She spoke in an undertone, careful not to wake the sleeping baby. ‘But mostly I feel guilty.’
‘Guilty?’ Abby’s eyebrows rose in surprise and she closed the door behind her. ‘Why guilty?’
The young mother shrugged helplessly. ‘Because Thomas seems fine most of the time and I’m asking myself if all this is necessary. Am I doing the right thing by letting him have the op?’ Lorna glanced at her, her eyes filling as she begged for answers. ‘I know they keep telling me that he’ll get worse, but why not wait until it happens? Why do the operation now?’
More evidence that Mr Forster’s explanations had been less than perfect, Abby thought, hoping that the new consultant would have a better way with words. With Mr Forster they’d virtually had to provide a translation.
‘I know that Thomas seems well, but waiting might damage the heart further,’ she said quietly, and Lorna bit her lip.
‘But how do we know that for sure?’
Abby took her hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘I think you need to talk it through with the surgeon who is going to do the operation,’ she suggested. ‘He’s coming to see Thomas later. I’ll make sure that he knows that you’re worried so that he finds time to answer your questions.’
Clearly, concisely and in language that could be understood by normal mortals!
Lorna shrank slightly in her seat. ‘I don’t want to bother him,’ she said quickly. ‘He’s an important man and I’m the least of his worries.’
‘You won’t be bothering him,’ Abby said firmly, used to dealing with that type of attitude. She’d lost count of the times patients had told her they refrained from asking questions because they didn’t want to bother the doctor. ‘If there are things you don’t understand then you must ask!’
Lorna pulled a face. ‘I find doctors really intimidating. Especially surgeons who can operate on a child’s heart.’ Her eyes were round with admiration. ‘I mean, can you imagine being clever enough to do something like that? I always feel as though my questions are stupid and I’m wasting their time. Mr Forster has explained everything to me once. It isn’t his fault if I’m too stupid to understand.’
‘You’re not stupid, Lorna,’ Abby said firmly, making a mental note to brief the new consultant fully. He needed to spend time with the Woods. And he needed to use simple language. ‘If it would make you feel better, I’ll make sure I’m there, too. And I’ll make sure that he doesn’t leave the room until you’ve asked him every question you have and fully understand what’s happening.’
‘This whole thing feels like a nightmare. I just wish this was all a dream and I could wake up,’ Lorna muttered, and Abby leaned forward and gave her a quick hug.
‘The worst part is the waiting.’ She looked at the sleeping child and smiled. ‘I need to do his obs—you know, temperature, pulse that sort of thing—but I’ll wait for him to wake up. Later on I want to take you to the cardiac intensive care unit—we call it CICU—so that you know what to expect when Thomas comes back from Theatre.’
Lorna bit her lip. ‘Is it very scary?’
‘It can seem scary,’ Abby said, her tone gentle. She knew how important it was to be honest with parents and to prepare them for what lay ahead. ‘You know that when he first comes back from Theatre he’ll have a tube down his throat to help him breathe and a drain in his chest, as well as a drip. The monitors can seem very high-tech and daunting but the staff on CICU are wonderful and I know they’ll take good care of you and Thomas. We’ve a baby who has just had a similar operation to Thomas on the unit at the moment so I can show you what to expect and you can chat to the parents.’
‘And after CICU he’ll come back here to the ward?’
‘Once the doctors feel he’s well enough, they’ll transfer him back here.’
Lorna cuddled the sleeping child closer. ‘And will you still be the nurse looking after us? You’re always so calm. Nothing seems to make you flap—the minute you walk into the room I feel less panicky. I don’t think I could bear having anyone else.’
‘When I’m on duty I’ll be your nurse,’ Abby assured her. ‘We try and maintain continuity whenever we can.’
Lorna gave a weak smile. ‘Our nurse. You’re supposed to be Thomas’s nurse but you end up looking after the whole family.’
‘That’s because the whole family is part of Thomas’s recovery,’ Abby pointed out gently.
The whole ethos of the ward was to give care to the whole family, in recognition of the stress on the parents when a child was undergoing major surgery.
‘Give me a call when Thomas wakes up and I’ll check his obs,’ she said, picking up his chart and checking what had happened in the night. ‘In the meantime, I’ll track down this new consultant and make sure he makes time to see you.’
‘I hear that he’s Italian.’ Lorna looked at her anxiously. ‘Is he good, Abby?’
Abby thought of the eulogies that had been heaped on the man’s head in the past few weeks and smiled.
‘He’s better than good, Lorna. The doctors here say that he’s a legend in paediatric cardiac surgery. He’s pioneered several different techniques and his results are astonishing. That’s why he’s going to spend some time over here with us. Sharing his experience as well as filling in for Mr Forster until they make a permanent appointment. It happens quite often, believe me. In a way Thomas is lucky that he’s taken his case.’
Lorna nodded and gave a wan smile. ‘I just hope he’s as good as you say.’
They shared a look of understanding, each knowing that, even in the most capable hands, operating on a child’s heart always carried a risk. The challenge was balancing the risk of the operation with the risk of not correcting the defect in the heart.
It was midmorning when there was a sudden bustle on the ward and a group of doctors arrived, looking round expectantly.
‘Is Mr Santini here yet?’ Greg Wallis, the surgical registrar, glanced into the office and Abby shook her head.
‘If you mean the new consultant, no, not yet—he’s been meeting the team on CICU and he’s due here any minute.’ She frowned slightly and looked at Greg. Had she heard correctly? ‘What did you say his name was again?’
‘Santini. Domenico Santini. Why?’
Abby shook her head slightly. It couldn’t be…
‘I knew a Domenico Santini once,’ she said lightly. ‘I went to school with his sister. But it can’t be him. He’d be too young.’
‘Oh, this guy is young,’ Greg told her, a trace of bitterness in his voice. ‘I used to think my career was going well until I read his CV. His rise to stardom had been positively meteoric. The guy is a genius by all accounts. His nickname in the theatre is “Iceberg” because he’s the coolest surgeon anyone has ever seen.’
Abby felt her heart thud uncomfortably in her chest. Could it be him? Lucia’s brother?
As an impressionable young
