The Rescue Doctor's Baby Miracle

by Dianne Drake

  “But I wouldn’t!” she choked.

  “I know that,” he whispered tenderly. “But they don’t know you the way I do.”

  Brushing back a tear, she leaned her head against Gideon’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she said. “For so many things, I’m deeply sorry, Gideon.” She felt almost as badly now as she had the day she’d lost their child. And for that, there had never been anything for which she’d been more sorry.

  Except, perhaps, divorcing Gideon.

  It was two hours later now, she was back to work, Gideon was still hovering over her, and her hands were still shaking a bit. Bless him, he’d become like a mother hen, hanging about in the tent with practically nothing to do, which wasn’t at all like Gideon—being idle. He’d been there for her, though, and that’s what counted, considering how bad he was feeling over Tom’s death.

  “How do you do this, Gideon? Time after time, how do you keep coming out to a rescue when you’re called, knowing what you’ll find, or what could happen?” she asked, as she prodded the belly of one of the victims brought in only five minutes ago. Old man, beautiful smile, frightened eyes. His vitals were stable, but she was doing a thorough physical on him anyway.

  “I don’t know how many times I’ve asked myself the same thing. To be honest, I’ve quit doing this a hundred times. Or more. I’ve convinced myself not to go out again, to go find a nice hospital and settle down to a steady surgical practice again. But then I get the phone call…and I see the faces. Maria, Ana Flavia…that child you pulled out of there who might otherwise not have been saved…That’s how I can keep coming out. I remember the people we help, and that’s what makes everything we go through worth it.”

  “Have you ever just walked away for a while? Taken time off? Had to go away just for an emotional break?” she asked, prompting the man to turn over on his side so she could have a look.

  Gideon didn’t answer for a minute. Rather, he concentrated on changing the bandage of the young man under his charge at the moment, gingerly pulling off the old one as it stuck to the man’s head wound. “No,” he finally answered. “I’ve thought about it, but something always gets in the way. And I think I’d probably be miserable after a couple of days. All this…it’s more than what I do. It’s who I am.”

  She knew that. To be honest, Gideon was more who he should be now than he had been when they’d been married. She wondered who he would have been had the marriage survived. In some peculiar way, perhaps the end of their marriage had been the beginning of the man Gideon was meant to be. It would have been such a loss if he hadn’t made it to this place in his life. “How’s Dani?” she whispered, as she helped situate her patient on his back again. There was nothing significantly wrong with the man…a few scrapes and bruises. But she wasn’t going to turn him away. Not yet. Not until they needed the bed for someone more critical. “Any word from the hospital?”

  “She’s still in surgery,” Gideon replied. “Her spleen was ruptured, so they removed it. Her pelvis was shattered in several places, and there was some substantial damage to her legs, so she’s in orthopaedic repair right now. It’s going to be a long recovery, and she’ll have quite a go in rehabilitation once she’s home, but her surgeon thinks she’ll be fine.”

  Fine, but without the man she loved. Lorna ached so badly for Dani it was a physical pain. Telling her about Tom was going to be so difficult. Or maybe if she’d loved Tom deeply enough, something in her already knew he was gone. Had there ever been a time when she’d loved Gideon that much? Maybe. But so much of what they’d had together had been clouded by things that simply shouldn’t have hurt them if they’d truly been together. Sadly, they hadn’t been. If she’d seen that then…Hindsight really was so much better than foresight, wasn’t it? “Who’s going to tell her?” she asked.

  “I will.”

  “Gideon, I’m so sorry about this. Is there something I can do to help?” She didn’t know what else to say.

  “So am I. And, no, there’s nothing you can do.” He placed a fresh bandage on his patient’s wound, then turned to face her. “But I appreciate the offer,” he said, his voice so sad it nearly broke Lorna’s heart.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” she said, fighting off the urge to walk over to him, take hold of his hand or do something to comfort him. But his arms were locked so tight across his chest now that the message was clear. He was shutting her out, too. Like everybody else there. She wasn’t one of them.

