by Rachel Lee
“Bowel sounds are sluggish. Something’s slowing up the works.”
Diane bit her lip, trying to imagine what that might mean. The exam continued, occasional words being passed to Mary for the chart. At no point did Daphne’s crying ease. It was a wonder she didn’t become silent out of sheer exhaustion.
Then the doctor pulled the ear stems free and leaned over Daphne, running his hands gently over her, from the top of her tummy down to her groin.
“Ah,” he said, straightening. “Mom, you want to come see this?”
Diane leaped to her feet. What had he seen? She hadn’t noticed anything in all these hours, and she’d changed Daphne half a dozen times hoping to find the answer in a diaper.
“Here,” the doctor said, pointing. “You see this small bump?”
Daphne peered. It wasn’t obvious, but she was sure of one thing. “I’ve never seen that before.”
“Probably not, or you’d have heard this screaming before. I believe it’s a hernia.”
She looked up quickly at the doctor, her heart jumping, her stomach fluttering unhappily. “Is that dangerous?”
“Depends, but it’s an easy fix. I’m going to get an ultrasound to confirm my suspicion.”
But Diane wasn’t happy to let it go at that. “Why does it depend?”
The doctor smiled over the squalling baby at her. “If it goes on too long, depending on how large a hernia it is, it could incarcerate the bowel. That would be a problem. This doesn’t appear to be that bad—the bowel sounds were normal, if sluggish. I’m betting this problem is just showing up. But we’ll see. In the meantime...”
He pressed on that small bump in Daphne’s abdomen until it was flat. “Gently,” he said.
It was as if someone had flipped a switch. Daphne stopped shrieking, instead snuffling and making hiccuping sounds as she began to settle.
“There you go,” the doctor said. “You can hold her, but don’t feed her. The ultrasound tech shouldn’t be long, but...what I just did is pretty much diagnostic. A small incision, some stitches and this girl is going to be just fine.”
“But what did you just do?”
“I pushed her intestine back through the hernia. It won’t last, unfortunately, but for a little while she can rest.”
Diane sank back into the chair, feeling as if someone had let all the air out of her. The child was going to be okay. One little press and Daphne had become quieter. A couple of stitches inside and she’d be better. Right?
“We’ll talk about the surgery after I look at the ultrasound,” the doctor said. “I’ll see you again shortly.”
Diane wanted only one thing—to hold her little girl again. But she sagged in the chair as if someone had cut her strings. It fell to Blaine to wrap the baby up in a blanket and place her in Diane’s arms.
She looked at him, wishing she could fall into the pools of his blue eyes. They brought good things to mind, like sunny summer skies, so at odds with the moment. “It’s going to be all right.”
“That’s what it sounds like.” The corners of his eyes creased as he smiled. “Although I wouldn’t be surprised if she starts screaming again before all this is done. A hernia.”
“I’m not even sure what that is.”
“He’ll tell us, I’m sure, but it’s my understanding it can be an opening in the intestinal wall. That’s why he could push her intestine back in.”
Diane tried to absorb that while rocking gently and looking down into Daphne’s face. The girl had fallen into exhausted slumber, a relief of huge proportions for both her and her daughter.
Her daughter. She realized that was the first time she had thought of Daphne that way without any qualifiers. Her daughter.
There was a scrape, and she looked around to see that Blaine had pulled another chair into the cubicle. He put it beside hers and sat, reaching over to place his hand on her arm. “How are you managing, Diane?”
“Relieved. Worried.” She gave a small, tired laugh. “Is it possible to feel both at the same time? Because I think I do.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me. Poor little tot, poor little mam. You’re both wiped, I’m thinking.”
“You can skip the diminutive with me,” she told him. “Just because I’m a woman...”
He quickly held up a hand, looking as serious as a judge. “I didn’t mean any such thing. Sometimes my tongue slips into old ways.”
She nodded and let it go. More important things to worry about, anyway. Daphne needed surgery. The doctor might make it sound minor, but Diane wasn’t inclined to think any surgery could be perfectly minor, especially not if it involved anesthesia. Such a tiny person in her arms, utterly vulnerable.
She couldn’t sit any longer. Holding Daphne close to her breast, she rose and began to pace the tiny cubicle. She felt as if ants of anxiety crawled all over her. The doctor made it sound so simple, but she was sure nothing involved with surgery was that simple. No way. All kinds of things could go wrong, and she was sure that before they went ahead with an operation, she was going to be handed something to sign, something that warned her of every potential peril involved in what they were about to do.
But what else could she do? She couldn’t allow Daphne to keep suffering these bouts of pain, and there was no guarantee that they would remain harmless over time. Incarcerate was a word used by the doctor, and her mind threw up all kinds of terrifying possibilities. Whatever it took, she had to try her utmost to get her daughter cured, and creating imagined problems wouldn’t help.
She paused her pacing, looking down once again into that small, sweet face, relaxed and sleeping at last. The tyke had to be exhausted, but Diane wasn’t doing much better. Helpless. God, she had just faced the worst sense of helplessness in her life. Somehow, she sensed that this little girl was going to give her that feeling more than once over the years ahead.
