by Barbara Ebel
David thought the music droned on too loud … was the drummer out-of-synch? He couldn’t be sure but he felt disoriented and detached. The classmates around him seemed unfamiliar to him and, all of a sudden, he felt confused. The girl next to him patted her hands on her legs. What was that all about? And why were people nearby twisting and turning. Did they think they were dancing?
Over the next few seconds, David stared straight down into his lap. He was falling, he was sure of it. But then it stopped. Now, he felt detached from himself because he wasn’t inside his body. Then all the odd feelings subsided.
Annabel pushed up and got on her knees in front of David. “Are you okay?” she asked. He stared glassy-eyed and didn’t answer her. One arm began to jerk as he simultaneously slumped flat.
“Oh my God!” one of the teens shouted. “Is he having a seizure?”
One by one, students came closer from the adjoining chairs and blankets. The group dancing also stopped and huddled around them. David’s jerking movements increased; now both his arms, his legs … his whole body shook.
Annabel knelt at a safe distance not to be thrashed by an appendage but then realized she needed to be near his neck and mouth if he needed help with keeping his airway open. As she began crawling away, it became obvious that the front of his light blue jeans was darkening with moisture. He had lost control of his urine.
Annabel kept her composure as much as possible. Thinking about the medical seizure steps she had learned, she knew he was in a safe place on the ground as far as location. But the occurrence in front of his peers was the worst place she could think of.
As she supported his head and kept it slightly to the side, she realized no other intervention would help as he was already on the necessary medication. The only thing left to do was for her father to use the information he was gathering from his new gadget and go into David’s brain.
Chapter 26
For the ten minutes after David’s seizure, Annabel tried to wave away new onlookers but started recruiting her friends for assistance.
“He’s drowsy and confused,” she whispered. “Almost like his brain is exhausted. I don’t think I should try to drive him home. Can someone ask the dorm hallway monitor if I can let him sleep in my bed tonight?” Her roommate made the call while Annabel also took her cell phone out of her pocket.
“It’s a good thing you’re going into medicine,” one of the basketball players said. “That was too scary for me.”
She nodded. “He’s in the postictal state,” she said, “the period right after the seizure. He probably won’t remember what happened.” She lowered her voice even further. “Good thing, too.”
When Annabel’s roommate announced they had permission for David to sleep in their room, she called his parents. She counted on them agreeing with her plan.
“Honey,” Tara Bell stuttered, “how dreadful. Is David going to be alright?”
“I think so, Mrs. Bell. He’s more groggy than I’ve seen him and we need to escort him to the dorm. Besides the fact that we have his recording monitor, can you please write down tonight’s episode in David’s seizure diary? He may forget to do it tomorrow after I bring him home.”
“Yes, for sure. Please take good care of him … and yourself. I hope you get some sleep.”
Annabel said goodbye without telling her she’d be sleeping on the floor and, within the next ten minutes, they escorted David out of the concert.
After sitting David on her dorm bed and being alone with him, she told him a fictitious story about drinks spilling on him and that she needed to wash his clothes. With some cooperation from him, she jimmied his trousers and underwear off and stuck them in a laundry bag. Stepping back into the hallway, she implored her roommate to wash and dry them in the downstairs laundry room. “I’ll owe you big time,” Annabel said.
By midnight, Annabel had David in clean clothes, her roommate was sound asleep, and she lay on the concert blanket between the two beds. Before sleep came, she figured medical school or being a resident would be a lot worse than this.
-----
Rachel thought about Kevin the rest of the weekend. She took Julia and Snoopy to the park on Sunday and, with the dog tethered to her bench and her daughter running around with another child on the playground, she considered what to do next.
They’d had a social encounter at the hospital’s cancer center event, he had taken her to a diner, and then he had asked her to the art exhibit. However, she thought, both evenings still lacked a romantic entanglement or the essence of a real date. If he still planned on asking her for something more conclusive, then the previous nights would not have been a bad social lubricant. However, Casey’s and the Tilsons’ remarks may have left a sour taste in his mouth.
Should she take the gamble and ask him out? If she suggested having dinner, that may seem too overt. Yet, if she could bridge a formal date request with something more casual like they’d been doing, that would be the perfect blend. She wasn’t much of a cook but, the longer she dwelled on it, the more she liked the idea of asking him to dinner at her place.
Julia came running over and pointed at a scrape on her knee.
“I’m glad to see you’re not crying,” Rachel said. “You’re becoming a big girl. Go say good-bye to your friend and let’s take Snoopy for another walk, then go home. We can light some pretty candles before you go back to Danny.”
Rachel took the dog by the leash. Tomorrow she’d ask Kevin Mcbride to come over for dinner and, if he said no, she’d forever cross him off her things-to-do list.
-----
Danny had taken Julia with him to church that morning and, after returning her to Rachel, threw a tennis ball down the backyard hill for Dakota. The dog needed the exercise and the attention; Julia certainly wasn’t giving it to him.
