Silent Fear, a Medical Mystery (2 page)

Danny grinned under his mask at all the slobber. The only oral secretions he ever dealt with were Dakota’s, and his were enough.

The rail-thin anesthesiologist pulled out the tube she’d just placed and put it on the patient’s chest. “He’s quite mature for his age, isn’t he? I need a bigger one.” She gave Michael some more puffs of oxygen from the mask she’d placed over his face. Dotty, the OR nurse held up another package and Lucy Talbot shook her head. “An eight should do.”

She slid the next tube into the trachea, confirmed correct placement, and slid off her blue gloves to put the patient on the ventilator with inhalational anesthetic. Danny and Dotty both handed her the wet array of packaging, contents, and laryngoscope. “What a sloppy mess,” Dotty said.

After preparing his initial part, Danny went to the sink outside and removed the Steri-Stips from the palm of his left hand to scrub. Healing had begun on Sunday’s cut, but it hadn’t yet totally epithelialized. He went back in and after donning the rest of his surgical attire, sat at the head of the table where Michael’s head was ready. They put drapes and Danny asked James, the scrub tech, for his second most important instrument – the drill.

Dotty put the radio on. “Is it okay if I keep my genre of choice, y’all?”

An iconic female country singer’s voice filtered the room. “The only thing more theatrical in these OR’s besides the conversations,” Danny said, “is the music. How can we argue listening to her in the Music City?”

“She’s playing at Opryland next weekend,” Lucy said. The little anesthesiologist popped right up from her catch-up charting. “Anyone have tickets?”

“I wish,” Dotty said.

James stood poised with the suction tip as Danny drew nearer to finishing the bur hole in Michael’s skull. The drill bit stopped, the bone dust stopped, and the evacuating noise of the hematoma began.

“Seeing her is on my bucket list,” Danny said a minute later. “She’s got my respect. Not only does she have a distinctive voice and talent, but she’s a heck of a business woman. I think she keeps plastic surgeons gainfully employed, too.” His laugh, which rolled over extra, infected them all, causing copious chuckles.

“I admire her philanthropic nature,” James said. “She does programs for disabled kids and has a free kid’s summer camp in eastern Tennessee. Kids are picked by one of her committees and they go in two week increments.”

“I think the program’s called ‘It’s the Best Summer After All,” Lucy said, “and unlike some entertainers, she stays out of trouble.”

Except for the music, the room got quiet until the OR doors swung open and the head nurse came walking in. She stopped behind Danny’s shoulder. “Dr. Tilson, we’ve brought down you’re first scheduled patient to the holding area. They wanted me to tell you he has a small fever.” She looked at Dotty and James. “You two are staying in this room to do it. It’s the brain abscess drainage.”

“Okay,” Danny said, “thanks.”

“Dr. Tilson, I’m doing the next case as well,” Dr. Talbot said.

----------

Danny looked over his patient’s chart, the case they had delayed, while he sipped coffee. Troy Neal was a sixty-five year old farmer who had been hand reaping and managed to fall on his nearby sickle. The resulting skull fracture had introduced the infection resulting in his brain abscess. Danny told him it could have been far worse. Despite appropriate antibiotics, the remaining pus needed surgical drainage and this appeared to be the last surgery he’d require.

After leaving a small amount of his coffee on the counter and hearing Tracy’s voice inside Mr. Neal’s cubicle, Danny stepped inside. He stretched out his hand for a thorough handshake from the wiry bald man. He’d been a true gray before they’d shaved off his remaining hair.

“Don’t want to meet you like this anymore, Doc, and I don’t want to be carrying around these Staph and Strep guys in my head anymore, neither.”

Danny rolled out a chuckle. “I’m sorry to laugh, Mr. Neal. You get an A in the crash course you’ve taken on medical jargon. Just don’t use yourself as the patient next time.”

“I didn’t plan on no metal in my head. You have any ancestors with farming blood?”

“No. My Dad and Mom were primarily in the restaurant business. Right here in Nashville. My Mom’s parents ran nurseries, which is where she got her green thumb.”

“Well, at least they knew about growing things. Thing is, my Daddy told me about the bad bugs in soil. I probably knew more about them there things before you went to the fancy institutes to learn it.” His sinewy hand scratched his sparse eyebrow. “And modern society and all this technology wouldn’t be anywhere if it weren’t for farmers. We put the food of vitamins and minerals and protein on their plates.”

