CHAPTER 78
SPECIAL CHAPTER: DR. GIUSEPPE.
“The bullet velocity was high therefore there was no side-to-side movement, meaning it passed through non-critical parts of the brain causing less damage and ensuring his survival.”
Decades in the medical field and what happened in there still have my hands shaking.
He was brought to the hospital nearly dead.
His family begged us to save him.
From the blood loss, from the bullet wound, forty-four percent of patients shot in the head make it to the hospital without dying.
Even with the statistics, a fraction of that forty-four percent don’t make it out of theater.
Not him though.
We lost him. Then beating all odds like a charging bull he fought for life, he puzzled all of us and hours of retrieving that bullet and ensuring his brain wasn’t swelling paid off.
“Y-you saved him? T-thank you. T-thank you, Giuseppe.”
“He’s out of the clear for now, we are observing his vitals to make sure nothing-.”
“Have you told the others?”
I am about to. They must be anxious.
“No but I will.”
“Tell them he’s dead!”
I understand her pain but as a doctor having witnessed one of the greatest miracles in there, I cannot tell the people waiting out there with hope that Christian Vitello Volkov is dead.
“He just fought to live and I know you are relieved to hear he is alive. With that being said, I cannot tell them that-.”
“He is better off dead than going back to that life. They shot him, Giuseppe, they shot my…”
“This is unreasonable. They will want to confirm he’s dead. I cannot-.”
“I trust you; I have trusted you for decades. You helped me and now you will help me save my son from the life his treacherous father put in his way. He will not die like Moretti. He will not die a gangster, bleeding out and fighting for a life that is not worth it.”
“Lucia, what you are asking me to do is.”
“You have children, do you not? Giuseppe, tell me now if your daughter got stabbed once in a park she regularly visited and survived. Would you let her play in the same park again? Would you risk the chances of her being stabbed and nearly dying again?”
“What you are asking of me as a doctor, I cannot condone it. Your daughter is out there praying for him, she will be devastated. Your…his wife, came in a rough state. She is pregnant with twins! His death will traumatize her, compromise your grandchildren!”
Christian Vitello had taken the reins from his father a few months ago.
Today he was to wed.
Judging by his bride who was partly conscious and partly out of it when she arrived, the woman loved him.
I was in the theater consulting with some of the best neurosurgeons when we operated on Christian Vitello.
The man fought for a chance to breathe.
He must have fought for the woman in the blood-tainted wedding gown and for his future kids.
“I will not lose my son again. I left him to fend for himself in America, I disappeared scared that Moretti’s enemies would find me and kill me. I abandoned my children. I will not abandon him this time.”
“Lucia, please…”
“Do what you must or I will be forced to go after your children, Giuseppe.”
“Lucia.”
She hangs up.
Ten minutes later, I am looking at a man who is about to lose everything without knowing.
The surgery was a success but the degree in which his brain would be affected was up to chance.
Chances were he would be paralyzed, chances were this man would never get to be as normal as he was then, chances were the extent of the damage triggering amnesia.
The former were better.
The latter was playing God. If he left here and his memories were no more, he would be a different man, he would be leaving his woman and his children behind.
A choice made for him. A choice he never chose.
“We don’t have all day, doctor”, one of Lucia’s men disguised as a nurse presses. The other man brings the wheeling body cart that is reserved for pushing the dead into the morgue.
I check his vitals. Thrice. Twice.
The syringe in my hand shakes.
Throwing all the ethics imbued in us since I dedicated my life to saving the lives of others, I kill a man.
An opioid overdose.
His body shakes, taking in the poison I just drugged him with.
The two fake nurses work fast, putting his body on top of the cold trolley.
Then they disappear from the room.
I watch as his breathing stops and his heart stops beating.
It takes a minute for his family to be informed.
I rush out, taking the call.
“My men will get him out. There’s an ambulance with a team of doctors ready to help him. Thank you, Giuseppe. Thank you.”
When a whole two minutes is gone and Christian Vitello’s family is dragging his pregnant wife out of the room in the opposite direction as she wails, I rush into the room.
Taking the antidote; and via intravenous injection, I administer a single dose of 100 micrograms/kg naloxone to reverse the opioid overdose.
It should restore breathing.
After two minutes, it should be able to counter the effects of the opioids.
Lucia’s men charge into the room in time carrying with them a body I’m assuming to be dead wrapped around with white covers all over.
I watch as my patient’s chest starts moving. He starts breathing.
Christian Vitello Volkov lives.
But is he alive really?
Even as we swap bodies, even as I watch and help Lucia’s men carry him out to the waiting ambulance that immediately has doctors putting him under medication and observation, even as I watch the ambulance drive off; did I save a man today?
Saving a man did not feel like this.
Saving a man’s life was walking to his family, wiping their sad faces and telling them the patient fought and he conquered an obstacle.
As I walk back to the hospital using the front doors this time around, my conscience leads me to my best friend from my college days.
“Edoardo, how is she?”
As if knowing her health will wipe my hands clean.
“Francesco broke the news that Vitello was no more. I know it wasn’t easy losing a patient, much less your best friend’s son. Lucia Volkov’s son shouldn’t have gone down like this. Giuseppe, I am truly-.”
Francesco and all the men who were in that operating room have been paid off to take the secret to our graves.
“How’s your patient doing, Edoardo?”
Free me from this torment.
“She lost the love of her life; she’s taking it harder than the rest of the family. A little bleeding which is an early sign of pregnancy occurred a few minutes ago but she has to take it easy. Her pregnancy… is a high risk one. With the amount of stress, she’s under, I’m afraid-.”
“She’ll live. Her babies will live. They have to.”
For the man who fought for them today.
They have to.
They. Will. Live.