Pool_2

began whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh... It was the pulse! "Flow! Other side!" A hurried scramble to compare the new whooshing beat, the pulsing flow with that of the other extremity. It was about 90 percent. "It'll do," was Mac's whispered observation. Kirshenbaum then asked the anesthesiologist to wake her up enough to test sensation but be ready to crash her again, as Yount astutely queried "Fasciotomy?" Both surgeons harmonized, "I don't think so," then laughed at their synchrony. The deep pressure measurements seemed quite good. "Probably was all arterial," Kirshenbaum added hopefully. Dr. Yount was speaking in measured cadence into the child's ear, asking her if she could wiggle whatever finger felt something scratching. She began to respond and did quite well on the ring and small finger then gradually improved on the thumb, index and middle fingers. He had adjusted the drugs to suppress pain but not alertness or sensibility. It takes a good practitioner of the art to do that, twilight anesthesia in a ten year old. Mac declared, as Kirshenbaum held a thumb up, "Wake her up." He then mentioned, to no one in specific but everyone in general, that he was going to keep her on IV just in case she "soured" and had to come back. "It isn't over, yet." Splints were made so as to allow circulation and nerve checks and inspection for pressure spots. Tension in the room had ebbed with that in the arm. Where masks had been, there now were smiles. It's good to win one. That's how they felt. Triumphant. As the youngster was wheeled past the control desk en route to the recovery room, the victory parade received no decoration, no honors, no praise, but rather, Tawny's jeer, "Your ass is grass, Macaluso!" as the doctor grumbled, "Well, I guess this isn't exactly Aieda."