Well, we pick up where we left off. I hope you enjoy this chapter. Warning, the rest of the procedure is in this chapter.

Chapter 10: Extractions, part two

At 9:40, Dr. Klein went through with the left side of Elena's mouth. Elena gave a thumb's up when she was ready. Sophia and Dr. Klein had switched places. It'd probably freak out some people if they saw the scene before them. Sophia noticed that Elena's eyes had drifted shut. They were covered by the glasses. Over her nose was a nitrous oxide mask. A special mouth prop was holding her mouth open and there was a suction tube pulling her lower lip down. One could hear it if they were close enough. On Elena's left arm was a blood pressure cuff and you could see wires coming from the side of her shirt. On Elena's left index finger was a pulse oximeter. Under the drape (and Elena's shirt) were monitors for her heart. The screen showed her heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen. In Elena's right arm was an IV that had a muscle relaxer inserted into it. On Elena's right side was the tray that had tools on one end and on the other were the filled molars that still had the crimson at the roots. Then they flushed out the IV with saline before hooking it up to fluids so Elena wouldn't get dehydrated. The bag was dangling from an IV pole. *

"Elevator," Dr. Klein said to Sophia as the young woman handed her the tool. The surgeon easily used the tool to get the tooth out of its socket. It was a repeat and Elena was almost done. One beeping noise got louder.

Sophia looked up to see Elena's heart rate rise.

Dr. Klein stitched the last dissolvable stitch. "Once more, Miss Clark," the surgeon said and Sophia complied. As the surgeon was working on getting the tooth out of its socket, Sophia spoke up.

"I don't know if it's just my imagination, but do the teeth on Elena's left side seem bigger than the one on her right?" Sophia asked.

The surgeon nodded, not looking up from her work. The sanguine liquid began to drip slightly as she asked for the forceps. "I think that there is a minuscule size difference." Once handed the forceps, Sophia watched as she grabbed the tooth and tugged it in various directions to remove it. More blood began to ooze as the tooth was being extracted. A rarity happened: the tooth broke, leaving the roots in the socket.

Sophia only managed to catch the name of the tool that Dr. Klein asked her for. A smaller elevator was being used followed by a smaller set of forceps. As the surgeon delicately extracted the roots, the monitor for Elena's heart began to slow. The nurse and the anesthetist noticed this. "Dr. Klein, Ms. Sangster's heart rate is plummeting at a rather," but the anesthetist couldn't finish that sentence as the monitor flatlined. Dr. Klein had noticed the loss of blood with this tooth, but due to the amount of blood still present, she said, "Rinse. I need to make sure that there aren't any root fragments in there. Beth, grab the AED!" **

Sophia was horrified. Elena was dying? She then looked at her friend's mouth, noticing the blood on the top left where her molar had previously been. She suctioned there before rinsing the area as the surgeon told her. The nurse had to clear the area so she could move the EKG leads (which meant the already somewhat bloody drape had to come off) to put the pads on Elena's chest. "Clear!"

The AED did its job and thankfully, Elena's heart began beating again. "That's peculiar. Ms. Sangster said that she didn't know much about her parents' history due to their early deaths. There was no mention of a condition, but that's strange."

Sophia's eyes widened as she remembered one day in high school, many years ago.

-Flashback to Sophia, Brooke and Elena's freshman year- ***

The trio were in their PE course and it was a day for volleyball in the class. After spiking the ball (the trio wondered how they got put on the same team because the assignments so far had been random), Elena lost her footing and landed on the floor. As Brooke got ready to serve, one of their classmates noticed that Elena wasn't moving. Brooke did the serve before having one of their classmates check to see if maybe Elena had passed out or was crying from hitting the gymnasium's floor.

So they did and called for their PE teacher (Coach Mariano) to come over. More than one PE class was taught at a time, so as soon as the coach realized that he couldn't hear her pulse, he did the same thing. The fire department came, as did an ambulance. Elena had been taken outside and to the hospital. PE was the last class of the day and her teacher said that he'd call Elena's parents. ****

At that, Brooke and Sophia explained that Elena wasn't living with her parents. Not because of any abuse, drug use or anything of that nature, but because they passed away long before Elena moved to North Carolina. They only knew that Elena's grandmother was alive but didn't wish to leave Chicago and they knew she had another set of grandparents.

"So, who are her legal guardians?" the coach asked, folding his arms.

He was surprised at the tone they used for 'aunt' but didn't push it. Both were picked up, but worried about their friend.

-A few hours earlier-

"C'mon. Where's that stud-attracting smile?" Brooke asked. Elena huffed and turned her head. Sophia walked by.

