To Fall And Conquer (It Girls Series #2)

Prologue

Prologue

“Scalpel,” I slightly stretched my gloved palm. After receiving the scalpel, I eyed the patient’s chest, carefully locating the landmarks with the scalpel, perfectly executing an incision from top to bottom. 

I took the oscillating bone saw to divide the breast bone to get an access through the patient’s heart. As I kept doing my thing, blood suddenly gushed from the incision, making it hard for me to see the pericardium. Beads of sweat started forming on the side of my forehead and the nurse was quick to wipe it, it was gentle enough not to distract me. 

“Suction,” I told my assistant for this surgery, she gets the equipment that used to suck the blood to prevent it from coming on the surgeon’s way. 

When my way was cleared, I started opening the pericardium. The large aortic aneurysm in about 5.5 cm in size is what greeted us after successfully opening the pericardium. 

“Damn…” I murmured to myself.

I heard Dr. Velasco snickered beside me. “Yeah, damn…” He agreed. 

We used a tissue stabilization system to keep the heart still so we can work on opening the chambers of the heart so that we can get into the deceased valve and operate. We’re gonna do a maze procedure. Fuck! A procedure that is more complex and takes a lot of time… just like how I like my surgeries. 

‘Di ba? Ang tagal-tagal at ang mahal-mahal ng operasyon sa puso tapos papayag ka lang saktan ng isang maling tao? Napaka stupid. 

Mas gusto ko pang manatili sa loob ng OR kaysa sa labas. The adrenaline, the energy, and the tension invading me all at once is what I live for. 

Idagdag mo pa ang pagiging aware mo na may nanonood sa’yong iba pang mga surgeons sa may itaas. Some were interns and some were already residents. 

The ‘wow’ on the interns’ face never failed to fuel my ego. Pero syempre, hindi ko iyon ipapakita. Paano sila mai-intimidate sa akin kung gano’n, ‘di ba? 

When you’re on top, hindi ka dapat friendly because that will just make you an ordinary. Isa pa, people are just nice towards you dahil angat ka. But when you’re just a nobody, they will all treat you like a damn thin air. 

Ganyan kalupit at ka-hindi patas ang mundo. You can go put every inch of you heart and sacrifice all you have pero wala pa rin iyong kwenta kung wala kang substance. 

Naramdaman ko ang marahang pagpunas ng isang nurse sa gilid ng aking noo habang patuloy pa rin ako sa operasyon. 

Our patient right here has a condition called atrial fibrillation, it is when a heart beats irregularly, some patients may complain about feeling their heart skipping a beat and feeling it banging on their ribcage. So, if you often feel your heart doing skip beats, it’s not love! It’s AFib!

However, there are some factors that must be considered before confirming the certain condition. I just wanted to pull a bitter remark over there. 

So, what we’re gonna do is to create a scar tissue inside the heart to stop the abnormal circuits of electricity, causing the atrial fibrillation to stop as well. 

Napangisi ako sa loob-loob ko. There are some scars in the heart that can actually be beneficial for people, pero kapag paulit-ulit kang ginagago at mahal mo pa rin, hindi na beneficial iyon, kagagahan na ‘yon! 

“Cold laser,” they handed me the cold laser and inserted it inside the heart, glancing at the monitor to create a pattern of lines that will soon become scars. As I do the procedure, panay ang pamumuo ng pawis ko sa gilid ng aking noo at panay rin ang pagpunas sa akin ng isang nurse na hindi ko alam kung Mabel o Madel ang pangalan.