He turned around and waved at Mary as she walked onto the deck with a mid-day cup of coffee; he waved again when Annabel appeared. She had on a tan baseball cap, reminding him of the tomboy she used to be. But the rest of her, in a slimming pair of tights and long blouse, was very much feminine.
When Dakota trotted back to him and dropped the ball, he slung it low in the air towards the deck and walked that way.
“What a pleasant surprise,” Danny said, giving Annabel a kiss.
“I had to come,” Annabel said, her eyes moving towards her aunt’s belly. “Wow, do you have any room left inside with those two babies?”
Mary laughed, holding her mug tightly. “Barely,” she said.
“Dad, I took David to campus Friday night for a concert and he had a terrible seizure right in front of everybody. It was pretty bad. And when he left with me from the dorm yesterday morning, half of the people we passed looked at him like he had the plague.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Danny said. “Is he back to baseline?”
“I think so. But I don’t know if he can ever show his face again around his friends, especially since he urinated on his clothes.”
Danny put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. With his other hand, he stroked her hair like he did when she was small. “A true friend will understand and would never make fun of him for that. And you … did you hold up by being a good first-aid responder?”
She nodded slowly. “But Dad, don’t you have all the information you need to do surgery?”
-----
Rachel had a breather Monday morning because the first GU case wasn’t scheduled to start until 9:00 a.m. She made a cup of tea in the microwave, then called her lawyer in Knoxville.
“What a way to start a week, getting a phone call from my only Nashville client,” Phil said. “I thought we were through for a while … unless you’re not making your medical ‘finger’ payments.”
“I’m making them,” she grunted. “With much difficulty, I’ll add.”
“Excellent. So now what?”
“Enough time has passed so now I want the definitive end result.”
“Which is?”
“Except that the child abuse is in the past, how has anything changed that would warrant that?”
“Mountains have been moved. Trust me.”
-----
Rachel took some instruments out of the autoclave and finished the preparation needed for Dr. Mcbride’s first case. Running a bit late, he entered the room alongside the patient’s stretcher and dropped his small duffel bag by the wall. The orderly helped the patient onto the OR table and the anesthesiologist scurried into the room as well.
After morning pleasantries, the elderly man on the table became less chatty after he received IV sedation followed by a spinal block as he lay in the lateral position. As Rachel stood by to assist, she gave Kevin a wide smile.
“I apologize for being a party crasher the other night,” she said, throwing the used spinal kit into the garbage can.
“No problem,” he said. “What we saw was worth it anyway. I hope you made it home okay considering how you felt.”
“I did. And speaking of home and my cutting the night short, I’d like to make up for it. How about dinner at my place one of these evenings?”
His eyes locked on hers and the faint smile crossing his lips was half mischievous, half surprise. “Should I bring red or white wine?”
“White.” Oh yes, white will be just fine, she thought; but in essence, it didn’t matter. She didn’t know what wines went with what foods anyway and it was as unimportant as drinking bourbon from Tennessee versus bourbon from Kentucky.
“White it shall be,” Kevin said.
When the case got underway, Rachel stood close behind Kevin’s shoulders. Now she understood why Robert had called it quits in the GU room after ten years. How did he stand it that long? She didn’t think she could last one year. As a female, who could have imagined that looking at penises all day long was boring as hell? They were so damn flaccid, she couldn’t imagine any of the ones she’d seen getting stiff and hard. This room could make a woman frigid, she thought.
However, except for the anesthesiologist, the only other dick in the room she hadn’t seen was Kevin’s. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be a disappointment as she leaned her body against him for a few moments ... especially since their interaction was progressing to a dinner date and, most likely, beyond.
-----
“It’s time,” Danny said to David and his parents in the office. They had moved up the teen’s appointment in lieu of his recent seizure activity; and had reevaluated the wireless system and its data.
“Time to schedule surgery,” Danny said, “because we have a fix on the small, precise area of your brain causing all the trouble. At least that’s my best guestimate.”
The youth’s sneakers were planted on the step of the examining table and his hands nervously patted his cargo pants.
“This surgery is going to be a lot different than what you did last time,” David said, grimacing.
“I’ve … been considering that,” Tara said. “Dr. Tilson, this is really dangerous, isn’t it? You’re going to remove part of our son’s brain?” Her complexion paled and she shot a look at Floyd.
“Yes. But understand that, with the system we just used, we have isolated the area responsible like never before in mankind’s history. I am not going to take a chunk out of David’s brain, but a focal patch of neurons.”
Floyd put his hands on his hips and let out a big sigh. “If David wants to go ahead, you have my permission here and now,” he said. “Everything is a gamble in life but, in this case, you’re offering us a shoo-in remedy for his epilepsy.”
“I hope I can live up to your expectations,” Danny said as he swung back around to face his patient.
“I have been humiliated in front of all my peers, Dr. Tilson,” David said. “I have nothing more to lose.”
