Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 66833 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 334(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66833 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 334(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
“It’ll be all right,” I whisper, laying my hands over his, and then I pull away to face the nurse. “I’m ready. Let’s do this.”
Chapter 12
Alexei
The next several hours are the longest of my life.
I insisted on being in the operating room, so just like the doctors and the nurses, I’m wearing a surgical gown, mask, gloves, and booties—and even so, I’m not allowed to get within three meters of my wife or to interact with her under any circumstances.
“If you startle us, the scalpel could slip,” Ingels warned ominously. “You need to stay absolutely still and quiet at all times, or better yet, wait outside.”
I promised to be still and quiet, and that’s what I’m doing now: sitting in the corner like a ghost and staring intently as the team puts Alina under a combination of local and mild general anesthesia before hooking her up to a million monitors and strapping her head in place—I assume to prevent her from moving it once she’s awake. The rest of her body is covered with surgical drapes, leaving only her head exposed, and then a portion of her skull is marked for an incision.
Stomach churning and chest tight, I watch as they use a drill-like instrument to create a bone flap and expose the grayish-pink tissue underneath.
Alina’s brain.
Fuck.
I realize my hands are shaking, so I ball them into fists.
I’ve seen naked brains before, both blown out and intact. But this is different. It’s not some enemy of mine. This is my wife lying there on the operating table, under the merciless glare of the bright surgical lights.
I know she’s not feeling any pain and that this is necessary to save her life, but it doesn’t make it any easier. I still want to go over there and crack open the skull of every person who’s doing this to her.
Taking deep breaths, I squeeze my eyes shut, then force them open as Fasseau barks out, “Saline!”
The nurses are already on it, the entire seven-person team operating like a smoothly oiled machine. In addition to Ingels and Fasseau, the two neurosurgeons, there is an anesthesiologist, three nurses, and a neuropsychologist, all of them moving in a carefully orchestrated way.
And then… Alina is awake. Her long lashes flutter open, revealing her gorgeous jade-green eyes, and her tongue flicks out to moisten her plush lips. She blinks, once, twice, three times as the doctors start speaking to her, assuring her that everything’s all right, reminding her of what’s happening and where she is, asking if she’s feeling any pain or discomfort. And… she answers.
She fucking answers them, as if she’s not lying there with her brain exposed.
It’s surreal to watch.
I understand now why Ingels explicitly warned me to stay still and quiet. The urge to come up and speak to her, to make sure she’s all right, is overwhelming. Though she’s just told the doctors she’s not in any pain, I want to ask her that myself, to make sure she’s not freaked out by what’s happening to her—because I fucking am.
Still and quiet, I remind myself. Stay still and quiet.
So I do. I’m a human statue in the corner as the surgeons begin cutting into the exposed tissue, speaking to her the entire time. They make her count to a hundred and do multiplication tables. They ask her to sing and to speak in both English and Russian—and then translate from one language to the other and back. They remove some of the drapes covering her body and make her move her fingers and toes, then bend her arms and legs. They apply electric stimulation to various parts of her exposed brain and ask her what she sees and hears, if she feels any tingling when they do this and that.
It’s the weirdest, most sci-fi experience of my life, and I’m not the one it’s being done to.
I don’t know how long the operation lasts, but my legs have fallen asleep by the time they put Alina under again and close up her skull, securing the bone flap with small titanium plates before suturing her scalp closed layer by layer.
I wait until they’re completely done before I finally move, carefully standing up as pins and needles cut agonizingly through my legs. It takes a solid minute to regain most of the feeling in my feet, and by then, the nurses are wheeling Alina to the recovery room.
I hurry to accompany them there and then wait impatiently next to Alina until Ingels and Fasseau show up sans their surgical gowns and gear.
“Well?” I demand. “How did it go?”
“About as well as we could’ve hoped,” Fasseau says, wearily rubbing a hand over his face. “There were no complications during the procedure, and we removed all of the tumor cells that could be removed without impacting healthy brain tissue—which, luckily, was nearly all of them. Now we’re waiting on the pathology report to determine the exact tumor type and grade. That’s what will tell us how aggressive the follow-up treatment will need to be.”