to swallow the thickening lump in his throat, Sam watched as a nurse stood nearby with a small specimen container to collect a tiny piece of the optic nerve for histopathologic study. For their next huge hold-your-breath diagnosis—had all of the cancer been removed or had it spread? His stomach pinched at the potential outcome. The doctor worked painstakingly to also open the eye globe to harvest tissue from the retinoblastoma. Before closing, he placed a plastic temporary conformer into Dani’s eye socket to avoid a shrunken look and maintain a natural shape. They’d discussed in advance how this would be done in preparation to ensure the proper size and motility for the future eye prosthesis.
When he finally could, Sam took a deep breath. The worst was over, no, check that, the worst had been getting the damn diagnosis of cancer in the first place. Since he wanted to keep a positive outlook, he’d deemed today the first step in Dani’s healing. He watched like a hawk as the anesthesiologist prepared his son for transfer to the recovery room and the surgical nurse bandaged Dani’s left eye with a special patch to help decrease swelling.
He rushed out of the observation deck and hustled down the stairs to be the first to talk with Dr. Van Diesel when he exited the OR.
“All went well,” the white-haired man said, as he tossed his gloves in the trash and removed the surgical cap then the mask from his face. “No surprises.” He forced a smile that looked more like a squint. “Should be a couple of days before we get the pathology reports.”
“Thank you.” And Sam probably wouldn’t sleep until he knew whether the tumor had spread or not. But he was determined to keep that positive attitude. As of right now the tumor was gone, his son was free of cancer. That was how it had to be.
The doctor continued on to the locker room. Sam stood outside the OR doors and waited for the team to transport Dani. Several minutes later the doors swung open and his son, looking so tiny on the huge gurney, got rolled toward the recovery room.
He followed the medical parade out of the surgical suite, down the hall and into Recovery. As he was a staff member as well as a parent, he was also allowed to accompany the boy rather than be instructed to wait outside until he was ready for discharge. The receiving RR nurses bustled around the gurney, transferring him to their bed, disconnecting Dani from the OR equipment and attaching him to theirs. Heart monitor, blood-pressure cuff, pulse oximeter, oxygen.
Sam remained by his son’s side, taking his tiny yet pudgy fingers into his own, feeling their chill and asking for a second blanket to cover him. Every once in a while his son moved or took a deeper breath. His heartbeat was steady and strong, blipping across the monitor screen; his blood pressure read low for a three-year-old, but he was still sedated. One particular Filipino nurse looked after Dani as if he were her own. That gave Sam reassurance.
“Is your wife coming, Doctor?” Her Filipino accent made the sentence staccato.
“No.” Sam shook his head. “No wife.”
He’d lost the woman with whom he’d thought he’d spend the rest of his life. She’d walked away. But he’d committed to adopting little Dani and he couldn’t bear the thought of disappointing the boy who would finally have a home and a family of his own. Even if it was just the two of them.
“I will watch him,” the nurse said. “Don’t worry. You should take a break.”
He stretched and glanced at her name tag. “Thank you, Imelda. I could use a cup of coffee about now.”
She nodded toward the nurses’ lunchroom. “We just made some.”
He thought about taking her up on the offer but realized how much he needed to stretch his legs, to get his blood moving again. To help him think. To plan. Maybe with more circulation to his brain he’d be able to process everything that’d happened today. “Thanks, but I’m going to take a walk.”
He stood and started to leave, then blurted the first thought in his mind. “By any chance, do you know where the prosthetic eye department is?”
Imelda pulled in her double chin. “Do we have one, Doctor?”
He tipped his head. Good question. Hadn’t Dr. Van Diesel mentioned it at one point? “I hope so.”
As he left the recovery room, he made eye contact with the charge nurse. “I’ll be back in twenty minutes but beep me the instant Dani wakes up, okay?”
She nodded, so he pushed the metal plate on the wall and the recovery room department doors automatically swung inward. With one more glance over his shoulder to his sleeping son, and another pang in his heart, he stepped outside.
The one-hour operation under general anesthesia was fairly routine, and because the eye was surrounded by bone, it made it much easier for Dani to tolerate. If all went well, his son could even be discharged later that afternoon.
He walked down the hall, entered the elevator. His mind drifted to Katie, wondering if this pain would have been easier to take sharing it with someone else, but that was never to be. Katie had stuck with him all through medical school and his pediatric residency at UCLA while she’d tried to launch her acting career. Sure, they’d talked about marriage and children, but mostly he’d avoided it. He’d been left by the most important woman in his life, his mother, at a tender age, and it had marked him for life. Toward the end of their relationship, she’d kept insisting on wedding plans and he’d kept sidestepping them. When he’d finally brought up marriage because of the adoption, after screaming at him for making such a huge decision by himself Katie had suddenly decided her acting career needed her full attention.
He’d screwed up by not consulting her, but he’d thought he’d known her, and she’d very nearly wrenched his heart right out of his chest when she’d walked away.
Not a great track record with the women he’d loved. At least his foster mother, Mom Murphy, had never sent him back.
The elevator stopped at the first-floor lobby and he headed to the information desk. “Don’t we have a department that makes facial prosthetics here? You know, things like eyes?”
The silver-haired gentleman’s gaze lit with knowledge. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I believe we do.” He scrolled through his computer directory, then used his index finger to point. “It’s called Ocularistry and Anaplastology.” The man had trouble pronouncing it and made a second attempt. “And it’s in the basement, with Pathology.” He placed his hand beside his mouth as if to whisper. “I think it’s next door to the morgue.”
“What’s the name of the head of the department?” Sam asked.
“Judith Rimmer. Or, as we volunteers like to call her, Helen Mirren without the star power. Hubba-hubba, if you know what I mean.”
Sam’s brows rose at the thought—so even old guys had crushes—but off to the dungeon he went. Once he exited the elevator, he wondered why the fluorescent lights even looked dimmer down in the hospital basement, but pressed on. He passed the Matériel Management department, then Central Service—the cleaning and sterilization area. He knew where Pathology was—he’d visited there regularly to get early reports on his patients and to discuss prognoses with the pathologists. He’d also unfortunately been to the morgue far more often than he cared to in the line of duty. Nothing cut deeper than losing a child patient, and for the sake of science he’d sat in on his share of autopsies to help make sense of the tragedies.
Sam sidestepped the morgue double doors, refusing to even glance through the ocean-liner-style
