AN: Thanks to those who reviewed! And to those who read but don't, I hope you're enjoying the story! Sorry for leaving everyone hanging, but life got, well, complicated. But, here's the next chapter. Also, I hope to finish this before the season finale on Sunday…
AN2: While I did do some research into medical matters, hoping to at least 'sound' like I know what I'm talking about, any mistakes are purely my own and/or done with dramatic liscence.
Chapter 7: Development
Dr. Sandra Reece tossed her mask and gown into the biohazard disposal bin and stretched her back before heading away from the operating room and to the waiting room. She was always happy when she could give good news to her patients' families. And she was sad when she had to give bad news. Today, she had a little bit of both for the family of Detective Hoyt.
She was still working the kinks out of her body as she walked down the hall. This surgery was her last of the day, and thankfully, it had been comparatively short – only 3 ½ hours. But she had been in the operating room for most of the day, and her body was protesting. But it wasn't only her body that was protesting. The mound of paperwork that would invariably come had her groaning as well. Especially on Detective Hoyt. High profile patients were never fun. Every move was scrutinized. It's not that the patient care was compromised, but it always felt like every video camera in the hospital was in the OR, and every administrator in the hospital was trying to page her for an update. Finally, she reached the waiting room and stepped inside.
"The family of Detective Woodrow Hoyt?" she asked.
It seemed like the entire room stood and converged on her. She took a step back. She noticed that most of them either wore a uniform or had badges clipped to their belt or around the neck. Likely his buddies from the force. No one old enough to be the patient's parents. There were only two women in the roomful of men. One was short, wore a badge around her neck and a BPD windbreaker. The other woman didn't look like a cop, though she wore a badge. She was taller, also slight, and looked pale and drawn, blood stained her sleeves and the knees of her pants. Her wavy brown hair was messily clipped up onto her head, though it threatened to fall as she approached. Sandra sighed. "Is there anyone here who is part of Detective Hoyt's immediate family?"
The man whose uniform proclaimed him to be the police Captain spoke up. "Detective Hoyt doesn't have any family in the area."
Sandra turned to the nurse who had entered behind her with the patient's chart. "Have we been able to contact his family?"
It was the smaller woman who answered. "Woody's parents are dead. He's got a brother in Wisconsin, though. I hear they're not on the best of terms right now, but we've been trying to get in contact with him. No luck so far."
Sandra sighed. She had a roomful of people who wanted information. And legally, she couldn't talk to any of them. She looked down at the chart, at the medical records that had been faxed over from the personnel department at the Boston Police Department. Scanning through, she found the section of the form that had become too familiar over the last two weeks: Emergency Contact. "Well, then, do any of you know a Dr. Jordan Cavanaugh?"
The tall woman's head lifted. "That's me."
"Dr. Jordan Cavanaugh?"
She nodded, and removed the badge that was clipped to her belt. Flipping it open, she revealed the card that identified her as a coroner working for the city of Boston. Interesting. Her patient and this woman obviously weren't related. Didn't look like they were engaged, either. No ring. But she was obviously a close friend, otherwise the detective wouldn't have listed her as an emergency contact on the forms that officers were required to update every year. "You've been listed as an emergency contact for him. If you like, I can take you to a smaller room, where we can talk privately."
She hadn't wanted to, preferring to stay with the large group. But eventually, the two men she was with, who identified themselves as friends of both the woman and the patient and employees of the morgue, encouraged her to do so. One or both of them must have realized that when a doctor asks a question like that, it was usually news that needed explaining, and was easier to do with just one person, who could then pass on only the necessary information. Eventually, it was Dr. Cavanaugh, the two men (whom she now knew to be Doctors Macy and Townsend) and the man's partner, Detective Santana, who went to a smaller, private room.
Once they had all been settled, Dr. Reece began her explanation. "Dr. Cavanaugh -"
"Jordan. Please, call me Jordan."
Sandra smiled slightly at the familiar efforts of a patient's family to make a tough situation easier. "Fine. Jordan. Detective Hoyt was shot twice. Once in the lower part of his upper arm, about here." She indicated on her own arm. The bullet went clean through, managed to miss the bone, the nerves and major blood vessels. Very lucky. There was some tearing in the muscle tissue itself, but we've made the necessary repairs and stitched the wounds closed.
"The big concern though, I'm sure you're aware, is the gunshot wound to the abdomen. I understand it was you who was first on scene?" Sandra spoke gently to Dr. Cavanaugh.
