Chapter 17: Scrub Sink

The man on the gurney was nineteen years old, and he was bleeding into his belly.

I knew it from the color of his lips and from the way his pulse jumped under my fingers.

"Two large-bore lines, two units of blood, take him to Room Three," I said.

My voice sounded like someone else's voice.

It was steady, and I was grateful to her.

In Room Three the lights came up white and the team formed around me.

I made the incision from sternum to pubis.

The abdomen was full of blood.

I packed it with laps, one in each quadrant, and called for suction, and the blood pooled up and then slowed.

"Liver," I said. "Big laceration, right lobe."

I held the liver together with both hands and the anesthesiologist said, "Pressure's sixty."

"Give me a minute."

"You don't have one."

"Then give me thirty seconds."

I found the vessel, clamped it, sutured it, and felt the tissue stop moving under my hands.

My hands knew what to do.

They'd been taught by a man in a grey cap, and then by a man in navy scrubs, and they did not shake.

At the end of two hours the abdomen was dry.

I closed.

I looked up, finally, and saw that the observation window was dark, and a tall figure was standing behind the glass with his hands in his pockets.

He lifted one hand and put it flat against the window.

I turned back to the table.

I did not cry until the patient's pressure had been normal for ten minutes, and then only a little, and into my mask.

The scrub sink is at the end of the corridor, a long steel trough with six foot pedals and a row of brushes.

I stood at it afterward with the water running over my forearms.