“It’s normal to be nervous,” Blaine remarked in his deep, slightly gravelly voice. “Mam nearly lost it when my brother Liam fell off his bike and was coldcocked. Kid was definitely alive, but by the time the docs reassured her, I think we’d held a full wake and were moving onto a memorial.”
He was trying to make her laugh, she realized. Lighten her fears. She tried a smile but was sure it didn’t reach her eyes. “I’m sorry I’m not handling this better, Blaine. It’s minor, right?”
He sprang from his chair to surround her and the baby with his large, powerful arms. “It’s not minor. It’ll probably be fixed all right, and things will get better, but it’s not minor. Don’t you apologize. I’m fairly certain no mother wants to be facing any kind of surgery for her babe.”
“But he made it sound so...so...”
“Routine? Maybe it is for him. He’s got his hands inside people all the time. For you it’s not routine.”
His words drew her up, releasing her tension enough for a small bubble of humor to burst out. “His hands inside people all the time?”
“Sure, and what else does a physician do? One end or the other, or with a scalpel, they’re inside someone. That may be okay for him, but not so easy on the rest of us.”
A small, amused sound escaped her. “You’re priceless, Blaine.”
“I’m quite sure not many would agree with you.”
Another thought struck her. Apparently her mind was slipping back into gear as fear faded a little. “You don’t have to hang around here. This could take all day. I feel guilty for taking so much of your time.”
“I’ll be hearing none of that. Wasn’t planning to be anywhere else today except putting some furniture together for Daphne.”
At last she was able to settle on the chair again, Daphne snugly in her arms, filling a hole inside her she’d never felt before. “I’m sure you have a life. You’ve spent a lot of time this week looking after me and Daphne.”
“I have a life.” He repeated the
words as if thinking about them, his face falling into unusually charming lines. “I guess I do. Let me see. It’s the weekend, so the county is going to have to wait unless there’s a true emergency. So what would I be doing? I might take my horse out for a ride. Or I might settle at my home desk and work on a floor plan for a dream house that I’ll probably never like well enough to build.”
“Really? Why not?”
“Because I never learned to dream realistically.” He flashed a smile. “By the time a house would have everything I could possibly want in it, I’d need to be a very wealthy man, and civil engineers generally don’t command that kind of pay. So it’s just a dream. But I like it. Right now I’m also thinking about buying a run-down ranch and fixing it up. For my horse, of course. What about you? What do you do with your free time?”
“What free time?” she asked drily. “I think that vanished with Daphne.”
“Only for a few months. You’ll find it again.”
Just then Daphne stirred and made a little sound. Her lips puckered and the tip of her tongue appeared. “She’s getting hungry.”
“Then I guess she’ll be squalling again soon, because the doc said not to feed her. Don’t you have a dodie for her?”
“Dodie?”
“Ah...” Blaine hesitated. “Pacifier.”
“Oh! It’s one of those things I haven’t gotten yet. She doesn’t seem to look for one.”
“Maybe not. It’s a soothing thing for babies, but not everyone approves.”
“What’s to disapprove?”
He shrugged. “People with children can argue about a great many things. Seems like there are a million ways to do things. Don’t get overwhelmed by advice. My mother used dodies. Said it saved her mind.”
“I can imagine, with that many kids.”
“We didn’t make life easy for her.” He winked. “Nor did we get much easier. Scamps to the last of us. I’m convinced she had a personal relationship with the Blessed Mother because she referred to her all the time. As in, ‘Blessed Mother, what were you t’inking, Blaine?’”
A silent laugh escaped Diane as she realized just how glad she was to have him with her. He was keeping her from plunging all the way into the fear that had been gnawing at her since she realized Daphne’s crying wasn’t mere irritability. Little by little he was pulling her up, steadying her.
Considering how much lay ahead of her still, she was extremely glad he hadn’t opted to take off and come back later. At some point she was going to have to turn her precious little bundle over to strangers who would operate on her. She couldn’t feel comfortable about that. Just couldn’t.
Before she could chase the rabbit of worry any farther, a pretty young woman wheeled in a machine nearly bigger than she was. “Hi, I’m Cassie from ultrasound. I’m just going to take a look at the baby, all right? Her name is Daphne, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
The tech nodded, scanning a screen. “Suspected hernia, lower right quadrant. Does that sound correct to you?”
“Yes.” Diane felt her nerves tightening up again. Why so many questions?
“Please bring Daphne over here and place her on the bed,” Cassie said. “And please unwrap her.”
Diane rose, realizing that the boulder was rolling downhill again, that she wasn’t going to be able to do anything about any of this except let others care for Daphne.
Her hands shook a little as she began to unwrap the blankets. Daphne woke and made a few irritable cries.
“She’s going to be even more angry with me, Mom,” Cassie said. “I keep the gel on a warming pad, but I can’t make it too warm. She’s not going to be happy about this. You just stand on the far side of the bed and hold her hand and left leg. I’d like to minimize wiggling so I can get a clearer view. Dad, you can help, too, if you like.”
Part of Diane noted that Blaine had been identified as Daphne’s dad and that he didn’t object, merely came over to help if he could.