  “Blame it on the rain,” he whispered, deliberately avoiding her gaze.

  “Transport’s here!” Frayne called from outside the hospital tent. “They’re on a tight schedule so we need to get going.”

  Lorna nodded, then stood. “Is there anything else before I leave, or anything when I get back to the States? Call anyone? Make some kind of arrangements for you? Have more supplies sent down?”

  “Don’t break the news of Tom’s death until I’ve had a chance to tell Dani.”

  She wanted to offer to stay, had thought about it for the past hour, but it was time to go. Her choice. Time to get back to her own world as Gideon’s world didn’t really want her. Besides, he hadn’t asked her to stay. She’d thought he might, and she would have stayed if he had. But he hadn’t, so she wouldn’t. “You take care of yourself,” she said, as she grabbed up her dufflebag. “I’ll call you when I get the documentary put together.”

  “You take care of yourself, too.” That’s all he said, then he turned his attention to his next patient.

  Just like that, it was over. Again. In a sense, another divorce. Only this time it hurt worse than it had before.

  Lorna took one last look at Gideon before she followed Frayne to the truck.

  “Are you sure about this?” Frayne called over the whoosh of the helicopter blades. He was inside, hanging out the door, shouting to her.

  “I can’t leave,” Lorna shouted back. “Not yet.” Deep down, she knew this was the right thing to do. The thing she had to do if, for no other reason, than they were short-staffed now.

  “We’re not going to get the documentary in on schedule,” he warned.

  “I’ve got a couple in the can.” Meaning she had a couple documentaries already taped and ready to show. Back-ups, for an occasion such as this. A broadcasting necessity. “Tell them to use one of those.”

  “Any point asking when you’ll be back?’

  She shook her head.

  Frayne cocked an inquisitive eyebrow. “Our bosses aren’t going to be happy about this,” he warned. “You know that, don’t you?”

  “Can’t help it. I can’t leave yet.” She stepped back from the helicopter to wave him off. “Tell them I’m sorry to mess them up this way, but I’ll have a great story for them when I get back.” Standing ankle deep in the mud, the way she had when she’d arrived the day before, Lorna watched the helicopter lift off, and continued to watch until it was but a speck in the air. Once it was out of sight, she shifted her backpack from her left shoulder to her right, turned around, and started the long hike back to Gideon’s camp.

  Not too far ahead, a little man with bright brown eyes gestured her over to his donkey cart. He held out his hand for a few coins, smiling an absolutely irresistible crooked smile at her. “Why not?” she said, paying him then climbing into the straw in the back. His name, as it turned out, was Rubens, and his command of the English language was limited to very few broken words.

  “Tourist?” he asked, as they made their way slowly back along the road. His accent was so thick it took Lorna a moment to figure out what he was saying.

  “No,” she finally said. “Doctor. Doutor.”

  Hearing that, he stopped the cart abruptly, pulling so hard on the reins that his donkey bucked up on his back feet and snorted his protest. Then Rubens turned to Lorna, who was still trying to find a comfortable spot in the straw, and started talking so fast she couldn’t even pick out any familiar words. He was animated, loud, his face was turning red, and she took it to mean he either ha
ted women doctors, or he had an emergency of some sort and, perhaps, needed a doctor. When he gave the reins a sharp jerk and his donkey did an about-face, she assumed it was the latter, and that she was being taken to tend someone in need.

  Which turned out to be the case. Within ten minutes Rubens came to a stop in front of a tidy little frame cottage. It was gray, and splashed with mud, but standing strong, as were the other houses on this row. Outside, a pot of wilted flowers sat on the stoop, up under the roof overhang, and a tiny folding chair was propped against the wall, unopened. In the yard, a muddy dog greeted Rubens with a wagging tail as he climbed off the cart and helped Lorna out of the back.

  He hadn’t stopped talking to her from the moment he’d made the turn-around, and even on the way into the cottage he chattered away so fast that she wondered if anyone who spoke the language would even understand him.

