The Doctors' Christmas Reunion

by Meredith Webber

  It was Madeleine Courtney, who was feeling faint and dizzy, and wondering if it could be delayed concussion.

  ‘Are you at the hospital?’ he asked.

  ‘No, I didn’t like to drive,’ came the weak and plaintive reply.

  ‘Then I’ll let Ellie know and she’ll come to you,’ Andy said. ‘She’s your GP.’

  He could hear Madeleine suggesting he’d be better, but he stopped the conversation, returning to the kitchen where Ellie was on her own, doing the last of the wiping down of the benches.

  ‘It’s Madeleine Courtney,’ he said, aware that the name had come out as a growl. ‘She thinks she might have delayed concussion.’

  ‘She’s at home?’ Ellie asked, and he nodded.

  ‘I’ll go,’ Ellie told him. ‘But if there’s any doubt at all she should be in hospital, shouldn’t she?’

  The frown on her face told him more than the words.

  ‘Is there something wrong with her?’ he asked.

  ‘Apart from a maybe concussion that had her phoning you rather than me?’ Ellie muttered. ‘I’m beginning to think she feels I’ve failed her. There’s nothing I can find—or have found so far—but you know full well that we do miss things.’

  She sighed, then gave a little shrug.

  ‘I’ll go and see her and if I’m worried I’ll drive her to the hospital myself and ask the staff to do hourly obs. And maybe if she’s in hospital you can run more tests on her to see if I’ve missed something. Her symptoms are so vague, and change from pains in the abdomen to pains in her shoulders, to general tiredness, fuzzy concentration and, really, there’s something new each visit. I’ve done tests for a thyroid condition—both hyper and hypo—but nothing’s come back positive.’

  ‘Could it be some kind of lupus, do you think?’

  ‘I really don’t know. None of the blood tests showed indications it could be that, and her urine analysis was clear, but I’ll keep looking.’

  She sighed.

  ‘Sometimes I wonder if she’s just homesick, but she always talks quite happily about the school and all she’s doing.’

  Ellie sounded so depressed by the thought Andy wanted to hug her.

  Damn it all, why shouldn’t he?

  He gathered her in his arms, holding her close.

  ‘We’ll work it out, I promise,’ he said, then bent and kissed her, a feather brush, nothing more, on the lips.

  Startled blue eyes looked into his as Ellie shuffled back, turning towards the door, already on her way...

  Escaping?

  ‘I’ll get her to the hospital. Should I ask for half-hourly obs? Quarter-hourly?’

  She paused, looking up at him, doubt clouding her eyes.

  Andy shrugged, then he remembered the light-hearted dinner they’d shared, the hug, the almost-not-there kiss, and swore softly.

  ‘No, damn it all! Why should either of us be running all over town after her? I’ll phone the ambulance to pick her up, and ask someone to call me as soon as she’s settled, then I’ll pop up and see her there. If there’s any doubt, I can repeat the X-rays and scans we’ve already done, just in case there’s something we’ve missed.’

  ‘Are you sure? I’m happy to go.’

  ‘No, let’s get her to hospital, then tomorrow, when we’ve both had a good night’s sleep, we can sit down with your notes and have a think about what the symptoms could indicate.’

  ‘You’ve got soccer tomorrow,’ she reminded him, and he was surprised she’d remembered.

  ‘We’ll do it after soccer.’

  Andy phoned the ambulance and then the hospital, assuring them he’d be up to have a look at Madeleine, and ordering the X-rays of her head and neck.

  He was about to leave when he thought of something, tapping on Ellie’s door before going in. She’d had a shower and was wrapped in a towel, her wet hair hanging straight down by her face.

  How could he not remember times he’d have ripped off that towel and tumbled them both onto the bed? His voice was croaky when he said, ‘If we can’t find anything maybe we should send her to the city. They have the facilities—not to mention the budget—to run tests we couldn’t attempt.’

  Ellie smiled at him, exacerbating all the reactions going on in his body.