Barely realizing she was doing it, Diane began to coo to Daphne, talking quietly, reassuringly as she sometimes did when she was feeding the girl. Daphne’s eyes darted around then found her face. She leaned in as close as she dared, trying not to get into the tech’s way.
Of course, that didn’t help much when the cool gel hit Daph’s skin, along with the probe.
“Easy there, girl,” Cassie said gently, her attention on a screen that was showing a whole bunch of stuff that didn’t make any sense to Diane. “Ah,” Cassie said on a breath. “I think we’ve got it. Let me just do a little more...”
Daphne definitely didn’t like this. Her cries became angrier, and both Blaine and Diane tried to keep her from squirming too much.
“There we go,” said Candy. She pulled a disposable cloth out of a dispenser and wiped away all the gel. “She’ll calm in a minute. Even adults don’t always like this. You can wrap her up again if you want. The doctor won’t be long.”
A minute later she trundled out with her machine and Diane heard her say, “Mr. Madden, are you back again? What’s that leg up to now?”
Diane reached around for the blanket, but Blaine grabbed it first and wrapped Daphne up snugly. He held her for a minute, looking down into her tiny face, then turned her over to Diane.
“Hard to hand her over,” he said gruffly.
“I know. I don’t want to let go of her. But I guess I’m going to have to.” Then she lifted her gaze from her daughter to him. “I can’t begin to tell you how grateful I am. I know she’s going to be in good hands, but it helps not to be alone.”
“I’m glad to be here,” he responded. “But I wish that doc would hurry. Tenterhooks were never designed to be comfortable. My God, these people act as if they have all day.”
None of that was very flattering, but Diane could understand his feeling, because she shared it. The intellectual realization that Daphne wasn’t the only patient they were dealing with didn’t help at all. Selfishly, she wanted her daughter to have everyone’s full attention.
Daphne was starting to squirm, her face reddening. “Oh, no,” she whispered. “Not again. Hurting like that...” She might scream. She might drown this ER with a volume Diane couldn’t match.
Blaine took Daphne and put her on his shoulder, patting her back rather firmly.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Damned if I know. Maybe a change of position will keep things from getting worse. Hell, maybe I should dangle her by her ankles so all the pressure goes in the other direction.”
“I heard that.” Into the room walked the doctor. “Sorry for the wait. Let me call up those sonogram results and show you what I can. Daphne will be going to surgery in about thirty minutes, as soon as the surgeon is done with his current patient. You need to relax, Mom. This isn’t life-threatening, even though it’s miserable for her.”
“You’re sure about that?” Diane said almost defiantly. She was beginning to feel as if she was caught in a nightmare without end. She tried to tell herself she was being ridiculous, but the feeling persisted. She wanted a speed that a hospital couldn’t possibly provide to someone who wasn’t dying then and there.
Blaine slipped his free arm around her shoulders. He gave her a gentle squeeze.
“Okay,” said the doctor, pulling up an image. “Without a practiced eye, it’s hard to see, but about two inches of her intestinal wall haven’t grown together. That’s actually not a terribly unusual thing, although we more often see it in boys. Anyway, nothing abnormal, and I’m glad to tell you we can take care of this immediately. There’s absolutely no reason to wait. She’ll be going home with you late this afternoon once she recovers from the anesthesia.”
Hope leaped in Diane’s heart. “Today?”
The doctor smiled. “Today. Really. Now, what’s going to happen next is we’re going to have to start an IV. That’s usually th
e first thing we do when someone is to be admitted, but I didn’t want to do that until we were certain what we were dealing with and when we’d deal with it. Of course, if I’d seen any sign of dehydration...” He shrugged. “We’re going to put it in her forehead.”
Diane froze. She felt Blaine stiffen beside her.
“What do you mean?” Diane demanded.
“The best way to give a child this small an IV is to place it in a scalp vein.” He leaned over and touched Daphne high on her forehead. “About here.” Daphne made an irritated sound and tried to suck her fist.
“Why there?” The idea horrified Diane.
“Because it’s the best, easiest and safest place for a child this young. I promise you, you don’t want us trying to find a vein in a waving arm or leg, especially not through the layer of baby fat. We can do this in a minute. Anywhere else and we’re going to have to restrain her and look hard. Looking for a good IV site is sometimes...”
“Painful,” Blaine finished. “Watched it with my mother when she had trouble birthing Leanna. I swear, the woman doesn’t have any veins.”
The doctor smiled faintly. “I’ve run into folks like that. Anyway, Mom, trust me. This won’t bother Daphne, and it’s only for a few hours, anyway. But I’m going to ask you to leave her with the nurses, because you’re not going to want to watch it.”
Diane didn’t need a diagram. Ten minutes later she’d been banished to a waiting room with Blaine, and her heart and arms felt empty.
“He sounds so...cavalier.”
Blaine shook his head. “He’s not. He’s just used to this in a way we aren’t. For him it’s all in a day’s work. At least he was sensitive about explaining where the IV has to go and why.”
Blaine took her hand and held it snugly. A miracle of a man, she thought. Anyone else would probably have fled from this situation. Not even remotely was it his problem.