Chapter Two
"Urgently to the operating room!" It's the man's uncompromising voice.
A woman on a gurney is trundled by a group of people in lab coats. The way is through a long, well-lighted corridor of the hospital.
"A woman. Thirty-five, thirty-six years. The name is Svetlana. Without consciousness. Got into a car accident. Damage to the left side of the chest. Contraindications for anesthesia is unknown." A woman's hurried voice is heard.
"Find out it without delay! Check for allergies, too! If we do not pull out that..." A doctor points a finger at small shard of metal sticking out of the chest of the patient. "Then she died in fifteen minutes because of the loss of blood."
A nurse runs forward.
The patient is wheeled to the operating room. The gurney is rolled up to the table. "On the count of two. One... Two!" The medics carry a woman from transport and put on the operating table.
"Put it on the right-hand side. Turn lights on the chest." Two nurses have already pulled gloves and blindfold sterile mask to a surgeon. "Open heart operation for removing extraneous bodies from the chest area. Assistants are Olga, Ekaterina. The anesthetist is Boris. Senior assistant is Vyacheslav. Everybody gets ready!"
"There are no contraindications to anesthesia. Allergies have not been identified. The anesthesia is espneic, mixed." The voice of Boris is clear, confident.
"Begin!" The surgeon gives a command. The anesthesiologist puts on a plastic mask to the face of the patient. The surgeon approaches with the lifted hands to the operating table. Behind him the senior assistant and two women: assistants.
"We begin and everything will be fine!" Says the surgeon by the firm voice, his eyes are directed upwards.
"May the Lord help us, Victor Petrovich!" Olga doesn't withstand. The surgeon nods.
The woman is on the operating table is laying on her right side, with her left hand withdrawn, the platen fix her waist.
"Keep an eye out for indicators. I'll make an anterolateral thoracotomy on the left, in the 5th intercostal space. Scalpel!" The surgeon commands and makes an incision of soft tissue about twelve centimeters on the chest of the patient.
"Pull out this thing, Slava! Keep up the blood pressure! Get ready to stop bleeding! Vyacheslav, prepares the retractor, if the heart is touched we've to open." The assistant Ekaterina wipes sweat from a forehead of the surgeon by a tampon.
At a breast of the patient there are three pairs of hands: three hands with the tampons, one surgeon's with the anatomic tweezers, one senior assistant's with the same tweezers and one hand with blood-stanching tweezers.
"At my command!" Victor Petrovich takes a piece of metal by the tweezers, Vyacheslav makes the same, but from the other side, the surgeon nods and they pull upwards together. The patient didn't move.
"Blood pressure is falling! Pulse is 120!" Ekaterina reports.
"Open up! Retractor! Prepare moist gauze!" The surgeon says.
The surgeon with a special tool opens up the wound on the patient's chest. The heart and the part of the lung can be seen. Nurse moves easy the lung by wet gauze. The heart is beating. Victor inspects it.
"I see the damage of the pericardium. I'll make an incision." Ekaterina again wipes the sweat from his forehead.
"I open up the pericardium. There is damage from a splinter. See it. Vyacheslav help!"
The surgeon makes an incision of the upper shell of the heart – pericardium and sees a very small piece of metal. Vyacheslav tries to grab it with the forceps, unsuccessfully.
"What are you doing?" The doctor yells at him. "Are you crazy?"
"Thready pulse, the BP is falling, arrhythmia, respiratory standstill." Assistant Olga clearly pronounces each word.
"Prepare for cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Defibrillator!" The surgeon commands.
The heart is swaying slightly, slowing the movement. Victor Petrovich manages to catch a splinter and pull it out. It falls into a metal bowl with a jingle.
"You can!" Ekaterina puts the surface of the defibrillator to the chest of the patient, one at the top right, the other on the bottom left part. She looks at the chief surgeon. Everybody pulls their hands away from the patient.
"Discharge! One more time!" The doctor screams.
The body of the patient is curved.
"Pulse is 70, breath is stabilized." Assistant Olga glows with joy.
"Vyacheslav, stitch up." The surgeon asks.
This time the senior assistant succeeds without remarks. Victor Petrovich observes and knows that everything is almost behind already.
Chapter Three
A resuscitation ward. The light is dimmed. Above the bed are doctors – Victor and Vyacheslav.
"Boris warned that she is about to come out of anesthesia." Victor clings to his chin.
"I'll be back soon." Vyacheslav leaves the room.
Svetlana opens her eyes.
"Victor! What? What happened? I have a terrible headache."
"How do you know my name? Do we know each other?" The doctor is going forehead, trying to remember.
"This is very comfortable for you as usual. Partial amnesia saves families!" A sarcasm does not work. Victor has no idea what she is talking about.
"Svetlana Yurievna (TN: is a patronymic name of Yuriy)! You are in the hospital. I'm your doctor – Victor Petrovich. You have a post-traumatic shock. Perhaps a partial loss of memory. The anesthetic has not passed yet. You have got in a car accident. We've made you a surgical operation. It was successful. But you better not get up. If you want, I can call a psychologist."
"That dream, it was so real. Are you not my husband really? Because my... Our relationships weren't going well in my dream." Svetlana hesitates. "You look exactly like him."
"I can assure you that I'm not your husband. Don't worry."
Vyacheslav enters to the ward.
"Slava, son..." She stops in time.
Vyacheslav looks at Victor Petrovich with misunderstandings.
"Svetlana Yurievna, everything will be fine. You must tell us your dream, but now you have to relax."
The doctor leans over her and looks patient's pupils. He checks the indications. Vyacheslav and Victor get out of the chamber.
"Yes, Boris mixed something again. Cool bananas! He's the narcologist with the right of anesthesiology!"
They are laughing.
A few weeks later the patient Svetlana is ready to be discharged.
"Thank you, Victor. I will never forget! You gave me a new life!" Svetlana kisses the doctor on the forehead.
"I wish you all the best and take care!" Victor looks at her.
"Victor, do you think that my dream… When I was on the verge of death, it was heaven or hell?" Svetlana looks into Victor's eyes.
"You have to decide by yourself, Svetlana! The human heart is a mystery and it can't be fooled. Goodbye and good riddance to bad luck."
Svetlana goes to the porch of the hospital. She looks at the bright sun and puts her face under the rays catching warm with pleasure. Through a thin summer dress her fingers groping a scar on the left breast. She smiles and walks away, alone, but such free and happy.
The End.
About the Author
George Kavsekhornak was born in Leningrad. Now he lives in Saint-Petersburg (Russia). He writes stories in the style of "urban fantasy" when a number of amazing and necessarily things want to be shared. He writes, on the one hand in the style of openly expressing respect for images created by the classics of Russian literature and the legacy of the plot metamorphosis foreign fiction, on the other hand.
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