Chapter 20

“I think we’re ready to do this, T,” Shezzie said.

“Are you sure? Maybe we need to wait while Ray studies more about the anatomy of the neck and the vertebrae?”

“He knows enough,” she said. “I’ll provide the medical expertise, he’ll provide the control. I’ve reviewed the knowledge I’ll need, and I’ll brief Ray on what I expect from him. He can hand me instruments and grip that thing in your neck after I open the tissues. I won’t touch it, I won’t even bump it with my retractor, and I want him to hold the device using his PK, and lift it. I’ll be holding the incision open with a retractor, two if necessary by using one above and the other below it, and that will give him all the room he needs to remove the device. He won’t need to do what that Mexican surgeon did, reach in with a forceps.”

“Suppose this thing decides to go off anyway?”

“T, I can grasp it and lift straight up; there’s no reason it should explode. Even if it does, I might be able to redirect the blast. It can’t have much power, it’s too small to contain very much explosive material. Most of it has to be control circuitry. The explosive will function like a micro shaped-charge and effectiveness depends on proximity and design, not raw explosive power. Plus, with the open cut in your neck, there won’t be any tamping effect. I’m with Shezzie; we can do this, and we should.”

“Now?”

“It won’t be any easier tomorrow, T, but we don’t need to do this at all if you aren’t comfortable with the idea. It’s your life after all, so it’s up to you.”

I thought about it. I had wanted that thing out from the first moment I’d heard about it, but now that it was decision time I hesitated. I could be dead in the next few minutes!

But could I continue to live with the device? How good was the discriminator at rejecting false signals? The world is filled with radio waves and infrared signals, and what was relatively safe for me today might be lethal a year from now. I didn’t know what the device was or what triggered it, or whether a fall or something might cause it to go off, I just knew it was there and that it would continue to be a danger to me if I didn’t get it out. I finally decided that I had to make the decision. “OK. Let’s do it.”

“I’ll need half an hour to lay out what I need. Ray, would you shave the back of T’s neck? I want it completely clean of hair from the base of his skull to the large bump at the top of the shoulders. We won’t need a huge sterile field, that should be enough. I’ll use Betadine solution to disinfect after you finish the shaving, the instruments have been through an autoclave already, and I’ve got sterile towels and lactated Ringer’s for lavage. There’s an injector with local anesthetic, T, but because of your body-control talent I don’t want to use it before I’m ready to begin.

“I’ve also got retractors. There are mosquito hemostats to control bleeding, those are the ones with the slim jaws extending from the pivot joint. I’ve got a needle holder and a supply of three-oh and four-oh needles with sutures already attached. I may not need everything that’s laid out here, but if I need something I can’t stop and go get it. I’ve also got forceps in case they’re needed, but I’m going to depend on you to extract the device and then safely dispose of it after it’s out.

“My job is the surgery. After you finish shaving his neck, I’ll do an injection to numb the site and then wait until it takes effect. As soon as it’s numb, I’ll make the cut or cuts to open the location, stop the bleeding and expose the object, and hold the incision open for you. When you can see the object clearly, Ray, it’s your job to remove it and destroy it. After it’s out, I’ll suture the incision and apply a sterile dressing. T, you can recover here, and it’s done.”

“No,” I said. “You just remove it, Ray, and hold it for me; I want to destroy it myself! I’ll feel better if I can personally ensure that it’s destroyed.”

I had listened to Shezzie while she briefed Ray. She obviously knew what she was doing. I wondered how much of that highly-technical briefing was for Ray’s benefit, and how much of it was to make me more confident in her abilities?

I went into the kitchen and sat down on one of the bar stools, while Ray got the clippers and a safety razor. He had shaving cream too. He was ready, even if I wasn’t!

He worked on my neck while I leaned forward and worried. I wasn’t really concerned, was I? I had faced much worse than this. Hadn’t I? Finally, my neck was clean enough to suit him. Shezzie inspected his work and was satisfied. She had washed up while Ray worked on me, the full surgical scrub instead of some hit-or-miss handwashing. Clearly, she’d done it many times before. Ray washed too, then helped her don gloves.

She had acquired a table, used, from a chiropractor. I looked at it and raised my eyebrows. “Where did that come from?”

“You can buy anything on eBay or Craigslist, T. I bought this through eBay. Ray made some adjustments to the legs so I could raise them to a comfortable height for me. He also rigged the portable lamp and magnifier. That came from Lowe’s. The rolling hospital table I bought through Craigslist.”

“Why a chiropractor’s table?”

“I want your head slightly down, and the table is adjustable for that. The hole at the table’s end allows you to breathe normally, with your face placed in it and your spine aligned. Putting your head down causes the vertebrae to separate while keeping your spine in a straight line, which gives me more room to work and fewer chances for complications when I make the incision. The surface of the table is washable too, so it will be easy to clean after the surgery.” She was gowned and masked now, cap securing her hair, hands still in the air. An anonymous figure, if I hadn’t had the ability to sense her.

Shezzie continued explaining her intentions to Ray. “The surgical instruments and the specialized supplies, I ordered those new from a medical supply house. I’ve got two number-three handles, one with a number-eleven scalpel blade and the other with a number fifteen. I can use the end of the handle for blunt dissections if necessary, and it’s got an etched scale to aid in determining depth of the incision. There are also scissors, a curved-blade Mayo for deeper cutting and the Metzenbaum for dissecting muscle and connective tissue. There may be an unusual amount of connective tissue, maybe some scarring that has grown in around that device since it was implanted, and the scissors can provide better control than a scalpel for removing that.”

“Shezzie, you clearly know what you’re doing. Where did you learn this stuff about surgery?”

She chuckled. “Would you believe when I was dissecting frogs and fetal pigs in middle school?” I looked at her in shock.

“Not really!” She was enjoying this a lot more than I was! “I only said that so I could see the expression on your face. Actually, I’ve done quite a bit of cutting under the supervision of a surgeon. I was a battlefield trauma nurse with special skills, after all, and when the casualties were coming faster than the surgeons could handle, when there weren’t enough surgeons immediately available, I became the second pair of hands. I’ve used a scalpel, but more often I’ve used the scissors while the surgeon held the incision open and told me where he wanted me to cut. There’s no supervising surgeon this time, but I don’t need one. This is really quite simple except for removing the device, and Ray will use his Talent for that.”