Surgeon Heart

Somewhere in a Dream

Drew let out a breath she had been holding in as Sebastian stepped out of the elevator. Why did he make her feel so nervous? She pondered this for a moment before stepping out on the floor she needed to attend to. She walked with purpose to the janitorial department to get her assignment for the day. As she entered the locker room, she spotted Maria and went over to her friend. Maria smiled at her but looked tired. Her newborn must be keeping her up still.

“Hey, long night?” She said to Maria while putting her purse into her locker next to Maria’s.

“Yes,” Maria sighed. “I can not wait until she starts sleeping through the night.”

“Eventually, just take a rest when you can.” Drew responded, “If I didn’t work here and had a more lax job I would help you more, but you know you can call me any hour of the night if you need a friend.”

Maria looked like she wanted to say something snarky, but Drew could see she was in a mood. “Hey, I know,” she said, throwing her hands up in surrender, “I know, I don’t have kids, but I do know it is hard.”

Maria shrugged, “Being a single mother is worse.”

Drew nodded in agreement; pulling the janitorial scrubs on over her tank top and underwear, she closed her locker and went to the supervisor's office for her assignment, leaving Maria to grumble into her locker.

About ten minutes later, she was pushing a laundry cart towards the elevator bank preparing to take fresh bed linens up to the maternity floor. Drew bit her lip; she really hoped she would not run into Sebastian in the elevator again on the way to the maternity floor. She reached the elevators, which thankfully seemed clear of the doctor. Drew shook her head to clear it as she stepped onto the elevator.

Drew set herself to take the bed linens to each room on the maternity floor. The morning went by without being too exciting, much to Drew’s relief. To the credit of the maternity floor, there were plenty of doctor’s buzzing around and sometimes even the pained cries of mother experiencing labor pains. Her and Sebastian were on two different wavelengths, two separate universes as far as she was concerned.

When her lunch break came up, she went to the hospital cafeteria and bought herself a diet coke and a sandwich. She scanned the cafeteria once she had her lunch, looking for Maria. After a moment, she spotted Maria and their other friend Paula sitting towards the edge of the cafeteria. Paula had gray hair and looked to be in her 50s, they never asked her about her age but just assumed she had been there in the hospital working in housekeeping longer than they had ever been alive.

As Drew came towards the table, it was clear that Paula was complaining about her husband Fred again, but somehow even though she complained. She and her husband had been married for thirty years from what Drew had gathered from Paula’s rantings.

Drew sat down and opened her diet coke. Maria looked like she would rather be taking a nap somewhere. After giving Paula a warm hello, Drew pulled out her cell and started eating her sandwich while checking for missed calls and messages.

There were five missed calls from her father. That was strange. She hit redial and put the phone to her ear, it rang for a minute before going to voicemail. She shrugged, enjoying the last bite of her sandwich. He probably wanted something from the store. She just wished her father would just text her what he wanted, but he hated texting. He probably fell asleep waiting for her to return his call.

“Everything okay?” Maria asked as she set her coffee cup down on the cafeteria table.

“Yeah, had some missed calls from my dad, he probably just needs something from the store,” Drew shrugged, looking out across the cafeteria knowing full well she was not going to be seeing Sebastian down here with the commoners eating his lunch.

Maria laughed, “Are you here?” she asked, poking Drew in the shoulder. “You seem awfully distracted today. Did you meet someone?”

Drew refocused her attention. “Who would I have met?”

“Are you sure you are not secretly hoping to run into Sebastian?” Maria ribbed Drew knowingly.

Drew laughed, “Oh come on, there is no way. We are from two different planets. He is from Neptune and I am from Pluto.”

“Pluto, isn’t even a planet…”

“Exactly, why it would never work,” Drew stated.

Maria shrugged, “It could be like a romance from one of those cheap dollar store romance novels. Muy caliente.” She teased Drew.

Drew laughed, “ I don’t have time for romance.”

Not long after they ended their lunch break, Drew found that she was on linen duty on the surgical floor. She practically went in slow motion to delay going up to that floor, as the idea of running into Sebastian again was not something she really wanted to entertain.

Sebastian

Sebastian surveyed the emergency room, looking for the bay he had been called to, to give a surgical consult. He spotted the bay, noting that the trauma surgeon and his best friend Alan Greene was already there. He hustled over as Dr. Greene was pushing epi to bring their patient back from obvious cardiac arrest. Some intern stood with the crash cart looking like he was about to s**t himself to the left of Greene.

“Patient?” he asked Dr. Greene as he stepped in to take over chest compressions.

“John Doe,” Greene announced, “Went into cardiac arrest upon arrival. Emt’s said he was experiencing chest pain when they arrived at the scene. The monitor beeped as the regular sinus rhythm resumed, the intern to Greene’s left looked relieved as he put the paddles back on the cart rack.

Sebastian spoke then, “I need a visual of his chest and need him taken up to CT right away.” Someone from ultrasound appeared just then with their cart. He put the jelly on the man’s chest and took the wand from the tech.

“Hurry up before this man crashes again,” urged Dr. Greene, running a hand over his already wild red hair.

Sebastian took the wand over the man’s chest, noting an apparent blockage in the man’s left ventricle. “Forget CT, wheel this man up to my OR now.” he said, handing the wand back to the tech as he put the guardrail up on his side of the gurney. Greene followed suit and they rushed the man through the emergency room, to the bank of elevators that would take them up to the OR. They did not have time to waste if Sebastian was to save this man’s life. He looked over at the gentleman. He looked to be in his 60s, and a white male.

He looked over at the intern as they entered the elevator, “Find out who he is and next of kin, give them a call and get them here asap.”