Free Patient Nurse by Diana Palmer Page B

cards, her apartment keys, everything she had was in there.
    Well, first things first, she decided. This was a good neighborhood and the owners of the apartment house where she lived looked out for her car and the medical student’s. She’d worry about her car and purse later.
    She had on her raincoat, which contained all the money she would need for bus fare on MARTA and snacks at work. She could do without her makeup, or borrow some at the hospital when she needed it. She wouldn’t need her keys until she got back home, andanyway, the owner had a passkey and he and his wife lived downstairs.
    She trudged out to the street, made it breathlessly to the crowded bus stop on the corner and climbed aboard the bus that would take her right past the hospital where she worked.
    It was another cold and rainy morning. With her mind on getting to work on time, she hadn’t noticed that the breathlessness, which usually passed, hadn’t. She could barely breathe. Her heartbeat felt different. Strange. Frightening.
    She saw the people around her as a blur that became brighter and brighter and then, suddenly, vanished.
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    Ramon was already scrubbed at St. Mary’s when they brought the emergency patient into the operating room. A Jane Doe, he thought irritably, on whom he’d have no background information whatsoever. One of his colleagues had already done a catherization. That had indicated a leaky heart valve, which had, over time, deteriorated past saving. He would have to replace it with a prosthetic valve and hope that the unknown woman had no medical conditions that would complicate his surgery. He had no idea of her medications or her state of physical health beyond the heart problems he could see for himself. It was always a risk to operate on a stranger, he thought, but he had no choice.
    The oxygen mask was already over her face when his team was assembled and he was ready to begin. Her skin was creamy, very pink and soft, and he regretted the long scar this surgery would leave after he opened and closed the chest cavity.
    The surgery took almost four hours. Ramon straightened his back with a grunt at the end of it, satisfied not only with the surgery, but with the closure of the incision he’d made. She’d only have a slight scar. Later, he could recommend a good plastic surgeon, if she could afford it. He knew nothing about her circumstances. She might be a street person, for all he knew. The only part of her he saw was her creamy, soft skin. She had a strong heart and her lungs were in excellent condition, except for a mild bronchitis. She seemed in good health otherwise.
    She was taken away to the intensive care unit and he went on to the next case, without giving the identity of his patient another thought for the moment.
    Hours later, still in his surgical greens, he went to ICU to have a look at the young woman his skill had saved. She was hooked up to the usual machines and the huge breathing tube of the heart-lung machine was still in her mouth. But when he paused at the side of the bed, his own heart almost stopped. He choked on his own breath. A technician was staring at him with open curiosity. He knew the blood had drained out of his face. That was Noreen. And she’d collapsed with a damaged heart valve. She had a bad heart, and he hadn’t known. Nobody had known!
    Shaken out of his normal calm, he motioned for the floor nurse to join him. “I was told that this woman’s identity was unknown!” he said harshly.
    â€œShe had no identification on her at all,” the nurse began.
    â€œShe’s my late wife’s cousin!” he raged, his fist clenched at his side. “I would never have performed surgery on her if I’d had any idea in the world who she was!”
    She felt the whip of his anger and winced. “I’m sure if anyone had known… We thought she was an indigent—”
    â€œShe’s a nurse.” He interrupted