  The first room through which he escorted her was a parlor, with well-worn chairs and a floral sofa. The walls were lined with photos, dozens of them…children, old people, and all sorts of individuals in between. Family photos, she decided as Rubens hurried her on through the parlor, through the tiny kitchen and into a room at the rear. The door was partly shut, and the light off inside, but even before she had stepped in, she heard the rattled breathing of someone very sick.

  “Andreza,” he said, pointing to the woman in the bed.

  Andreza looked to be near Rubens’s age, probably his wife. “Meu nome é Lorna e eu sou um doutor,” she said, glad for a fair pronunciation of one of her pat phrases, because, as she said the words, Andreza understood and raised her hand in thanks to take Lorna’s.

  What Lorna noticed immediately was the woman’s blazing fever. Without a thermometer it was difficult to know just how high it was, but to the touch her skin was so hot Lorna instinctively knew she was in the extreme danger zone, perhaps four or five degrees above normal. And as if that hadn’t been an obvious clue to her condition, her coloring certainly was. Andreza’s normally deep bronze skin had taken on a yellowish hue, and a quick look into her eyes revealed to Lorna that the whites were also yellow. Jaundice. Meaning a compromised liver. “Has she been vomiting?” Lorna asked Rubens, as she mimed a gesture to indicate what she’d asked.

  He nodded vigorously. Then he pointed to Andreza’s head and back, indicating pain in those areas, too.

  A viral infection, Lorna guessed, then raised her hands to gesture trembling. “Has she been doing this?” she asked, even though the man didn’t understand the words. He understood the motions, though, because he nodded.

  So, jaundice, fever, trembling, vomiting, headache and backache…backache meaning she could also have a compromised kidney. This wasn’t looking good at all, and she desperately wished she had a better way to make a diagnosis.

  Lorna drew in a pensive breath and let it out slowly, pondering the obvious options, finally settling on one. Yellow fever? It did happen here in South America and in sub-Saharan Africa. If that turned out to be the case, Andreza was most likely in the third stage already—past the early stage, which lasted three to four days, and past the remission that followed, which normally lasted about twenty-four hours. Usually, people were either cured in that short span or plunged into a life-threatening situation where that remission turned into a period of intoxication—multi-organ dysfunction, bleeding disorders, brain dysfunction, including delirium, seizures, coma…death.

  She looked down at Andreza, whose eyes were shut. The poor woman had so many of the advanced symptoms, and there were so many questions to ask, so many answers she didn’t have. And she didn’t even have a thermometer!

  She needed medical supplies, needed them fast. Unless she was totally reading the symptoms wrong, and she didn’t think she was, Andreza was on the verge of dying. There wasn’t a cure for the disease, but enough medical support could sustain her through the worst of it until the toxins were out of her system. That was if the damage wasn’t severe enough to totally destroy one or more of her organs. And Lorna had no way of knowing how severe it was. “I want to get her to base camp,” she said to Rubens, who had no idea what that meant. He simply nodded, and smiled.

  “Can you carry Andreza to the donkey cart?” she asked, then did a simple pantomime to show him what she needed.

  Rubens looked perplexed for a moment, then gave a slow nod.

  “She’s very sick,” Lorna continued. “I have to take her to get help.”

  Even though he didn’t understand the words, their seriousness did sink in, because he immediately went to a closet, pulled out two extra blankets, and wrapped them over his wife. Then he picked her up and carried her outside, laying her gently in the back of the cart. Within another minute Lorna was riding alongside her over the bumpy road, praying for a speedy trip and keeping her fingers crossed that the ominous rainclouds overhead would hold off until she had Andreza safely secured in the hospital at camp. If this was yellow fever, and she couldn’t be sure without a blood test, Andreza’s chances were only about fifty percent.

  But at least she had a chance. Thank God she’d changed her mind at the helicopter. Thank God something she didn’t yet understand had pulled her back to make things good with Gideon. Without that, Andreza would have died for sure.

  Plodding along the trail with Max, two volunteers in front of him and two to the rear, Gideon went through the motions of searching, even though his mind wasn’t on it. Tom…Dani…so many things to distract him. And Lorna…He already missed her. “You’d think I still loved her,” he said to Max, who stayed at Gideon’s side. “No offense, boy, but I was beginning to enjoy her company.”