  ‘You’d have to hope they find something—some of those tests cost a mint—and maybe it is nothing more than hypochondria.’

  Andy didn’t respond but Ellie knew he would be grumbling and growling under his breath.

  Could it be hypochondria? Ellie wondered when Andy left, fixing her mind on her patient to try to still the excitement Andy’s kiss earlier had left in its wake.

  Unfortunately, there was a strong possibility there was something wrong with Madeleine, in which case both she and Andy would regret it if they didn’t do all they could for her.

  Andy wandered off, probably to walk up to the hospital so he could meet the ambulance when it arrived.

  Ellie shed her towel and pulled on pyjamas, glancing with a little regret at the pretty lingerie that occupied the other end of the drawer.

  She laughed at her own stupidity. As if seducing her husband in sexy night attire could mend a marriage that harsh and hurtful words had ripped apart.

  Ripped...

  It was the strange word—describing well the seismic shift between them—that made her look through the more attractive negligees, down to the bottom of the pile where a dark blue, lacy, thigh-length piece of apparel still showed clearly that it had been ripped apart.

  By passion, excitement, and a fiery need that could not be delayed...

  And for a moment, holding it, she closed her eyes and remembered, awakening memories in her body as well, so she ached for Andy in a way she hadn’t since they’d split apart...

  Could they heal the rift—cross the abyss between them?

  Had she been so wrapped up in her own pain she’d not considered his?

  If so, wasn’t it up to her to at least try to sort things out?

  But where to start?

  Determinedly putting aside such thoughts, she went in search of Chelsea. The teenager appeared to be coping well—talking enthusiastically about school and soccer—but the future of the child she would produce had hardly been mentioned.

  Might she want to talk more about it?

  And if so, should Ellie bring it up?

  Doing so now, it would be as a friend. Or would it be better to do it at an appointment, as a doctor?

  ‘Come and see,’ Chelsea called to her as she dithered on the veranda, and Ellie entered the room, the soft green walls making it seem bigger somehow.

  ‘Do you like it?’ Chelsea asked, her face alight with so much joy Ellie could hardly find fault.

  Not that she did.

  ‘It looks great,’ she said. ‘But you don’t want to sleep with the paint fumes tonight, so take one of the other rooms, then, in the morning, Andy will give us a hand to move the furniture back in. Unless...’

  She hesitated.

  ‘You might like to paint the furniture as well. I’d say the bed and desk and dressing table were painted white years ago, but they might look shabby in here now. There’s probably white paint in the shed. What do you think?’

  Chelsea settled on the bottom rung of the ladder she’d been using for the top of the high walls. She studied Ellie for a while before she spoke.

  ‘Are you this kind to all the strays who land on your doorstep?’ she asked softly, her eyes now bright with tears.

  ‘Not all of them,’ Ellie said gently. ‘Only ones who know how to paint, and can help Andy with his soccer team, and bring a lot of pleasure to our house with your smile and enthusiasm—especially your smile!’

  She went to squat beside Chelsea as the tears that had shone in her eyes now trickled down her cheeks.

 
‘Besides,’ she said, hugging the girl, ‘you’re family and if there’s one thing Andy and I feel very strongly about, it’s family.’

  Her heart felt heavy as she said the words, but in spite of all that had happened, she knew family was important to them both.

  ‘We’ll do whatever we can to keep you safe and comfortable,’ she said, ‘and you can talk to either one of us about anything at all, but in the end everyone has to take responsibility for his or her own life, and that includes their own happiness.’

  ‘And my baby?’ The words came out as a quavery whisper. ‘What should I do about that?’

  Ellie hugged her.

  ‘Let’s wait and see,’ she said. ‘There’s plenty of time to think about what you want both for yourself and for the baby. Have you thought much about it?’

  She felt Chelsea nod against her chest.

  ‘Only every day!’ the girl whispered. ‘It’s my responsibility, isn’t it, but what kind of life can I give a baby?’

