Chapter 61: Surgery and Hospital Time

Mark

Melanie came into my office in tears. She was sobbing so badly I couldn’t understand her. Sheila was right behind her and in worse condition. I instantly realized that something really really bad had happened. I thought, ‘Oh, my God. Cindy. Elsa.’

Sheila choked out through her tears, “City hospital, right now. It’s bad; very very bad. Elsa’s been shot and lost a huge amount of blood, maybe too much to survive. Tanner’s dead. Limo waiting.’ She sobbed wildly but pointed towards the door.

I was out the door like an Olympic runner with the girls close behind me. I asked, but there were no further details except Elsa was in surgery. Izzy fell in with us as we piled into the limousine; she was crying too. Marshall sped us to the hospital with a war wagon leading and following, leaning on the horns as we ran a dozen red lights between my office building and the city hospital.

Our family surged into the Emergency entrance of the hospital. A dozen uniformed policemen and detectives, a dozen of my security team including Lucas, and Cindy milled around the lobby area. Cindy was crying and Lucas held her to his chest trying to comfort her.

“What happened?” I asked her.

Cindy blubbered out, “He was disguised as an old woman with a walker. We recognized him just in time – well, nearly,” she sobbed. “He drew a gun, and we shot him, both of us. He was dead before he hit the ground, but he got a shot off. It hit Elsa in the leg. She’s lost a lot of blood. The ER staff told us that his bullet hit her femoral artery. Geck got a tourniquet on it, but she was unconscious by then.”

I practically screamed, “Will she make it? Will she live?”

Cindy sobbed, “We think so. We think we caught the blood loss in time, and she was here less than ten minutes after being shot. Lucas and Geck brought her in a war wagon instead of waiting for an ambulance. She fainted only after she was sure Tanner was dead. I didn’t even realize she’d been hit until she collapsed next to me.”

A scrub nurse with blood splattered on her clothing rushed up to Cindy. She asked in an excited voice, “You her sister?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Come with me. We need your blood for your sister, NOW!”

Cindy rushed away after the nurse. I heard the questions about what kind of donor she was, whether she was on medications and such as they disappeared behind a door. I again felt tears welling up in my eyes.

I looked around; only there wasn’t any other source of information about Elsa. Lucas came to me and could only confirm what Cindy had just said. I could tell he’d been crying too.

Lucas managed to say, “We were monitoring everybody near the restaurant. We were even watching the old lady that turned out to be Tanner in disguise. Cindy saw her first and said ‘Tanner’ over the intercom. Tanner had gotten very close to their lunch table by then. We’d just started to move when Elsa and Cindy stood up and the gunfire erupted. They’d seen him draw a gun on them. Two of our men two tables over had drawn their weapons when the shots went off. Elsa and Cindy put two shots in his chest. Either one would have killed him instantly. He got a shot off, probably with impaired aim, and it hit Elsa’s leg. Geck got a tourniquet on the leg and we carried her into a waiting security car to get her here moments later. She was already unconscious.” Lucas teared up, “I’m so sorry, sir. We tried. We really tried.” He sobbed a little; very uncharacteristic for the stoic man.

I threatened to no one in particular, “This better turn out better than it looks right now.”

I spotted a photographer, and that made me ask for a room where we could congregate away from the public lobby that was also serving as a waiting room for other emergency cases. The hospital provided us a room down the hall.

I’m not sure how the story got out, but it made the evening edition of the city newspaper and the local evening news broadcasts. The photos showed our concern and grief. The evening paper headline stated:

Billionaire’s girlfriend shoots stalker

The spot on the city TV news included several of the still photos of Elsa, Cindy, me, and the restaurant with police tape surrounding the scene. The announcer read:

I grimaced as I heard the newscaster reading the copy on the six o’clock news. There were inaccuracies that I chose to ignore. Both Elsa and Cindy were still somewhere in the bowels of the hospital, hopefully repairing Elsa and restoring her to life. I paced and paced and paced. Sometimes, one of the other girls would come to me, and we would just stand, cry, hug, and pray in each other’s arms.

Finally, at seven-thirty an older doctor came into the room we’d been waiting in. He was Indian, and fortunately, I thought, had that seasoned look that only years of experience can give. He had a slight smile that I took as a good sign.