Danny nodded his head in agreement. “And I, for one, thank you for it.”

A serious-looking orderly poked his head in. “I’m here to wheel Mr. Neal back to the O.R.” Tracy nodded and handed Troy a head bonnet from a box on the shelf.

“You’ve run a low grade temp on and off again the last day,” Danny said. “We’ll keep an eye on you post-op today and tomorrow but you should be out of here soon.”

At the counter, Danny pitched his residual cold coffee as Tracy handed the chart to the orderly. She caught Danny before he stepped away. “Dr. Tilson, how did Michael Johnson do?”

“No problems. He’s sleeping off anesthesia in the recovery room. It’s amazing the resilience of a young brain after trauma. He should bounce back just fine.”

Chapter 2

If Rachel were to draw up a list of her finest attributes other than her decadent figure, adaptability to any kind of situation would top the list. Despite even her best planning, circumstances had changed beyond her control, requiring an adjustment in direction. The trick to survival was to gain comforts with the least self-expenditure and to use your highest cards skillfully. Love played a slight role, too, only since she’d had a baby and developed a fondness for her own infant, the strength of which she hadn’t banked on.

Rachel liked to think of Julia as her own infant, especially after Dr. Danny Tilson paid her little child support those months he had been placed on a leave of absence. Thank goodness her attorney, Phil Beckett, had continual correspondence with Danny’s attorney and found out he was working again full time. Phil had litigated to increase the support ante to Rachel as the good doctor was back to a six-figure annual income. He even got her a retroactive raise to the first day Danny went back. Rachel could have kissed his nuts.

But it wasn’t Phil’s nuts on Rachel’s mind these days.

His name was Leo. Rachel had plenty of time off when arriving in Knoxville, having her baby, and getting used to motherhood, but she felt the money crunch. She hadn’t been able to keep the money she’d hoisted from Danny’s Einstein book either and she didn’t even have the merchandise to resell anymore.

Rachel took another surgical tech job, one ten-hour shift, for one day a week. It turned out that’s all she needed because she made headway with a pharmacist she met the second week on the job. Her milk-engorged breasts made her more voluptuous than ever. Leo, one of the hospital’s pharmacists, practically spilled his pills when he saw the gorgeous aqua-eyed OR tech walk in for a prescription.

Leo lived a modified single guy’s life. Already in his late thirties, he didn’t go through women as fast as he used to. Now he opted for only one woman at a time. Occasionally he would let more desirous ones live with him. Although his pad consisted of only a two bedroom, one story house with a finished basement on a half-acre, he’d gone through great pains to create the most lavish chick-magnet setting in the area he lived in. His front corridor had a ten-point buck’s head mounted on the wall, and without fail, he’d point to his expensive rifle display and brag about how that weapon was used to kill the sucker. Actually, he’d never gone hunting in his life, except for women.

----------

Friday afternoon drew to a close. Rachel had spent the entire day pampering herself and enjoying mother-baby time on the teakwood deck. Shacking up with Leo for the last two weeks had been a godsend … it suited all her purposes. She had no rent or major expenses, she made a bit from her job and banked most of Danny’s child support, and the surroundings for her and Julia proved opulent. Leo worked forty hours during the week and she sweated her shift on Saturdays, so she didn’t have to contend with him that often. He had a maid occasionally come in during the day as well.

After coming inside, Rachel placed her lemonade on a marble coaster. She lightly bounced Julia on her lap as she looked out the glass wall to the deck. She’d been careful not to be out too long in the heat and expose their fair skin to the sun. Looks and body came first, not only for herself, but for baby Julia as well. Julia gave a little squeal from the motion and waved her hands up and down.

Rachel heard the thud of a car door, the front door opened, and Leo strutted in. His medium height matched Rachel’s and he had a chiseled look with tight sharp facial features. He wore sweat above his lip, constant summer baggage he despised.

“You beat looking at prescription bottles,” he said, immediately spotting Rachel. His deep voice filled the high-ceilinged room.

Rachel put Julia on the floor. The baby sat up then tried haphazardly to perfect her crawl while Rachel continued to swivel her chair around and crossed her legs.