  She raised her head to look directly at Ellie, and added, ‘But can I just give it away? As if it were an old bicycle I don’t need any more? I’m not sure I could do that. Then I think that plenty of adopted babies grow up happy and contented and they bring joy to their new parents, so would I be selfish not letting it be adopted? Not giving the joy of a baby to someone who can’t have one?’

  The words cut into Ellie’s heart. How easy would it be—

  No! She mustn’t think that.

  Thrusting the thought away, Ellie drew Chelsea into her arms again, dropping a kiss on the top of her head.

  ‘There’s a lot to think about but nothing has to be decided right now. Any time you want to talk about it, Andy and I are here to listen. But right now you’ve had a busy and probably exhausting day, so why don’t you have a shower and go to bed? Remember you’re helping Andy with his soccer team tomorrow.’

  * * *

  Andy had arrived at the hospital as the ambulance pulled in. He greeted Madeleine and walked beside her as the ambulance men wheeled her into the observation room in the hospital’s small Emergency Department. Her health records were already up on the screen and he checked the tests Ellie had previously ordered, and read the results.

  As she had said, there was nothing to indicate any underlying cause for Madeleine’s various symptoms, but there was still the possibility of delayed concussion from the accident.

  He watched as the nurse on duty hooked Madeleine up to the monitor and wrapped a blood-pressure cuff on her arm.

  ‘This will drive you nuts,’ the nurse said cheerfully. ‘It inflates every hour to record your BP, and it’s usually just as you’re dropping off to sleep. But we have to know what your body’s doing, and if there’s any major change then bells and whistles will let us know you need attention.’

  ‘Bells and whistles?’ Madeleine said faintly, perhaps regretting her decision to phone a doctor.

  ‘More like a loud beeping noise,’ Andy told her, as the nurse dashed off to answer a loud beeping noise elsewhere. ‘Are you in any pain?’

  ‘Well, my neck and shoulders ache, but they often ache, and I took some paracetamol for my headache about an hour ago, but the pain’s not so bad. I’m used to it. It’s the dizzy feeling I’ve got that worried me.’

  Andy felt her head, his fingers seeking any lump he might have missed earlier, but the only sign that there’d been an accident was a slight graze and a tiny bit of swelling on her forehead.

  He checked Madeleine’s eyes but both pupils reacted evenly to the light, and asked her some basic questions to test for confusion, but nothing obvious showed up.

  ‘Try to get some sleep,’ he said, and went back to the desk to go through Madeleine’s file again.

  Ellie arrived as he was checking the X-rays they’d done earlier.

  ‘You’ll be busy tomorrow and I thought we could go through her history together,’ she said.

  He smelt the bath soap she’d used, and felt her freshness against his shoulder, her head so close to his that a single turn of his head and he could kiss her again...

  But he wouldn’t. They were at work.

  ‘I’m checking the X-rays—’ as if she couldn’t tell ‘—wondering if I’ve missed a hairline fracture anywhere.’

  ‘There’s nothing I can see. Are there scans as well?’ Ellie asked.

  But the scans showed Andy hadn’t missed a bleed at the back of the brain from a contra coup injury. Ellie used a light beam to search every section of the brain.

  Finding nothing, Andy shook his head, sorry Ellie had straightened up as he’d enjoyed her closeness.

  ‘Well, all that’s left is to go back through her medical history.’

  Thanks to a government initiative, more than seven million people now had their health records available to doctors and hospitals all over Australia. Would Madeleine’s be online?

  It was, and this time Ellie squeezed onto the chair beside him. It was uncomfortable but, oh, so, comforting!

  ‘As you can see,’ Ellie said, ‘she rarely visited her GP back in Sydney. She’s had the usual flu vaccinations, scripts for oral contraceptives and apart from a bad case of laryngitis she suffered two years back, she’s had no real health issues.’

  ‘Until she came to Maytown,’ Andy pointed out.

  Ellie leaned over his shoulder again, resting her hands on the desk beside the keyboard.

  She was so close he could feel the contours of her body against his back and was reminded of how they’d slept, spooned together.

