More Than a Dream (15 page)
Haakan came out to the icehouse in the early hours of the morning and finally convinced Mrs. Nordstrum to go to the house with Ingeborg for a few hours rest.
‘‘Just a pallet on the floor,’’ Betty pleaded, but Ingeborg took her upstairs to share Astrid’s bed.
Some time later Haakan woke his wife when he crawled back in bed. ‘‘Mr. Nordstrum came to spell me. I’m not sure because the light was so poor, but I think the boy is responding.’’
‘‘Really?’’ Ingeborg started to throw the covers back, but he stopped her with a hand on her arm. ‘‘His father is there; actually, both fathers.’’
Ingeborg snuggled back into bed and after only a ‘‘Please, Father’’ fell back to sleep.
When she entered the icehouse a bit later, Metiz sat beside Mrs. Nordstrum.
‘‘My husband went home to do the chores. I couldn’t sleep no longer.’’
‘‘I come.’’ Metiz sat cross-legged in front of the boy.
‘‘I was going to get you in a bit.’’
‘‘Good. I think time to take him off ice.’’
‘‘All right.’’
‘‘You sure?’’ The mother looked from one woman to the other, apprehension tightening her face.
‘‘We can always move him back on.’’ Ingeborg lifted the boy and nodded to the others to move the quilts. She was just settling him back on the rearranged pallet when she heard a sound, a faint whimper from Robbie. His eyes fluttered; he shivered.
‘‘Oh, please, God, please.’’ Betty took his hands and began massaging them again. ‘‘Robbie, can you hear me? It’s your mother.’’
A slight nod.
‘‘Easy.’’ Ingeborg laid a hand on Mrs. Nordstrum’s shoulder.
Please, Lord, please,
she echoed the mother’s prayer.
Robbie sighed. ‘‘I-I’m cold.’’
‘‘Oh, thank you, God. Lord above, you brought our son back to us.’’ Mrs. Nordstrum stroked Robbie’s hair back from his forehead and cupped his pale cheeks with her hands.
Ingeborg swung open the door when she heard the rooster crowing. A gray line in the east said the night had passed, and this morning now there would be a little joy with the daybreak.
‘‘Mor!’’
She looked up to see Andrew on horseback galloping across the field. ‘‘The Vaswigs. They need you to help with their baby.’’
Ingeborg waved to him and hugged Mrs. Nordstrum. ‘‘God be with you. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Keep talking to him, and rub his arms and legs.’’
‘‘You go help the others. You’re a good woman, Mrs. Bjorklund. Thank you for all you done.’’ Mrs. Nordstrum handed her the basket of medical supplies.
Ingeborg turned to Metiz, who was already moving toward the door. ‘‘Will you come with me?’’
The two mounted the horse when Andrew threw himself off. ‘‘Please, God, let this go better than the last.’’
Chicago, Illinois
‘‘Arsonist Sets Tenement Fire.’’
Elizabeth stared at the headline through eyes bleary from lack of sleep and tears. Four people from that fire died on her watch the night before, and there were several others hovering on the border. Fourteen others would live but would be horribly scarred.
‘‘How could anyone do such a thing?’’ She slammed a fist on the tabletop, knowing there was no answer and right now no one else in the room to venture a guess.
‘‘Miss Elizabeth, they need you.’’ Patrick stopped in the doorway, his skinny shoulders even more stooped than the summer before. Even though Patrick’s official title was janitor, he filled in where he could, as the hospital was chronically understaffed.
Elizabeth nodded as she stood, tightening her apron while she followed him out the door. Even the few minutes off her feet had helped.
‘‘Where?’’
‘‘The surgery.’’
‘‘Now what?’’
‘‘An accident with the trolley car. Woman said she was pushed.’’
‘‘Oh, how can people be so cruel to each other?’’
‘‘They’re not like that where you come from?’’ Their heels clacked on the hall floor and down the stairs, his with a bit of a shuffle from a hip injury years before, hers the determined stride of one avenging angel. She slammed the swinging door open and crossed to the sink to begin scrubbing. The bite of carbolic acid stung her nose and ate at the rough skin on her hands. No matter how much glycerin she rubbed in, scrubbing with the harsh soaps left her hands red and chapped.