“I’m glad. You’d make a nice postcard, too. All’s well at work?” She snickered to herself regarding her last comment because she doubted filling prescriptions was an exciting job. It was Danny Tilson, the father of her baby, who did something far more challenging.

“Everything’s good as long as I fulfill the proper drugs and dosages into little containers and bags. But it’s not always as easy as it seems. I sent back a manufacturer’s entire lot of a diuretic today as the whole lot smelled counterfeit.” He walked closer to Rachel and slid his hand under her chin.

“Smelled counterfeit?” she inquired.

“Metaphorically speaking, that is.”

Rachel got up and their lips pressed. “It’s going to be a hell of a Friday night, isn’t it?” she asked, toying at the top button of his shirt.

“Sure is, especially after I take you out for a bottle of wine and quick bite.” He looked over at Julia who seemed inquisitive alongside a book rack on the floor. “Baby Julia won’t miss us. We’ll leave her here this time.”

“Leo,” she crooned. She thought quickly. She’d never left her baby alone before. “I don’t have a sitter, that won’t work.”

He nestled into her hair and pulled her closer. “Baby, your velvet voice is intoxicating.” He nudged her back and looked serious. “We’ll wait until she’s sleeping and slip out only for an hour.”

----------

The nightly ritual with Julia had gotten easier as Rachel had stopped breast feeding. She fed, diapered, and changed her, then placed her in the crib in the second bedroom making sure she pressed Julia’s sleeptime to later than normal. Julia gurgled and cooed but took only a few minutes to fall asleep. Rachel closed the door half-way, went to their bedroom and slipped on a violet dress complimented by open, short heels.

“Come on, big guy,” Rachel said, placing her hand on Leo’s shoulder at the bar in the great room.

Leo’s favorite local place where he had taken Rachel for their first date was Maxine’s. On that date, he recalled, he hadn’t even used a date-rape drug because she seemed naturally hot and easy to score.

Maxine’s bar took in more business than the number of table seats for patrons that it needed to qualify for a liquor license. There were always jumbo peanuts in jars at the bar and lots of ash trays. It was still a friendly place for tobacco users, for which Leo qualified. He’d cut back from chain smoking by necessity because of the abstinence he had to endure while working.

“Come on, baby,” Leo said, grabbing Rachel’s hand and steering her to the bar.

“Let’s sit at a table, Leo.”

“It’ll be quicker up here.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulders to keep her moving forward. “The sooner we get a drink and some of Maxine’s ribs, the faster we get back, you check on Julia, and we get it on,” he whispered.

Rachel narrowed her eyes with approval.

“What’ll it be, Leo?” asked one of the usual college bartenders.

“We’ll take two big plates of ribs, slaw, fries and two beers to start with.” Leo lit a cigarette and took a big drag.

Rachel gestured with her hand. “Skip the beer for me, Leo, I’ve got to work tomorrow. I’m not going to drink a thing tonight, especially if Julia wakes up during the night.”

He blew a bit of smoke from the side of his mouth where the air borne circles gravitated towards his early thinning hair. His hair was slicked over by gel which, like lubricant, was one of his favorite tools.

“Don’t forget, Leo, you’ve got Julia tomorrow. I really appreciate it. You’re not a bad stand in father.”

“Don’t call me that Rachel. I’m not too happy when she cries or when she’s not sleeping.”

“Leo!”

“Just kidding.” He looked charmingly into her striking eyes and then followed down to her cleavage. He paused to inhale while his beer arrived.

“Working one day,” she said, “does a lot to keep my resume viable for the future and my options open. And it’s really no sweat on either of us. You know I would have gotten a sitter for tomorrow if you had asked me to.”

Leo turned slowly to her. “Depends on what she would have looked like.”

“She could have been pretty, but a thousand babysitters couldn’t handle you like I do. And there’s no competition when it comes to looks or brains.”

Leo popped peanuts into his mouth while the platter of ribs and sides were set before them. “Thanks,” Leo said. He looked at Rachel. “You’re right about that. It’s what made me step up the quality of my women in the last few years. There are gorgeous women everywhere. It becomes more challenging when there are more synapses in their brains.”

“Don’t go talking like a neurosurgeon.”

“Why? Do neurosurgeons have something to do with your past?”

Rachel looked away for a second.