  ‘You can see everything seems trivial,’ Ellie said, using the mouse to scroll down the visit list. ‘Sore hip, bad neck, not sleeping, feeling of exhaustion even when she did sleep...’

  But when Andy saw the battery of tests Ellie had run, he knew she was taking Madeleine seriously. He read on through the file, Ellie pulling up a chair and sitting beside him now.

  Some months ago she had prescribed Madeleine a mild anti-depressant, which was good thinking when nothing could be pinned down clinically, but apparently the tablets had made Madeleine feel nauseous and hadn’t improved her aches and pains.

  An anti-anxiety tablet had had much the same effect, with no positive outcome.

  Frustrated by the lack of clinical evidence, Andy went back to see his patient, who was now sleeping even as the blood-pressure cuff inflated on her arm.

  If the symptoms had only begun when she’d come to the high school here in Maytown, maybe Ellie was right about her problem being psychological.

  ‘Was she unhappy about the transfer?’ Andy asked his wife, as she, too, peered down at the sleeping patient. ‘Could she just be miserable?’

  He could practically hear Ellie thinking.

  ‘We have talked about it,’ she said at last. ‘It was easy to bring up because I’m a newcomer to Maytown myself, but she’s always responded enthusiastically: about the town, the school, everything...’

  ‘You’re starting to sound uncertain,’ he said, and saw the little frown line between Ellie’s grey-blue eyes—a line she tried to rub away whenever she was aware of it.

  Like now...

  ‘She might have been too positive about it all,’ she eventually admitted. ‘But, honestly, Andy, I think whatever she has is real. I’ve been thinking fibromyalgia but that’s such a hard thing to pin down and I’ve never known a patient with it, so I’ve no comparison I can make.’

  ‘It’s a good thought, though. That or some other auto-immune problem,’ Andy told her. ‘And having something like that, which is difficult to diagnose, could make her more anxious about possible concussion.’

  ‘Because she knows there’s something wrong with her but if the doctors can’t find what it is, could they also miss something else?’

  Andy put his arm around Ellie’s shoulders, thinking of the times when they’d been studying or wo
rking together, and their minds had been so aligned they could finish each other’s thoughts.

  How could something that had been so strong—so right in every way—break down the way their marriage had? How had grief pushed them apart when it should have drawn them closer together? Had he been wrong, not sharing his feelings at the time, not wanting to burden her with more angst?

  He pushed the thoughts away, and focussed on his patient. His go-to strategy since the break-up...

  ‘I think we should leave it for another day,’ he said. ‘I’ll stay a while in case she wakes with more confusion, but I’ll let you go.’

  Andy suggested it because it had been a long day and he knew Ellie would be tired, but thoughts prompted by the words ‘I’ll let you go’ kept running through his head.

  He walked back into the ward where Madeleine was still sleeping.

  He had let Ellie go—quite literally—when the pain of the loss of their baby had been so overwhelming, so all-encompassing for him, he’d felt he hadn’t been able to help her with her grief and despair.

  Or done enough to get through the layers of protection she’d wrapped around her own grief.

  So guilt had been added to his certain knowledge that he could never go through that anguish again—never face the hope and elation, the despair and pain...

  ‘No, no, no!’ he’d shouted when she’d suggested one last round of IVF. ‘No more, not now, not ever.’

  Then he’d killed any chance of redemption with his bitter, caustic words: ‘If this marriage needs a baby to make it complete, then it can’t be much of a marriage.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  SATURDAY DAWNED AND Madeleine insisted she was feeling much better, so she was the first person Ellie saw when the soccer players started gathering on the side veranda. Madeleine looked fit enough, although she appeared to be limping. Had she bumped one of her legs in the car accident, mild though it had been?

  Ellie introduced Chelsea to those players she’d met as patients, and, after leaving an ice-box full of cold drinks in a shady part of their ‘clubhouse’, she departed.

  But with plenty of open doors leading out that way, she was able to observe what was going on without actually spying.