‘‘Need you now!’’ Mary O’Shaughnessy, head nurse for the surgical unit, stuck her head around the corner.
Elizabeth shook out her dripping hands, stood still for Mary to tie a clean apron in place, and pushed through the door to the surgery.
‘‘I need you to assist. Dr. Morganstein is tied up in the other room.’’ Dr. Fossden looked at her over his glasses. While he looked more like an aging gnome than a highly trained specialist, the speed with which he wielded a scalpel continually amazed her.
‘‘What do we have?’’ Elizabeth took her place across the operating table from him.
‘‘Compound fracture of the right tibia, various lacerations, and possible internal bleeding. That’s what you and I are taking care of now, the leg later. Ready?’’
She sucked in a deep breath and nodded. ‘‘Ready.’’
‘‘Good. I’ll section, you suction. Make sure the clamps are secure when you use them. When we find the bleeder . . .’’ He drew a line on the woman’s abdomen with the scalpel and followed the red line with a deep cut. As soon as the abdominal cavity was open, blood spurted, dousing them in red spatters.
‘‘Clamp!’’ Dr. Fossden dove in with both hands, feeling for the pulsating bleeder since he couldn’t see. One nurse wiped the doctor’s face and glasses and another did the same for Elizabeth. The sweet but pungent smell of blood filled her nostrils while she tried to sponge enough away to clear the operating field.
‘‘Got it. Follow my fingers in.’’
The blood stopped spurting and a nurse suctioned the field.
Elizabeth did as he ordered, locating the now flaccid blood vessel between his clamped fingers.
‘‘Above and below?’’
‘‘Yes.’’
She clamped first one and then the other, refusing to allow the shaking in her knees to transmit to her hands. Never had she seen so much blood flow like a fountain, the woman’s lifeblood pumping out over the hands and sheets and onto the now sticky floor.
‘‘Okay, clean us up so we can really see what we are doing here.’’ The doctor’s voice snapped through the bustle.
One nurse removed his glasses and washed them in the sink while another turned Elizabeth’s face toward her with a gentle hand to mop her up.
‘‘Just like your mother used to do, eh?’’ A slight Irish lilt lingered, telling of her origins before Chicago.
‘‘Thank you.’’ Elizabeth peered into the abdominal cavity where one side of the artery to the right leg was missing half an inch of the interior wall.
‘‘Can you stitch that back together, missy?’’
She looked up to see a smile that not only stretched his cheeks but lit his eyes. ‘‘I, ah . . .’’
‘‘You’re a fine seamstress. Hop to it.’’
Elizabeth held out her hand, and a nurse laid a curved surgical needle threaded with the finest catgut on her palm.
‘‘You can do it,’’ she whispered to herself to stop her shaking hands.
Please, Lord, keep me steady here, no mistakes. Just like back
home when the Swenson boy nearly sliced off a finger
. She tried to take the first stitch, but the artery slid away from her.
‘‘You have to take a deeper stitch than that, enough to get beyond the damaged tissue.’’
‘‘All right.’’ Her second attempt made it through, and within minutes, she had the sutures snugged into place.
‘‘Let’s loosen the clamps nice and easy now, and at the slightest leakage, tighten them again.’’
Elizabeth swallowed, eyed the handle of the clamp, sucked in a calming breath, and released the pressure on the upper one as the doctor did the same with the lower one. Blood swelled the artery again, filling and flowing with nary a drop of red.
‘‘That’s the way.’’ Dr. Fossden beamed at her, his white caterpillar eyebrows dotted in red. ‘‘Close her up so we can get started on all the exterior lacerations. She’ll look like a patchwork quilt, but if she can make it through the night—’’
‘‘Won’t she need a transfusion?’’
‘‘I have someone standing by just in case.’’
Elizabeth glanced down at the floor. How could anyone live with such great loss of blood? She held out her hand for the next needle and began stitching the incision in the abdominal wall.
Some time later, time that felt like hours rather than minutes, the doctor laid aside his needle, waited for Elizabeth to tie off one final stitch, and nodded to her. ‘‘You did a fine job, young woman. I’d do surgery with you anytime.’’
Elizabeth could feel her cheeks redden at the compliment. ‘‘Thank you for the privilege.’’