  Max licked Gideon’s hand, as if sensing his mood.

  “I know, boy. I’m being too sloppy about this. Give me a little while and I’ll be fine.” Brave words, except he hadn’t been fine the first time he and Lorna had split, and now, if anything, it felt as bad, maybe even worse than that first time. Back then, he had been almost glad to walk away. He still loved her, but the handwriting was all over the wall, and none of it predicted anything but problems. So getting out when he had had probably been for the best. Certainly they had both thrived since then. Become successful, found lives they loved, and moved on. But for him it hadn’t been easy. Not emotionally, anyway. He’d missed her…for days, weeks, months…Maybe he never quite stopped missing her. Which was why he hadn’t stop her from leaving. On a personal note, he couldn’t go through all that again. Better to end it now before they went too far…or, at least, before he went too far.

  Coming down the side of the hill, Gideon stopped and stared at the donkey cart making its way along the road. “Can’t be…” he said, straining for a better look. Was that Lorna in the back of it?

  He pulled out a pocket-sized pair of binoculars and took a look. “Damn,” he muttered. She was hunched over someone…he couldn’t tell who. Not good, he thought as he took off in a run down towards her. “Lorna!” he yelled, keeping an eye on Max, who was still on the ready for a rescue.

  She rose up to her knees and waved to Gideon, but immediately dropped back down and went to the aid of her patient, who was in the throes of a seizure. “What is it?” he gasped, catching up with the cart.

  Moving to turn the woman on her side as she convulsed, Lorna looked up briefly at Gideon, who was running alongside. “Yellow fever’s my best guess. Third stage. Classic symptoms. I want to see if we can get some prophylactic support going and sustain her through the crisis.”

  “Any others down with it?” he asked.

  “Don’t know. Rubens took me to Andreza, and she’s the only one I’ve seen. But there could be. With all the rain and humidity…mosquitoes…” She shuddered. “There’s a whole little untouched community over the hill and I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more of this.” She looked down at the woman. “Much more.”

  Gideon clicked on his radio. “Jason,” he said. “We’re bringing in a woman, possible yellow fever. There may be others.”

  “Don’t have room,
Gideon,” he said. “Don’t have the manpower.”

  Gideon ran an impatient hand through his hair. “Then make room. And contact the local authorities and see if we can find some hospital beds for them somewhere, because Lorna has a hunch that this victim isn’t the only one.” Smiling, he glanced over at Lorna. “And I trust her hunches.”

  “I’m pretty sure she has pneumonia, too,” Lorna added.

  “Probable pneumonia, too,” he repeated to Jason, clicked off, then grabbed hold of the cart and hoisted himself into the back with Lorna, while Max continued to trot along at the side, perplexed at this disruption in the routine. “I thought you’d be gone by now,” he said, pulling a stethoscope from the rucksack he carried.

  “I thought so, too,” she said, offering no explanation for her change of mind.

  Gideon glanced at the sky as he put the stethoscope to his ears. “You won’t get in trouble for this?” Then he took a listen to Andreza’s chest, first the left side, then the right. Then back to the left. “Heart seems good enough, but both lungs are congested. Breath sounds completely diminished in her right lower lobe. Is she alert?”

  “In and out. I think she’s coherent, but it’s hard to tell as I can’t speak her language. Rubens was talking to her, though, and she seemed to understand. And no, I won’t get in trouble.”

  He waited for a little more explanation from her, but none came. So finally, he asked. “Why?”

  “Why, what?”

  “Why did you come back?”

  “Which version do you want to hear? The one where you were short-staffed and I felt guilty walking out? The one where I really felt good about the little bit of work I did here and simply wasn’t ready to quit on it? Or the one where I wanted to make things right with us? We seem to be getting on well enough, but…I don’t even know how to put it into words. I think there are some things left to be said. Take your pick. One reason, or all.” She reached down and took hold of Andreza’s wrist to take her pulse.