Third Degree (37 page)

“You’re welcome,” she says, standing up and holding her phone in one hand. “Me and Carson will go make that call, and we’ll wait for his parents and Jesse, okay? And you go make sure they don’t kill him.”

I sniff and wipe away a few more tears, laughing at the same time. “That I can do.”

“I’ll hang out around here,” Dad says. “I can translate when his parents get here.”

When I get to the CT area, Rinehart is talking with the technicians, and Marshall is in the holding area. I move toward him, and relief washes over him the second he sees me. I brush more sweat from his forehead with my sleeve. “So you’ve done this before? You know how the machine works?”

He nods. “What’s wrong with me? I’ve been quiet because I didn’t want to interfere. You know what you’re doing. But seriously … explain.”

I rest my hand on his cheek like I’d wanted to do before he even walked through the doors. “There’s a blockage in your small intestine. It’s keeping anything from passing through and it’s stretching and pulling—that’s why you’re in so much pain. But I know how you handle pain, so this might be a little bit more than a blockage. Maybe there’s also a tear in your intestine. There’s a lump on your abdomen and that gives a sense of the location, but I don’t know what caused the blockage. It could be adhesions from your previous surgeries or from inflammation.”

“I’m trying to be cool about this, but I’m seriously freaked out.” He reaches up and brushes a tear off my cheek that I hadn’t even felt. I seem to be doing a lot more crying ever since I started therapy. “And you’re crying, so that’s freaking me out even more.”

I pull my face together and straighten up. “I’m sorry. I’m just happy to see you, but not happy to see you like this. I’m sorry.”

“Hey, it’s all right. I’ve been going crazy being away from you, not talking.”

I let the technicians take him inside the CT room. I head over to Rinehart and we both stand there for several minutes waiting for images to pop up.

When they do, she swears under her breath and I hold mine, feeling the fear and light-headedness all over again. “Good call, Dr. Jenkins. We’re going to the OR like five minutes ago.”

I grab her sleeve, shaking off the shock. “Can I scrub in?”

She pauses. “Think you can handle it?”

“Yes,” I lie.

When I emerge from the operating room a couple of hours later, my thoughts are so heavily focused on all the people waiting anxiously for an update that I head for the family area without cleaning up at all. Everything on my entire body is shaking and weak.

Both Marshall’s mom and his youngest sister, Allie, scream when they see me. “Oh my God, she’s bloody … oh my God, oh my God,” Tracy mutters over and over again.

My dad stands up, his eyebrows lifted like he’s been sitting here for hours trying to keep their minds off horrific hypothetical outcomes. I quickly ball up the mask and the bloody cover over my scrubs, handing them off to a nurse nearby. “He’s okay,” I say.

I give them a second to absorb that and be relieved before explaining the complications. “There was a tear in his intestines, and it leaked bacteria into the abdomen. He lost a lot of blood … and Dr. Rinehart had to perform an ileostomy.”

Marshall’s mom gasps. “You took his colon?”

I look to my dad and he immediately jumps into a sympathetic and very thorough explanation of this surgery despite the fact that this isn’t his field of expertise. Jesse stands beside me and squeezes my shoulder.

“Dude, you were badass,” he says to me. “Do you have ten pairs of balls or something? I was crying like a baby out here.”

I shake my head. “I don’t think I’ve ever been that scared in my life. I’m seriously ready to fall over.”

“Wait a minute … you put a hole in his stomach and he’s got a shit bag?” Marshall’s dad says.

That’s my cue to leave and get the real surgeon. “I’m gonna go see if he’s awake yet.”

The lights in the recovery room are slightly dimmed in this late hour. I stop when I hear Dr. Rinehart talking quietly and see that Marshall’s eyes are open. “You’re lucky you came here
and didn’t go all the way to Great Lakes; I’m not sure you would have survived that long. It would have been a much bigger mess for that naval surgeon to clean up.”

“So this is the surgery Izzy told me I was probably going to have to have, right? With the reservoir in the intestines or whatever it’s called?” Marshall’s speech is slurred from the anesthesia, but he seems to know what he’s saying. “I can’t believe I’ve got a poop bag on my stomach.”

“I know it’s a lot to take in, but the surgery was laparoscopic, and we’ve started you on antibiotics to prevent complications from the bacteria that leaked into your abdomen. You’ll have a quick recovery,” Rinehart says. “You can go back to school for the start of the second semester. The bag will fit under your clothes, so no one will see it. And in three months I can reverse this surgery for you—no more bag—and you’ll be feeling better than you have in years. It was a very bad day, but this is a good direction for you now, okay?”

“No missing a semester? I’ll stay on schedule to graduate next year?”

“Yes and yes.” She stands up and pats him on the leg. “I’m going to go tell your family the good news and let them know you’re awake.”

I stop her before she walks out and whisper, “Don’t bring them back right away.”

“Got it.”

My forehead is sticky with sweat and I’m a complete mess, but I head toward Marshall anyway. His face brightens when he sees me. “These are some good drugs they gave me. I don’t feel any pain.”

“Good.” I try to smile, but instead I rest my head on his leg, careful to avoid his midsection.

“Are you okay?” He shifts a bit, then groans and instead reaches a hand over to touch my hair. “I can’t believe you were in there looking at my insides.”

I turn my face, pressing it against the blanket, and finally I let myself cry for real, not the stray tears that drip from my eyes now and then.

“Izzy …?” Marshall continues stroking my hair. Either he’s calm from the drugs or he gets that I just need to cry. I mean, he’s right—I did just look at his insides.