She nodded. "Yeah. Nigel and I. We were both there. There was so much blood…" Sandra couldn't help but notice how Jordan's hands absently trailed along the dried blood on her clothing.
Sandra momentarily flashed back to her first encounter with Detective Hoyt, almost four hours ago. Though he had been stabilized in the ER, and given several IV bags of saline and blood to replace his lost blood volume, the he had still been bleeding profusely.
"I know. In all, he lost more than half his blood volume, most of it at the scene. That's what caused his heart to stop. There was almost nothing left to pump, so his heart went into a state of overdrive, trying to get as much blood as it could to the brain."
"The tachycardia," Jordan said.
Sandra had forgotten that three of the others in the room were medical doctors. "Exactly. The heart couldn't sustain itself, and it went into an irregular rhythm. The shock from the defibrillator and the fluids he was given by the paramedics helped resolve that. Because he got help so quickly – partly from you, I understand – there shouldn't be any long-term damage, at least not from a cardiologic or neurological standpoint."
"Thank God."
"You're telling us the good news. What else?" Dr. Macy asked. Sandra glanced from Jordan to him. The man seemed to recognize the uneven address and tone of a clinician delivering news.
Sandra took a breath. "A high powered bullet, a 'cop killer' bullet, entered here, at his waist, on his left side. It lacerated his kidney, went through his stomach, through the liver, through the diaphragm, lacerated a part of the lung and went out his back, on his right side."
"Oh, God." Jordan closed her eyes. Dr. Reece had just named four of the body's major organs.
Sandra watched the woman start to shake, and reach out for her friends' hands, anything to steady herself. Being a doctor, she obviously knew what kind of damage had been done. But given the situation, Sandra knew she still had to explain it. "By then the bullet had lost enough speed that it lodged in the back side of his Kevlar vest. Somehow, it managed to miss the ribcage on the way out, so the only broken rib was the one cracked during CPR, but there was plenty of damage. Fortunately, the bullet completely missed the spleen, which is something we were worried about at first. We're also fortunate that he's young and very healthy; the surgery went well. There were two surgeons, Dr. Benson and myself. We repaired the lacerations, but because the contents of the stomach went into the abdomen, there's a strong possibility of infection. We had to remove a section of his liver, but the liver can regenerate itself, as you know, and can return to its normal size in about two weeks. His right lung collapsed, both from its own injury and the fluids from the abdomen, which leaked through the hole in the diaphragm. We repaired the hole in the diaphragm, inserted a chest tube, but had to remove a small portion of his right lung. As a doctor, I know you're wondering why the surgery was so short for such extensive injuries. The high powered bullet simply went straight though. There wasn't a lot of secondary damage, so the surgery was mostly about patching up the damage rather than restructuring the internal systems.
"Now, I know all these injuries seem daunting, and they are very serious. He's in critical condition since there's a very high risk for infection right now, and his body's already weak from the trauma. We're going to keep a very close eye on him in the ICU for the next couple days, and if he makes it through the next twenty-four hours with out any complications, his chances will be much better. Do you have any questions?"
Jordan shook her head. Sandra felt for the woman. She obviously cared about the man deeply. Her color hadn't gotten any better in the last few minutes either. "Can I have someone get you something else to wear? Some scrubs maybe?"
Jordan looked down at her clothes and, if possible, her skin became even paler. "Oh jeez. I didn't, I didn't even realize… It's his… his…"
"Easy, Jo," Nigel said.
"Take deep breaths," Garret added.
"They're right. Take some breaths. In. Out." Unconsciously, Sandra's hand had reached out, feeling for Jordan's pulse. "I don't want to have another patient here."
A few moments later, Jordan looked back up at the doctor, much calmer and breathing normally again. "I'm okay… Can I see him?" she asked tentatively.
Sandra took a breath and studied Dr. Jordan Cavanaugh for a few moments. As a surgeon, she knew that the more sterile the environment, the better her patients chances were. At least empirically. But as a mother, and a wife whose husband had been in the ICU three years ago in a car accident, she knew that the presence of a loved one (whatever type of love these two showed) was comforting, both to the visitor and the patient, even if the later was unconscious.
"Okay," she said after a few moments more. "But first, let's get you cleaned up." Sandra saw Jordan squash an impulse to object. "And get you a snack and something to drink. Then you can see him."
Fifteen minutes later, trussed up in protective gear, Jordan was at Woody's bedside.
