheers as he pulls out the scope for the final time, and prepares to stitch the patient up. "That was – that was amazing."
Peter hums, impressed with the student. "You did good," he says, not wanting to inflate the kids' ego too much more. And with one final now, Peter leaves the OR for the last time that day, tossing his gown, gloves, and cap into the trash bin.
The first thing he does when he gets into the locker room is shed his scrubs and replace them with the jeans and gray Henley he had worn into work that morning. Another hour is spent filling out paperwork and doing nightly rounds to hand off that day's cases. Thankfully all of his patients were recovering well, which eased his mind a lot as he gathers his coat and bag and made his way to the parking garage and his car.
The soundtrack to the musical 'Hamilton' is playing over the speakers, as it had been when he arrived that morning after dropping off his daughter at school. He doesn't bother changing it as he drives home, and it even makes the Chicago rush hour traffic a little bit more bearable than it usually is.
"Hey, Dad!" His daughter calls out as he comes through the garage door and into the house. The Crockpot had been running all day and the house smells amazing, and he sneaks a peek inside as he heads to hang up his coat.
"Hey!" Peter hangs up his jack and goes in search of his wife and daughter and finds them huddled around the mirror in the bathroom on the main floor of their house.
Cleo is standing behind Adara, whose shirt is covered with a towel, a black straightener in her hand, helping the child style her hair, and she looks over when she catches her husband in the corner of her eyes. "Hey, baby," she smiles, continuing to straighten the mess of curls her daughter inherited.
"Hey," Peter replies, leaning close and stealing a kiss. "What are you doing?"
"Mom's helping me get ready," his daughter smiles.
"Ready for what?" he asks, not realizing his daughter had an event to go to that night
"The Fall Ball. It's tonight. Ow!" Adara shouts, flinching as the iron gets a little close to her neck.
"Oh! Sorry, baby," Cleo says, rubbing at the sensitive spot, slowly starting again. "You need to leave," she says to her husband through the mirror, smiling. "You're making this dangerous."
"Maybe you're right," Peter agrees, nodding. "I'm gonna go change."
"Oh! Dad!" Adara calls him back. When he appears, she continues. "Reece called; he says 'hi'."
"Oh, cool. I'll try calling him back later," he nods before disappearing again, ready to change out of his work clothes and into pajamas.
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"Wow! Look at you!" Peter admires, taking in his daughter as she comes into the living room having finished getting ready for her fall dance. She's in sixth grade now, almost all grown up, and with her hair long and shiny and straight, and dressed in a black sweater with cutouts on the shoulder, purple jeans and black boots, she looks much more mature and grown-up than her eleven years of age.
"Does it look okay?" Adara asks, suddenly self-conscious.
"You looks great, baby," Peter smiles. Having a daughter is a new and scary experience and he remembers calling his sister nearly every day of Adara's first year of life asking questions. And now that she's older and experiencing things Reece never went through, he finds himself doing it all over again.
"Thank you," she smiles, coming close and turning her cheek for a kiss to not smudge her lipgloss. He gives his daughter a kiss, smacking her cheek twice, making her giggle and flinch away.
"Hey, thank you for making me a lunch today, I really liked it," he tells her.
She smiles wide, "Really?"
"Really. Thank you."
"You're welcome," she says. And a second later her best friend, Sierra knocks on the door, ready to take her to the dance.
"Bye! Have fun," Cleo says, watches the two girls walk to the latter's car. "We'll see you later."
"Bye, mom!" Adara calls, and then she's gone.
Cleo smirks to herself as she comes back into the living room; it's a rare occasion nowadays that they get the house to themselves, and she is going to take full advantage of it for the few hours they get. "So, have any plans for tonight?" She poses, leaning against the back of the couch.
"Well there's a game on tonight that I wanted to watch, maybe get something to eat and relax, I guess," he shrugs, looking over his shoulder at her before turning back to the TV.
"Really?" she asks, sliding her arms around his shoulders and resting them on his chest. "Because I had something a little different in mind." She kisses his jaw, then his cheek and ends at the corner of his mouth. "But if you're too tired." She whispers.
"I don't know," he sighs. "Now that you mention it, I am pretty tired."
She kisses him again, now laying half over the couch, and when Peter stands up, she falls all the way over. "Peter! Help me!" she laughs, voices muffled in the couch cushions.
He rounds the couch and pulls her up, smacking her butt as he passes. "Come on."
"Hey!" she gasps, "that's not fair!" But she follows him anyway.
