Chapter 67 Saving a life
Serena jumped up, tearing through the cabinets in the medical truck. “Serena, what is going on!?” Carson asked. “You’re driving too slow!” she snapped. “You focus on driving; I will focus on saving his life!”
Carson stopped pestering her with questions. She found the gravity blood infusion hand pump. It wasn’t perfect, but it would allow for an on-the-go blood transfusion. Logan needed blood or he wouldn’t make it the medical facility. “What is Logan’s blood type?” Serena asked. She tried to picture his medical chart in her mind, but if Carson knew the answer, she would get it faster. “I don’t know,” he said. Serena pulled the image into her mind. It hadn’t been that long since she had so meticulously looked over all medical files. Thankfully, the information was still in her mind. She pulled it forth. “B neg,” she said. “Are you a match?”
“No,” Carson said with a growl.
“Damn,” Serena muttered.
“What’s wrong?” Carson asked. “I’m a universal donor,” she said. “But it is risky to give him a transfusion with my blood while I’m his only attending physician.” “You’ve got to do whatever it takes to keep him alive, even if it only buys enough time to get him to the hospital,” Carson said. “I know,” Serena said. She rolled her sleeve up, putting a catheter in her own vein. She connected the other end of the gravity hand pump to one of the tubes in Logan’s arm. Taking a deep breath, Serena pulled the handle on the pump, drawing blood from her own arm with the gravitational force. It was slow to make its way over to Logan, but eventually, the tubes were filled and her blood was flowing into him. Serena felt a little light headed and faint, but she brushed off the feeling, watching the monitors to see Logan’s blood pressure and heart rate stabilizing. She double checked the wounds she’d stitched up to make sure that nothing was bleeding through Knowing she couldn’t give him a full transfusion of her own
blood, Serena stopped when she thought she’d given him enough to at least stabilize him for the rest of the ride. She put a band aid on her own arm and got back to work, checking Logan’s eye reactions again and taking his temperature. He’d cooled down considerably, so she removed the ice packs and covered him in a
blanket instead
“The beeping stopped,” Carson observed from the front “He’s stable for the time being,” she confirmed, “If his blood pressure drops again, then there is probably internal bleeding, That I can’t do much about until we get to the hospital. How much longer?”
“About ten minutes,” Carson gald. “We’re making good time” Serena scoiled at such a mundane, common phrase, Logan was still unconscious and could still die and Carson was commenting on their speed!
“I hope that’s soon enough,” she muttered to hersell,
“Serena, you probably saved his life,” Carson pointed out “He isn’t saved yet,” she said, “He is stable, that isn’t the same thing, it could change any second”
She stopped talking to check hie vitale again, making sure that his lungs were inflating properly with the continual flow of oxygen through the mask It had been touch and go, but Serena could tell there was no massive internal bleeding with how his blood pressure was holding more or less steadily. That increased Logan’s chances of survival immensely
When they arrived at the hospital, Adriana and a team of nurses were waiting for them. The nurses immediately began unloading the gurney and Serena spoke to Adriana
She gave the doctor her most recent vital readings and told her what she had learned about his wounds. Then she gave Adriana a rundown of what she had done on the ride there.
“That was incredibly risky,” Adriana said,
“It had to be done.” Serena said with a nod, “He’s going to need throat surgery and chest surgery to bind his ribs. They‘ve been broken in multiple places.” “He’s being prepper now” Adriana said, “You need to rest yoursell, now, you‘ve done all you can.” “I should be in the operating room,” Serena argued, walking towards the hospital doors, Adriana caught her arm, “You‘re filthy from the woods. You need to clean yourself off,” Adriana argued, “You‘re pale, still weak from the blood transfusion” Serena opened her mouth to argue, but she looked down at her scrubs. She was covered in dirt and leaves. She couldn’t go into a sterile operating room! “Okay, fine,” she said Serena showered in the locker room at the hospital. She kept a spare change of clothes on sight in case of a messy day. Once changed and refreshed, Serena went to the nurse‘s station to write up the medical reports while it was all still fresh in her
mind.
A nurse brought her some coffee, a pastry, and an apple. Serena was grateful for the snacks. It would help bring her own blood count back up. She was really waiting to hear news about Logan. It seemed like hours before Adriana showed up at the nurse’s station, her scrubs still bloodstained. “He’s going to make it,” Adriana said as Serena stood up. Sighing heavily, she plopped back down in the chair.
“That is a relief,” she said.
“His throat will recover just fine, along with his voice. His ribs will take a while to mend, but there’s no permanent damage,” she explained.
“I’m glad to hear it,” Serena said with a nod. “Serena, that blood transfusion was incredibly risky,” Adriana said. “I need to know that you can do this job objectively.” “I know,” Serena said shaking her head. “It was a risk, but it was the only option. He was stable enough that even if I hadn’t been able to
continue working, he still would have made it to the hospital, which wouldn’t have been the case if Carson gave him blood. Carson wasn’t a match anyway.”
“Why did you send the other patrol wolves away?” Adriana asked. “You should have had a second pair of hands.” Serena shrugged.
“They were just getting in the way,” she said. “I knew what I was doing. I only gave Logan enough blood to stabilize him. If he’d needed more, he would have had to wait until we arrived here. I was objective.” “Very well,” Adriana said with a smile and a nod. “That transfusion saved his life. Had you left it to chance, he never would have made it to the operating table.” Her confirmation only offered Serena a small comfort. She nodded to her friend as Adriana departed. Through the hospital doors, she could see the sky turning gray. The sun was starting to rise. It had been a long night! Serena was glad that her hands had stopped shaking long enough for her to treat Logan. She hadn’t told Adriana about the anxiety in her stomach or the tremors in her hands. They had subsided by this point. She didn’t know why she had reacted so strongly to Logan being injured. Was that what she had been reacting to? It made the most sense since he was the focus of the emergency tonight. The other wolves had hardly been scathed. Had her reaction come from the attack? That didn’t make sense at all. Serena was certain that her episode was a direct result of Logan being injured and in danger. He was the father of her kids. It created a bond. She knew that if anything ever happened to her kids, she would sense it just as strongly. A thought tickled in the back of her mind. Was it only because he was the father of that she had sensed his danger? At the time, she hadn’t questioned it or thought about it. When Carson showed up with the news, Serena had forgotten all about their argument. The only thing that mattered was finding Logan and saving him! She’d done her job. She wondered if he would still be mad at her when he woke up. He might not ever know what she did for him in the woods and in the medical truck. It had been a little unorthodox to begin with! She’d pushed medical ethics boundaries, but it had been in the name of saving a life, saving the Alpha of the pack.
She doubted very much that Logan would view her actions as unprofessional, seeing as he wouldn’t be alive without them! When it came to saving lives, sometimes boundaries had to be crossed. Serena sighed and finished off her coffee. She was finally exhausted enough to sleep again, but she wanted to stay in the hospital. She went to the lounge where there was a couch big enough for her to stretch out on. She’d sleep for a few hours and then check on Logan in post-op. It was the least she could do since she had been so cold to him the last time she had seen him. Maybe she was feeling a little guilty about being so harsh towards him with the kids. She’d let the twins visit him when he was up for it.