My Life as a Surgeon

The Normal

My day started off just as any. Wake up at 3 a.m., get dressed, brush my teeth, get in my car, go to work, and work on patients. I did everything just as I would, but I noticed something quite odd about my patients for today. That's when I realized that we were having a silver flood. We rarely get silver floods knowing that most elderly people are safe. Not today. The building went up in flames. We had burn patients everywhere. I only had 2 burn patients because I'm not a plastic surgeon. I'm an orthopedic surgeon. When I saw my first patient Gary McQuire, he had a burn so deep in his arm you could see the fractured bones. I haven't had a procedure like this in awhile. I took my last breath of fresh air before I walked into the room that smelled so strong of smoke and baby powder. He looked at me with a worryingly puzzled face. He then asks, " Where am I? Why am I here? Who are you? Where's my wife?" I looked up his last name and saw that his wife was in surgery. I reply to him with a warm look on my face, " Hello Mr. McQuire, you're at the hospital because your home burned down. You and many others including your wife made it out." He looked at me like I was dumb. " I'm not silly, young lady, I know I'm at the hospital, I know my nursing facility burned down. I meant what hospital and why am I at the hospital? If my wife is alive, where is she? Don't tell me she died when she left the fire! I will miss her, and the way she slurps up her Jello on our Jello dates." "She made it out and she's still alive, she's in surgery. You were severely burned on your left forearm, and you are at Cruse memorial." "Ok, thank you so much sweetheart." "No problem, now can I get a look at that arm of yours?" "You may, but which arm did you say it was?" I was shocked and confused on how he didn't feel any pain. He has to be in shock or...No! I tell myself in my head. He's not dying. " It was your left arm. Do you not feel any pain?" "Ha ha! Should I?" I give him a serious look. "Yes, you should be in pain. You might just be in shock, so when we check in on you later we will see how your arm is doing." "Are you going to check my arm out now or later? Or both?" "Later because we normally need to check out the spot that is in most pain or bothering you the most." " Ok doc! See you later." He gave me a big smile as I walked out of the room. I got a page from O.R 1. It was his wife! I had hoped she didn't die. I ran as fast as I could to the O.R and all they needed me to do was make sure her hip looked ok. The cardio (Cardiothoracic) surgeon greeted me. " There is Dr. Cruse!" Andrew Corloah was a surgeon in Hawaii, but decided to come to Ohio even though Hawaii was a state that had a successful hospital. "Yes. I got a page about a hip?" "Yes, we wanted you to check it out because she said she had fallen right before she left the fire." "But did she say she fell on her hip?" Andrew wasn't being very precise with where and it was making me mad. "She didn't say her hip, but she did say her side so I'm not really sure. That's why we paged you." "Why didn't you page me sooner when she said all of this?" Now he was really starting to make me mad. He's a good person, but he's not so good at using details though. I didn't show my rage to him though because I wanted to be nice to him because that's who I am. "We had to rush her into surgery because her blood pressure dropped extremely low." I guess that does make more sense, but I didn't say that to him. I just simply nodded my head. I scrubbed in and I got all of my protective gear on and took a look at her. "All she did was bruise her hip bone. It will be painful for a little while so page me when she wakes up so I can talk to her about the hip." All of her nurses and surgeons looked at me and nodded their heads.