She stopped and sat down. "What's up with Ley?" Brooke shrugged. Elena looked around her friends before signaling them to come closer, revealing a smile. …but not the smile they were used to.

Elena had blue and black rubber bands over the brackets for her braces. "I just got them not too long ago, but I had to get them tightened this morning."

Both could sympathize to a degree.

-The hospital-

Coach Mariano accompanied Elena to the hospital and was surprised at the age difference between Frank and Susan. 'They're her legal guardians. I have to go from what the girls told me,' he thought before introducing himself.

"She just collapsed? No shortness of breath or anything?" Susan asked in disbelief and concern. Frank had to think. It was a Friday and he could only think to call his parents.

As he (Frank) was making that call, the doctor came in and Elena stirred, but didn't wake up. The coach gave Susan his personal phone number to update him on Elena's condition.

-End of flashbacks-

'C'mon, Elena,' Sophia thought and her heart rate was heard once again and once given the okay, Dr. Klein finished getting some root fragments out of the socket as Sophia put a napkin over her friend's shirt. Sophia rinsed and suctioned and let the surgeon add the final stitches. "Miss Clark, you may take off your gloves, wash up and meet me in the office," she said. Sophia nodded before looking at her friend one last time. She took off her gloves, washed her hands and left the room.

The surgeon put some thick gauze pads (folding them in half) in Elena's mouth with a few cotton rolls in between. She moved the light as the nurse re-positioned the chair and took off the napkin. "Let me know when she wakes up. I'd like to speak to her."

The surgeon washed up after taking off her mask, taking a sharp breath through her nostrils.

(Office)

Sophia told the surgeon that their mutual friend Brooke was originally going to take Elena to her house, but had a family emergency and that she took full credit. "You did very well, Miss Clark. You should be proud of yourself. You are encouraged to walk around if you'd like. I have to type up a set of instructions for Ms. Sangster."

Sophia nodded and once she left, the surgeon began typing. As she waited for the instructions to print and as she was jotting down a note, she found herself going to her purse. In there, she grabbed her wallet, revealing a picture of a young, smiling couple. The man had dark hair and eyes with rings on his fingers. 'Well Harlan, I said I'd take care of Elena whenever the time came. I know she misses you and strives to do her best,' Dr. Klein thought with a small smile.

(Later on. Around 11:30am)

Elena came to and tried to talk. By this point, Sophia had returned to the room and told her friend that her mouth was filled with cotton. The oral instructions Elena received from Dr. Klein was to leave the gauze and cotton in for the 15-20 minute (traffic pending) drive to the Clark residence. Elena's written instructions consisted of the diet she had to stick to and to follow up with the surgeon in one week to make sure the stitches dissolved and that she was recovering. [1]

Sophia had to keep Elena awake and with her slightly older friend still somewhat out of it, Sophia had to really think. "I'm sure you know what's going on with your body. Everything you're going to feel is normal. The procedure (general anesthesia regardless) tends to take a lot out of a person. Since you're older," and at that, Elena was able to backhand slap her friend's forearm, "...since as opposed to being a teenager like a lot of patients who Dr. Klein sees, your body recovers a bit differently."

She waited for the opportune moment to tell her that there was a repeat of "Volleyball Friday" in PE. For now, she made the drive to her house and a neighbor helped support Elena walking in. The Chicagoan promptly fell asleep on the couch. Sophia set a timer on her phone for an hour. There were 11 minutes before Sophia's timer went off as she was caught off guard by Elena moaning. Sophia was thankful that her mom was a nurse and had gloves in the house. "Can you get to the bathroom?" Sophia called and Elena (albeit looking like a drunk trying miserably to pass the sobriety test) made it there and Sophia was thankful that she hadn't taken her heels off just yet. Why? [2]

Elena was a full 5" taller than Sophia and the heels brought her (Sophia) closer to her friend's height. She put gloves on before removing the cotton rolls first. The gauze pads (on the left side) had some blood on them, but thankfully, no blood was around either socket. Elena would get through this and Sophia said she had a private phone call to make and went upstairs to her room to do so.

Elena was thinking that Sophia was calling her mom or something, but what the Illinois native didn't know was that her friend was calling her (Elena's) aunt and uncle. It would be a long day, but Sophia didn't care.

Well, that's the surgery story. I'll do the rundown and the second to last end A/N.

