Elixir of Life

Chapter 5: Sober

Naseem Hamed

December 2016

King Faisal Medical Centre

Amalia and Naseem stood by the front doors of Operating Theater 3, where she had helped him put on his PPE. He reached behind his head to tie the surgical mask on as Amalia finished putting on her own PPE.

Naseem turned to her. "You know what today is?"

She put booties on her shoes and looked up with a smile. "You remembered."

"Today marks your second year as a C-VOR nurse. And one of the American doctors just invited me to the American embassy compound. They have a bar in there you know. What do you say? You want to celebrate?"

The two stood by the scrub sink smiling behind their masks.

"Sure, why not?"

Naseem pushed up the middle of his glasses and the two entered the operating field. The two took opposite steps around the OR table when he suddenly remembered and turned back to her—Amalia turned as well and the two bumped into each other. Naseem's gloved hand had pressed along Amalia's bust, which were busty slopes through her scrubs.

"I am sorry."

The two laughed it off and avoided eye contact.

"That's okay."

"Can I actually—" Naseem slowly put his hands on her stethoscope, which wrapped around her neck, and rested atop her breasts.

Amalia stood still. "Oh, of course."

He took off her stethoscope, put on the earpieces, and held the drum in hand. Naseem took his position by the OR table and watched as Amalia turned around. His eyes gazed down at her behind which was hugged by her scrub pants.

The call had come up from the ER that a teen boy was in a car accident. Fourteen-years-old, with a metal puncture in his left lung, heart or blood vessels possibly compromised. Naseem, Amalia, the anesthesiologist, and perfusionist (who operated the heart-lung machine) stood around the empty steel OR table and waited. Any second now.

The OR doors burst open as nurses wheeled in a hospital bed with the teenager. The surgical team turned their heads to see the long, thin metal piece from a car frame stuck between his ribcage. Amalia, the perfusionist, anesthesiologist, and nurses all grabbed onto different sides of the boy's sheet.

A nurse called out, "One, two, three!"

On three, the team pulled up the sheet and the boy—slowly placing him on the OR table. Naseem rushed toward the boy's side and pressed the stethoscope drum along his left lung. Blood was seeping through the wound. He moved the drum to the lower part of his lung. The pulse should have been rapid, but it wasn't. The boy was in distress.

*

Naseem and Amalia rode the elevator up the second floor of the parking garage. The two were silent and Naseem was in heavy thoughts of the past few hours. The boy did not make it, had both broke the news to the boy's family, and just finished their post-surgery reports. Their gazes were low and stood on opposite ends of the walnut elevator.

It rang as the doors opened to reveal the hospital's smart parking garage, complete with red or green sensor bars which lined the ceilings to indicate if a space was taken or not. The first two floors were for hospital personnel.

The two stepped out as Amalia spoke, "I don't know if I feel like going out tonight."

They began taking slow steps down the garage floor.