Danny proceeded to tell them all the possible complications and then wrote orders for David’s preop labs. “You can get them done this week,” he said. “And when you leave, stop at the front desk to have them put you on my surgery schedule. It’ll probably be in two or three weeks.”
After Danny left, David grinned a lopsided smile at his parents. “I sure lucked out with a girlfriend’s father like him,” he said.
-----
At the end of the week, Sara had meetings so Danny beat her home. He went upstairs knowing Casey was pulling a three-to-eleven shift, rapped on the door and entered. Not seeing Mary, he called her name from the bottom of their stairs; and heard a door creak open.
“I’m up here in my studio,” she yelled. “Come on up.”
Taking two steps at a time, he bounded up to see her poking out her head.
“I have to make doubly sure that Casey never unexpectedly comes home while I’m painting this,” she said.
“You’ve started it? The picture of him and his brother?”
She enthusiastically nodded her head and grabbed him by the sleeve. “I decided to get it done without him seeing it. After all, works start from the artist’s perspective. Others may see the end product differently but it’s the creator who must pull it out of their soul the way they see fit.”
“So he’s going to be totally surprised?”
“Yes, he doesn’t even know I’m working on it. I have another piece going at the same time and that’s what he sees whenever he comes in here.” She walked him around to the canvas sitting on an easel.
“I don’t know what to say.” Danny stared at the vertical painting of the two children. The photograph Casey had given her was propped in front, both brothers hamming it up for the picture. The likeness on the canvas had them from the chest up and with less humorous expressions. Danny figured his sister wasn’t yet half done, but already the brotherly love between them was evident in their eyes. Casey had his arm around Tommy, draped over his right shoulder.
“Well, you better say something,” Mary said.
“If I already love it, Casey’s reaction is going to be sheer bliss. The only way this could get any better is when it’s finished.”
“Thanks.”
He looked at the table behind him, her paints and brushes scattered about. “But is the smell of these paints a good thing during your pregnancy?”
“I have the window open and I’ve been ventilating the room every time I’m in here.”
“Okay. Just checking. I have a say with my only pending nephews or nieces, you know.”
“I’ll let you. Now go get out of here so I can sneak in another hour. And, by the way, your mail is on the kitchen counter. There’s a big envelope from Mark Cunningham.”
Danny frowned. “Before he puts good news in the mail, he calls me. When he has bad news, he just sends it via the post office.”
“Uh-oh,” Mary muttered.
Chapter 27
With a sour feeling, Danny opened the large manila envelope sitting on Mary’s kitchen counter from Mark Cunningham. The cover letter simply said, “Just received this from Phil Beckett. Call me after you digest it.”
The thickness of the paper-clipped enclosure looked ominous and, sure enough, the legal wording in the upper left corner was an official Rachel Hendersen vs. Daniel Tilson.
He took the envelope and sat down in the recliner. He had left the cellar door open and Dakota walked across the room, nestled alongside the chair, and tilted his head back to check on him.
Knowing that this correspondence was going to be bad, he briefly closed his eyes; he was absolutely sick of this. How much more could he stand of this woman? His daughter was so young … was Rachel going to hound him the rest of his life? What made her tick, what made her so persistent, what made her dish out cruelty to others? Was it mostly because she was so self-centered that her vision was clouded and she didn’t understand what she did to others? If her actions only affected him, that would be one thing, he thought. But the constant legal maneuvering she dreamed up put stress on the rest of the family as well. And, this year, she even cost Casey part of his hand.
Danny rubbed Dakota’s fur. “Sometimes I think I’m not even worthy of your love and devotion,” he said softly. “You’re as loyal as a soldier who won’t reveal secrets under torture.” He leaned over and kissed the dog’s head as he knew the solace the dog provided was pivotal to his well-being.
Another half hour passed and then Danny had the guts to look at the beginning and end of the court documents. Wanting a huge custody change, Rachel was asking for a trial to make it official. Julia belonged with Rachel full-time, regardless of where she resided.
Feeling drained of all his energy, Danny groaned, leaned forward in the chair, and got up. He heard Mary coming and he also heard activity downstairs; Sara must have gotten home.
When his sister entered the room, he couldn’t bear to tell her. She didn’t deserve to hear this news. What she needed was constant positive energy around her for her growing twins and her own health.
Yes, he thought, he’d shield Mary from this for the time being. Even though the hellcat had struck again, he didn’t need to lay that on others. He gave her a kiss, went downstairs with the envelope and Dakota, and greeted Sara with a big hug.
-----
Casey massaged Mary’s shoulders as they sat on a mat in a large room waiting for their Lamaze class to begin. More couples still streamed in, taking their spots on the floor as the female instructor stood quenching her thirst and eating a granola bar. She strutted back and forth behind the table, a lightweight wearing a pair of designer sneakers.
“Relax your back,” Casey whispered in Mary’s ear. “Begin thinking about your breathing so you can slow it down at will.”
“I’m sorry you have to go through this with me,” she said. “It’s not like you don’t know about childbirth.”