TheBanyanTree: A happy coincidence

[PJMoney]

After leaving home at the usual time on Thursday morning I somehow managed
to get to work ten minutes early.  Considering that work is only a ten to
fifteen minute drive away, and I don't speed, that's some accomplishment.

I imagined I would have some waiting to do but when I walked into the
theatre the first patient was already on the table being prepped for her
spinal anaesthetic.    

"You're early," I remarked to the anaesthetist.  As he worked he explained
that another caesar had been put on the list, an emergency case, and we had
to get this one done and out of the way because there was no spare theatre.
So off I went to do the first part of my job; scrub, glove, catheterise and
paint the site.

The surgeon arrived while I was re-scrubbing for the actual operating
assistant part of my job.  I could see he was undecided as to whether to
proceed with the first case or to bump it down the list and do the emergency
one first.  What swayed him was the fact that the woman on the table was
already anaesthetised and ready to go.  

A caesarian section usually takes an hour.  That's from the time the patient
arrives in theatre to the time the theatre is mopped and ready for the next
case.  We got that first case done in about 45 minutes.  Never before have I
seen such a fast clean up and set up done.

Then the emergency case was rolled in; a woman with pre-eclampsia at 36
weeks gestation and with the foetal heart monitor showing signs of severe
foetal distress.  She'd been catheterised in the ward and, rather than
mucking about with a spinal, the anaesthetist gave her a general
anaesthetic, so we saved time on both those counts.  

The mother's uterus turned out to be full of blood.  She'd had an abruption
- separation of the placenta from the uterine wall.  The baby came out blue
and floppy but under the ministrations of the paediatrician he pinked up
nicely.  It was a save.  Ten more minutes, said the surgeon, and the baby
would have died.

I helped to save a life.  That feels good.  But thinking about those ten
minutes makes me wonder if someone was praying for that mother and baby.  Or
maybe it was just a happy coincidence.

Janice