Cover-up

The Operation

On the morning of the day of surgery, Sam woke up congested and feeling ill. He thought he might be coming down with a cold or possibly the flu. The Sanatorium's work policy clearly stated that, given Sam's condition, he should either postpone the operation or reschedule it with another surgeon. Sam decided, however, that with proper precautions, he could continue with the surgery, as scheduled, without putting himself at risk of discovery. Another opportunity may not come for months, if ever; he could not let this one pass. Sam concocted what he considered a clever plan. Immediately Implementing his plan, Sam swallowed four Tylenol 12-hour Super Strength capsules. He looked in the bathroom mirror, raised both arms in the air with fists clenched, and said, "This operation will proceed as scheduled!" Sam placed another four capsules in his pocket for later, then headed out the door for work.

When Sam arrived at the Sanatorium, he followed his usual morning routine, but when he entered the Administrator Lounge, he discovered that nobody had brought the donuts. Thoroughly disgusted now that no-one had bothered with the donuts, Sam thought the day could not get any worse.

"Where's the Intern who was in here yesterday?" Sam asked a staff member, recalling the missing test results he had requested of her the previous day.

"Oh, only staff and administrators are allowed in here. Besides, we haven't had any Interns for months."

"Oh, I must have mistaken a staff member for an Intern." Sam didn't believe he had made any such mistake but didn't want to press the issue.

Since there was no reason to stay, Sam excused himself, saying he had to prepare for a risky operation where a patient's life might be at risk. In truth, he had decided not to make any special preparations. Sam had seen the tumor in the brain scan image and knew its approximate location. He just had to crack open the skull, reach in and yank it out. Sam was more concerned about the donuts. He had sewn a zipper onto his lab coat's inner pocket so he wouldn't lose any more donuts. Sam had also planned on eating a doughnut while performing brain surgery. His plan required asking his attendant to check an instrument's reading and to perform a calibration to make sure the value was accurate. Once his assistant turned away, Sam planned to take a bite of his donut. His stretch goal was to take a selfie of himself eating the donut while posing next to his patient's exposed brain. Of course, he should be careful to rinse the white donut powder off of his patient's brain so his assistant wouldn't notice. In retirement, Sam imagined telling the story and claiming he had enough talent that he could perform brain surgery while eating lunch. The selfie would be the icing on the cake. Too bad the thoughtlessness of an administrator had spoiled everything.

While walking to the pre-operation cleaning-station, Sam sneezed a couple of times. Since he had felt the sneeze coming on, Sam deftly coughed at the same moment he sneezed to disguise the sneeze as a cough. To be more convincing, Sam spat out a mouthful of water so he could claim to be choking on water that had gone down the wrong pipe. Sam purposefully dropped his open water bottle for added effect, making an even bigger mess. Every time, several staff members came over to ask if he was ok and to help clean up the mess. When Sam entered the cleaning-station, he found that he was alone, so he reached into his pocket for the Tylenol capsules. He swallowed all four, expecting them to kick in by the time the operation began.

...

The operation began as scheduled and was going well. Sam located the tumor and was methodically separating it from the patient's brain. The key to success with this procedure was to minimize damage to the patient's surrounding brain tissue. As Sam started the final incision to excise the tumor, he felt a sneeze coming on. He knew that he must not sneeze. Sam knew that a sneeze would reveal that he had broken hospital protocol, and that was unacceptable. He had to keep his oncoming sickness hidden from the hospital and his colleagues. Sam tried willing the sneeze away but only delayed its onset by a few seconds, during which time it built in strength. At this point, he realized the sneeze was inevitable, and he had mere seconds to go. His last hope was to minimize the sound.

Unfortunately, while Sam tensed his body to suppress the sneeze, he had inadvertently cut a small piece of his patient's brain. In an instant, all memories of the patient's parents and childhood friends had been erased. The sneeze continued to build in power and approached a climax. Prior to its release, Sam — holding his breath, closing his eyes, tensing every muscle in his body — tried with all his might to stifle the acoustic signature of the sneeze. Sam succeeded in hiding the sound, but a more significant concern was the repressed energy that remained and needed an outlet. The rapidly surging power found that outlet in Sam's right hand that was at that moment tensely gripping a scalpel while delicately cutting the remaining brain tissue connecting the tumor to his patient's brain.

By the time this force-majeure reached Sam's right hand, its power had been greatly amplified from its delayed release and narrowed focus to a single body extremity. The result was a sudden, uncontrolled, and catastrophic spasm of Sam's right hand. Sam had his eyes closed but felt his arm jerk. When he opened his eyes, Sam saw that he had made a lateral cut of about seven inches from the location of his patient's tumor to the rear of the brain, literally splitting his patient's brain in half. If one had listened carefully, they could have heard the actual ding of Sam's scalpel striking the inside of his patient's skull.

When Sam saw the carnage his scalpel had caused, his eyes nearly doubled in size and protruded noticeably from their orbits. He froze for a few seconds as he watched blood pooling in his patient's brain cavity. When Sam came to his senses, he turned in a crazy-eyed panic to look at his assistant wondering how to kill her and where to hide the body on such short notice. When he looked, however, his assistant was turned away to monitor the lab equipment and make some minor adjustments. With Sam's sneeze stifled and the devastating incision silent, she had seen and heard nothing. Sam realized he had maybe 30 seconds before her attention returned to the patient. He turned back to his patient and reached into the pooling blood of his patient's brain feeling for the tumor by palpating parts of the brain, searching for something not squishy. During his search, he mistakenly squished a couple of random brain structures of the frontal lobe before locating the tumor. Once found, he yanked out the tumor, placed it on the metal receiving tray, and cauterized the bleeding with a massive jolt of electricity. With the bleeding stemmed, Sam folded the two brain flaps together, thus hiding the damage to his patient's brain. The damage was enormous, far worse than anything the tumor had caused.

Sam's assistant turned back to the patient. She saw Sam mending the meninges that enveloped the patient's brain; in this case, holding the two haves of the brain together. "That was quickly finished doctor," she exclaimed. When she noticed the blood flowing down the patient's face, and the blood splattered all over Sam's face, she hesitated. "Is everything ok, Doctor?"

Sam realized -- when he abruptly folded the brain flaps together, the pooled blood, with nowhere to go, had been squeezed out and ejected onto his face. Also, blood had overflowed his patient's forehead and now flowed down the patient's face. In other words, blood had been splattered everywhere. Sam, heart racing and beads of sweat appeared on his forehead, discreetly picked up his scalpel and held it tight, ready to plunge it into his assistant's carotid artery. "Oh, that? That's completely normal." When she seemed to accept his absurd explanation, Sam loosened his grip on the scalpel and continued to wrap up his operation.

When Sam finished, he noticed the patient's brain tumor, now laying in the metal receiving tray, had a moderate amount of brain tissue attached. "Most likely memories of childhood based on the location of the tumor," Sam thought. He looked over at a monitor behind his assistant and, using the most urgent tone he could muster, questioned her, "Is that reading correct?" When she turned her back to him, Sam pulled the brain tissue from the tumor, returning the tumor to the metal tray and stuffing the brain matter in his pocket. The assistant tapped the monitor a couple of times with her finger to be sure the indicator hadn't stuck. When satisfied that it was operating normally, she turned back to Sam and saw that he had already left the operating room to wash up.

The patient's brain damage was extensive and irreversible. Within the next twenty-four hours, the patient, the part of the patient associated with being human — feelings, conscious thought, emotions, memories — would be dead. Miraculously, however, enough of the patient's brain remained undamaged that it would later create a convincing illusion of a thinking, in-control, living human being.