‘‘You are most welcome, and now, Nurse, remove the ice packs and let’s get at that leg.’’ He turned to the nurse monitoring the ether drip into the cone over the patient’s face. ‘‘How’s she doing?’’
‘‘Sleeping like a babe, heart steady in spite of all that blood loss. She is one strong lady.’’
‘‘Good. Miss Rogers, you begin.’’ He indicated the area where the shattered tibia had broken through flesh and skin.
Elizabeth swallowed hard. ‘‘M-me?’’
‘‘Is there any other Miss Rogers around here?’’ The twinkle danced behind his glasses.
‘‘N-no.’’
Steady legs,
she ordered.
You can’t collapse now
. She turned to the nurse beside her. ‘‘May I have a drink of water, please?’’
‘‘Of course, dearie.’’ With a smile the woman left and returned with a full glass, including a chip or two of ice. She held it for Elizabeth to drink, then patted her shoulder, the motherly gesture both comforting and encouraging.
Elizabeth looked across the patient to the doctor. ‘‘Ready?’’
At his nod the nurse slapped a new scalpel in her hand. She made the initial incision.
‘‘Oh.’’ Elizabeth stared as the scalpel hit the floor. She clenched and flexed her hand. ‘‘I’m sorry.’’ Her mind flashed back to home when she’d been so shaky with the teacup.
‘‘Ready?’’ The nurse held out another scalpel.
Elizabeth shook her hand hard.
Please, God
.
‘‘Are you all right?’’ Dr. Fossden waited. ‘‘Good. The artery is fully functional, which is why there was a lack of bleeding from this wound compared to what it could have been. First we need to remove all the separated bone splinters and pretend this is a jigsaw puzzle. Once the field is cleaned out, we’ll retract both ends of the bone and see if we can fit it back together. The swelling will increase, but by keeping the ice around and under, we might be able to alleviate some of that.’’
While the doctor explained what to do each step of the way, Elizabeth used tweezers to pluck away errant bone fragments. ‘‘Can any of these be put back, if we can find the right place, I mean?’’
‘‘That would be a good idea, but I’m afraid we’d be asking for more risk of infection than we are right now. Back in my early days during the war, we just sawed off a leg like this and prayed the patient didn’t die of gangrene. We’ve come a long way since then, but still . . .’’
‘‘You think she’ll be able to walk again?’’
‘‘If we do our job right and God takes good care of the rest.’’
‘‘And she stays off her feet long enough to heal properly.’’ The nurse beside Elizabeth mopped the perspiration off Elizabeth’s forehead again. ‘‘That’s always the problem.’’
‘‘All right, this looks as clean as it is going to get. Miss Rogers, you take the foot, and I’ll do the hip. Nurse, you do what you can to ease those pieces back in place. On three, steady pulling, no jerks, pull straight.’’
Elizabeth felt someone beside her and turned to see Patrick’s smiling face.
‘‘Together,’’ he whispered.
When the doctor reached three, she grasped heel and upper foot, pulling both carefully and firmly, grateful for Patrick’s strength along with her own.
Lord, please make my hand work.
What’s happening to me?
‘‘Enough, hold it.’’ Two nurses worked over the leg. ‘‘Ease off slowly. Good.’’
‘‘Patrick, make sure the weights are rigged in place so we can move her to her bed before she wakes up.’’
Elizabeth looked up from the bone that now lay together, albeit with missing pieces. ‘‘Weights?’’
‘‘We have devised a weight and pulley system that will keep the tension on this break so it can heal cleanly. It also keeps the patient from getting out of bed or even moving around. We will put sandbags along her side also to keep her immobile.’’
‘‘For how long?’’
‘‘Six weeks at least.’’
‘‘What about her family, if she has one?’’
The doctor shrugged. ‘‘We do what we can.’’
And there will be no charge if there is no money
. Elizabeth took the offered needle and began closing up the wound.
‘‘Not too tight now, we need to let it drain, like the abdomen.’’
She nodded. Weariness beyond anything she remembered assailed her as she tied off the final stitch. She propped herself up with rigid arms on the surgical table.
‘‘Are you all right?’’ Nurse O’Shaughnessy slipped an arm about her waist.