“I am Doctor Ramalesh. I am here to report to you that your Elsa Conners is doing much better than when she arrived. The worst is behind us and she is resting. There was a lot of damage to her artery where the bullet penetrated. It nearly severed the artery, and we spent all afternoon rebuilding it and saving her leg. Her bone was also nicked, but requires no surgery on our part; it will heal on its own. There is significant muscle damage I’m afraid, but much of that will also heal over time, especially with physical therapy.

“She is in ICU right now, with a nurse right beside her monitoring her very closely. The next twenty-four to forty-eight hours will be crucial for her, and we plan to keep her sedated during this time so she doesn’t even think about moving that limb. We have it immobilized in the bed she is in. If she does for any reason, we’re concerned it could tear the repair job and force us back into her leg for another repair operation. The entire ER staff and I are on top of this and we even have prepped another operating room to work on her just in case that happens.”

I asked in a worried tone, “Where is her sister?”

Behind me, I heard a weak voice, “Right here.”

I turned and a nurse was just wheeling Cindy into the room in a wheel chair. She was in short-sleeved scrubs and looked pale and washed out.

As Cindy joined us, the doctor explained, “We took a significant amount of blood from Cynthia during the operation. Part of that was to replace what her sister lost at the scene. We’d also supplemented that with other blood from the blood bank. We plan to keep Cynthia here overnight just to be sure she’s going to be all right with what we took and just in case we need her for her sister.”

Cindy turned her arm, and we could see the bandage and port where the blood draw had been. The draw port was still embedded in the vein inside the crook of her left arm.

I asked, “Can we see Elsa? We’re family.”

The doctor motioned, “One at a time. Come with me. You can look into her room only from a distance. As I told you, she is under heavy sedation.”

We walked down a long corridor until I could see through several layers of glass into her part of the ICU. Elsa was only a lump in the bed with her left leg slightly elevated. She wore a nasal cannula for oxygen and I could see a dozen electrodes and wires coming from under the covers. A hundred medical instruments behind the bed blinked and gave statistics about her health. A nurse wearing a surgical mask stood beside the bed feeling Elsa’s left foot for a pulse I assumed.

The doctor explained, “We’ll be checking the circulation in her leg every couple of minutes for two days. By then, we expect, the grafting we’ve done on her artery will have healed sufficiently to tolerate some small motion. Her whole body is in shock right now, so we’re watching her closely. She lost a lot of blood – a lot. I’ll be frank, another minute without that tourniquet and she would have died from the blood loss. The human body does not tolerate well a loss like she endured. She’s very lucky that your security people rushed her here rather than waited for the ambulance and the EMTs. They normally do fine work, but this injury would have been beyond their capabilities.”

“How long will she be in the ICU?”

“At this point, I think a week or more, and then three or four more weeks here in the hospital in bed with no activity. Towards the end of that period, she’ll start some light physical therapy while we monitor everything very closely. We don’t want to risk anything to that repair job. She’s bedridden for a while - weeks. That should do it, except for a longer period of physical therapy after her release to build up her leg muscles again. She’ll also have a scar on her thigh for the rest of her life, but from what I hear she can be proud of it. She’s not the first gunshot victim we’ve sewn back together who rated the label of hero ... or I should say heroine.”

The doctor walked me back to the waiting room, and then took two of the girls for a peek at Elsa, and then a minute or two later, the other two. There seemed nothing more we could do. Melanie opted to stay with Cindy at the hospital for a while, and the rest of us went back to the condo. There were still a lot of tears and anguish over what had happened.

I made a pest of myself, texting Mel every hour asking for updates. She would text back the word ‘Same’ repeatedly, until finally she wrote, ‘Going to sleep in reclining chair in Cindy’s room. Goodnight. Love you. Mel ... and Cindy.’ I got the message, and tried to sleep myself but I was so keyed up I doubt I got more than an hour’s sleep all night.

The next morning nothing had changed except the doctors had told Cindy and Melanie that Elsa had come through the night with strong vitals, and seemed to be doing better than expected. They planned to keep her sedated another day so that she didn’t move her left leg. Cindy texted that the nurses continued to check Elsa every couple of minutes, but seemed more relaxed about it now that she’d had a successful night. The repair job was holding together and Elsa was healing. She also said they’d changed the dressings on the large wounds.

Elsa

I was vaguely conscious before I opened my eyes. I could hear a heart monitor beeping nearby. I hurt from the waist down, especially my left leg. I moaned and blinked open.