After a couple of minutes, I lift my head and drag my sleeve over my face. “You almost died.”

“I know, Dr. Rinehart told me about the infection and the tear and my missing colon.”

“No … it was so much worse than that. Like blood on the ground and shock paddles … and … I think I decided that I don’t want to be a surgeon right now … and …” I inhale. “And I love you.”

His eyes are wide, so I know he’s not
that
drugged up. His mouth falls open but nothing comes out.

I wipe my eyes again. “Say something.”

He shakes his head. “Sorry, I’m just … I’m … I love you, too, Izzy. I almost called you a thousand times to say that, and I almost texted you those words like a hundred thousand times. But I knew you had some things to work out, and I want you to be okay and happy, and I made it more complicated—”

I touch my fingers to his lips and then lean in and kiss him. “I could be a PE teacher. I’d make a good PE teacher, I think.”

He laughs. “No, you would be a terrible PE teacher. But you can stay here with me tonight and we’ll make a list of all the non-surgery-related things you can do for a little while. Or maybe you should just, you know, hang out and be nineteen. Or be a non-serious doctor. Podiatry—what’s so serious about feet? That’s got to be low stress, right?”

I glance at the heart monitor beside his head and then force his shoulders all the way back against the pillow. “Relax. You need to rest. We’ve got plenty of time to figure everything else out. And I probably will become a surgeon; I’m just in shock. Plus I’m nineteen, so there’s time.”

He lifts up my palm and kisses it. “Thanks for saving my life.”

Eight Months Later

“So there you have it,” I say, turning away from the projection screen and facing the lecture hall full of first-year med students. “After that analysis of holistic treatment versus standard treatment in patients with chronic illness, it’s clear that the holistic approach has a significantly higher success rate and results in less surgical intervention and less need for medication.”

A hand belonging to a guy in the front row shoots up into the air. I nod, giving him permission to speak. “But you haven’t given us any specifics as to what’s involved in this so-called holistic approach.”

“Well … that’s what we’ll be spending an entire semester discussing. This is a studentled research and independent study course, so I don’t have all the answers for you,” I say, then add, just because I know they’ve been gossiping already, “And it’s also partly because I’m not even twenty years old, so unlike many of your other professors, I don’t have years of data compiled for you. We’re going to have to work together.”

Of the sixty or so students signed up for this course, the majority either have blank stares or look completely petrified at the idea of a class that isn’t tightly structured, but I can’t really help them with that issue. A few, the C students most likely, look intrigued by the flexibility and surprises to come.

“Wait,” a girl in the second row interrupts. “This isn’t some convoluted university ploy to get us all to give up real medicine and go into psych, is it? When you say holistic, is this a mind-body thing?”

There are many grumbles throughout the room. All I can do is grin and say, “Guess you’ll just have to wait and see.”

“You
are
a real doctor, right?”

“Technically, I’m a first-year resident—almost a second-year—but I’ve been consulting with diagnostics at Johns Hopkins for the past eight months. I’ve assisted in one hundred and seventy-eight surgeries and performed thirty solo surgeries,” I recite, trying not to yawn. “Does that help?”

Before I can study any reactions from the room, a door opens in the back of the lecture hall and I see Marshall slide inside and lean against the wall. I catch his eye and smile.

I clap my hands together. “Any more questions?”

“Professor Jenkins?”

My head snaps to the far left side of the lecture hall. I hadn’t really anticipated what it would be like to be called by that title. Weird—that’s how it feels. “Yes?”

“If you’re teaching, how are you still performing surgeries?”

“Many of those I did as an intern; now I’m only treating patients a few days a week, not to exceed twenty-five hours.” Per my therapist’s recommendation, but I decide to leave that out considering the already looming fear of a psych invasion in the room.

The nosy guy in the front with the hyperactive hand speaks up again. “Why is that?”

I catch Marshall’s eye again and decide to proceed with honesty. We do have to spend an entire semester together discussing the benefits of building patient relationships, so we might as well start the process of getting cozy. “Because I’m nineteen.”

The guy in front looks like he wants to say more, but I cut him off before he can. “That’s enough for today. On Wednesday we’re meeting in the hospital pediatric wing. I have several patients prepped and ready for your small-group interviews.”

As soon as they start filing out of the room, I can finally let out the sigh of relief I’ve been looking forward to for the last 120 minutes, ever since class began. I’m not like Marshall; the teaching thing is more unnerving than appealing.

Speaking of Marshall …

He heads in my direction the second the last student exits, a big grin on his face. I haven’t seen him for three weeks because he’s been at NIU taking classes. And now, as of tomorrow, he’ll be a student teacher at Evanston Middle School for the rest of the semester. Sharing my apartment … sharing my bed …

Yes, I’ve been looking forward to this.

He catches me around the waist and lifts me up onto the desk, assessing my outfit. “What is this costume? It’s like hot professor ready to study after hours. I’m in love.”

I laugh and shake my head. I’m kind of in love with his gym shorts and tight T-shirt, too, so we’re both getting a treat today. I reach behind me and click my laptop, making the screen go blank.

Marshall slides a hand under the back of my shirt and leans closer to kiss me. “Can we make out on this desk while I call you Professor Jenkins?”

My heart picks up speed and I wrap my legs around his waist, taking extra care not to poke him in the back with my heels. “There’s another class in here—”

We both freeze when a door in the back opens. Then we hear, “Oh, shit! Sorry … I’ll come back.”

I snort back a laugh. “Eager student trying to get in the front row.” I pull Marshall’s mouth to mine and kiss him hard, like I’d imagined doing for the past few weeks. “Two choices …”