Heart Surgeon, Prince...Husband!. Kate Hardy

Чтение книги онлайн.

       CHAPTER TWO

      ON TUESDAY MORNING, Kelly was due in to the cath lab. Her first patient, Peter Jefferson, looked incredibly nervous, and his knuckles were white where he was gripping his wife’s hand.

      She introduced herself to them both. ‘Come and sit down. I promise this looks much scarier than it is. I’m going to check your pulse and your blood pressure, Mr Jefferson, and then I’ll put a little plastic tube called a cannula into your arm. Then all you have to do is lie on the couch for me, hold your breath and keep still for a few seconds, and the scanner will take 3D pictures of your heart so I can take a look at what’s going on. Then we can talk about it and decide the best way to treat you to stop the chest pain. Is that OK?’

      He nodded.

      ‘I’m going to inject some special dye into your veins to help the scanner take the pictures. It’ll make you feel a bit warm and you might notice a funny taste in your mouth, but that’s completely normal and it’ll only last for about thirty seconds,’ she reassured him.

      ‘And it’s not going to hurt?’ He was still gripping his wife’s hand.

      ‘It’s not going to hurt,’ she said. ‘If you’re worried about how you’re feeling at any stage, just tell me. I might need to give you some medicine called a beta-blocker to slow your heart down very slightly, or some GTN spray under your tongue to make the arteries in your heart get a little bit wider—that will help me get better pictures of your heart. But it won’t hurt,’ she promised.

      ‘It’s just the chest pain has been so bad lately,’ Mrs Jefferson said, ‘and the medicine our family doctor gave him doesn’t help.’

      Angina that couldn’t be helped by medication often meant that the arteries were seriously narrowed, and the treatment for that could mean anything from a simple stent through to bypass surgery under general anaesthetic. Hopefully a stent would be enough, but she wasn’t going to worry him until she could review the scan pictures.

      She gave them both a reassuring smile. ‘Once we’ve gone through the tests, I should have a better idea how to help you. Can I just check that you’ve stayed off coffee, tea, fizzy drinks and chocolate yesterday and today, Mr Jefferson?’

      He nodded.

      ‘And he’s been eating better lately and stopped smoking,’ Mrs Jefferson added.

      ‘Two of the best things you can do,’ Kelly said. ‘OK, Mr Jefferson. When you’re ready, I’ll check your blood pressure.’

      As she’d expected, the first reading was really high; a lot of patients were so nervous about the tests that it sent their blood pressure sky-high. By the third reading, he was beginning to relax and Kelly was a little happier with the numbers.

      Once she’d put the cannula in, she asked Mr Jefferson to lie on the scanner couch with his arms above his head. ‘I’m going to put some wires on your chest now,’ she explained, ‘so I can monitor your heart rate during the scan, but again it’s not going to hurt.’

      But she really wasn’t happy with what the scan showed her. His right coronary artery was severely narrowed, as were the two on the left. An angioplasty with a stent wasn’t going to be enough to make any difference.

      ‘I’m sure your family doctor has already explained why you’re getting chest pain, Mr Jefferson, but I’d like to go through it with you again. Basically your heart pumps blood round your body, but sometimes deposits of fat and cholesterol—what you might hear called plaques—stick to the wall of your arteries and make them narrower. It’s kind of like when you see the inside of a kettle in a hard water area and the pipes are furred up, except in this case the furred-up bits are inside the pipes rather than outside. This means not enough oxygen-rich blood gets through to your heart, and that’s why it hurts.’

      ‘But you can make my arteries wide again?’ he asked.

      ‘I was hoping I could do an angioplasty and put a stent in—that’s basically a wire mesh that I can put inside your arteries to keep them open,’ Kelly said. ‘But in your case there’s a lot of narrowing in three of your arteries, and I think your best option is surgery. I need to talk to one of my colleagues—the cardiothoracic surgeon—very quickly, so if you’ll excuse me I’ll be about five minutes. If you’d like to nip out to the waiting area to get a cup of water while I’m gone, please feel free.’

      To Kelly’s relief, Luc was in his office, dealing with paperwork.

      ‘Can I have a quick word about one of my patients?’ she asked.

      ‘Sure.’

      She drew up Peter Jefferson’s scan results on the computer. ‘My patient has angina, and the meds his family doctor prescribed aren’t helping. I hoped that I might be able to do an angioplasty, but I’m really not happy with the scan results. I think he needs a CABG.’

      ‘I agree. That narrowing is severe. I’d recommend a triple bypass,’ Luc said as he reviewed the screen. ‘Is he still with you?’

      ‘Yes. He’s in the cath lab with his wife. He knows I’m having a quick word with you.’

      ‘Let me check my schedule.’ He flicked into the diary system. ‘Operating days for me are Wednesday and Friday.’ He blinked. ‘I’ve got a cancellation tomorrow, by the looks of it, so we can grab that slot now before someone else does. Do you want me to come and have a word?’

      ‘Meeting you is going to reassure him more than anything I can say to him,’ Kelly admitted. ‘Would you mind?’

      ‘No problem.’ He smiled at her.

      And her heart would have to feel as if it had done an anatomically impossible backflip because of that smile.

      Kelly had got herself completely back under control by the time they went into the cath lab.

      ‘Mr and Mrs Jefferson, this is Luciano Bianchi, one of our surgeons,’ she said. ‘We’ve had a quick discussion, and we both feel that the best way forward is surgery—a coronary artery bypass graft.’

      ‘It means I’ll take another blood vessel from your СКАЧАТЬ