(*) If you have an IV in your arm and the nurse administers a muscle relaxer, a painkiller or whatever into the IV and some time goes by before they need to hook up a bag… all I can accurately say is that they use a syringe [filled with saline {which is pretty much saltwater} and nothing else], put that in the part of the IV that sticking out of your arm and then the saline gets through the catheter [the thin tube that the needle is attached to] to rinse out anything. I'm not sure exactly how it works because I usually turn my head away whenever they do this. I've watched it at least 2 or 3 times. Part two: food and water interfere with anesthesia and I'm not sure how less the interference is with laughing gas… but having been in the ER [I won't go into depth completely] for reasons that were typically associated with me being unable to get food to stay down, I know that you'll get hooked up to an IV. The medicine bag is filled with fluids so you don't get dehydrated.

(**) Not to me, but rather to a person I know rather well. My brother, to be precise. Anyway, his wisdom teeth came in once [I don't recall if his upper wisdom teeth came in first or if his lower wisdom teeth came in first] and I actually was shown them and wasn't completely grossed out. Then when he had the other two extracted, I noticed that they were slightly bigger. Knowing my chances of interacting with an oral surgeon wouldn't be for a while, I asked my dentist what they knew and learned that the same sets of teeth [and not just wisdom teeth] can be different in size. Part two: AED is an acronym for Automated External Defibrillator.

(***) So, wisdom tooth extraction or not, the tooth can separate from the roots. This happened to someone I know. Part two: in an earlier chapter [if not the prequel to this. Chapter two of Mourning Mom], I stated that Sophia was younger than Elena and Brooke but still in the same grade. I'm 93% sure that I stated she skipped a grade, just not which one. If I didn't, I'll go back and edit this portion later. Sophia skipped Kindergarten and advanced a grade. She met Brooke and Ross in fifth grade and they all met Elena at the same grade level, but that's really another story.

(****) When I was in middle and high school [well, starting in sixth grade], multiple classes could fit into the gymnasium. Two classes could fit into the high school, as opposed to the middle school's four. There tend to be multiple teachers for one subject. Part two: this was the beginning of the semester. Coach Mariano was new to the area and he and Elena got along rather well. Part three: the fire department tends to come first because they are the first responders. No one called [and I'm not sure how long this has been in effect, but either way, this is a fan fiction story, so cut me some slack. Otherwise, shut up] for them to come because as soon as the AED [which is kind of like a fire extinguisher that's behind a glass door, but it's under less security, if that makes sense] door is opened and the AED itself is taken out, the nearest fire station receives the signal. I think that that's neat.

I've seen "lady-killer" smile before. I still don't know what that means, so I just made something up. Part two: wait. How does Dr. Klein know Harlan if she's lived in North Carolina all her life? …or something like that is probably what you might be asking yourself. I'll say a little more in the last chapter, but not too much more. Part three: I said traffic pending …that means that depending on traffic, the drive from the campus to the Clark residence could fall anywhere in between 15 and 20 minutes.

Elena doesn't think of 23 as old [and neither do I], she just wanted to make a point that while not in a state to reply to her friend's comment, that didn't mean she didn't hear it! Part two: "Volleyball Friday" is what the remainder of the students who witnessed the event [of Elena collapsing] called it. Part three: if you watch things like people getting pulled over on TV [or Netflix, Hulu, YouTube or whatever], then you have an idea of what I'm talking about. I'm willing to wager that if you type into a search engine [be it Google {or your preferred internet search engine of choice} or YouTube] 'drunk person fails sobriety test' or something like that [maybe 'cops do sobriety test on obviously drunk person' or 'drunk person gets pulled over' …something like that] …you'll find a video. I find these instances [where someone is ridiculously drunk to the point that I'm surprised they're alive when the cop pulls them over and ends up asking to perform a field sobriety test] rather hilarious. I know, I'm weird. Deal with it. On a side note, the field sobriety test is more than just walking a straight line, depending on how intoxicated the person is. I only know this from watching it on TV.

End A/N: well, we're almost to the end. It's later than I even expected, so I raced in typing the rest of this. As of this moment, I don't have Wi-Fi on my laptop. Which is why I saved this document to my flash drive and went to my desktop.

Anyway, as always, read and review, fave and follow, vote and ask.

Until next time.

~Queen

PS So, I said that there's a full 5" (inches) height difference in between Elena and Sophia. Sophia and Brooke are around the same height, but there's actually a slight difference. Brooke is about an inch taller. So the heights are as follows: 5'6" (Sophia), 5'7" (Brooke) and ...well, Elena's height is usually rounded up, but she's not 6' tall. She's only around 5'11" ...and maybe 5'11.5".

I hope that that clears things up.

Date and time of revision: 8/23/2017

What was revised: I added the postscript with the heights for the girls.