[Home To Blessing 01] - A Measure of Mercy

by Lauraine Snelling

  “He asks too much.”

  “Who? What are you talking about?”

  “God.” She choked on the word, tears bursting like spring freshets leaping down the mountains in Norway. Handing Penny the letter, Ingeborg dug in her reticule for a handkerchief.

  “Come, let’s go back to the kitchen. I’ll put water on for tea.”

  Ingeborg followed Penny through the doorway and sank down in a rocking chair.

  Penny read the letter as she filled the teapot. “No, Astrid can’t go to Africa. We need her here. Surely there must be another way. Surely.”

  “But if indeed it is God calling her?”

  Penny shook her head. “Please forgive me, Lord, but I pray you have something else in mind. We need Astrid here.”

  “More than they do in Africa?” The two women stared at each other through tear-filled eyes.

  20

  CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

  I believe the crisis will be tonight.”

  Astrid stared at the doctor, who peered at her over his glasses. She and one of the nurses were taking turns changing the quickly drying sheets and encouraging Benny to drink. They had moved him into a smaller room so they could care for him more easily. If she closed her eyes, she could almost believe she was at Elizabeth’s, and Mor and Pastor Solberg were praying out in the hall. If she closed her eyes, she might not wake up again—for hours.

  She looked away so the doctor wouldn’t see the tears pooling and about to overflow.

  “Dr. Bjorklund, you have to understand that we humans can only do so much. You’ve done all you can and—”

  “And we will keep doing so as long as it takes.” Speaking around the lump in her throat was difficult.

  “I was going to say that you have to depend on our heavenly Father to finish the job, be it here or in heaven.”

  “I know that. I’ve been praying for Benny all along.” She didn’t add that God didn’t seem to listen to her prayers for healing all that much. But she didn’t know what else to do. Praying was so ingrained, as were the Bible verses she’d memorized through the years, that they just happened. If only she could talk to Pastor Solberg.

  “What about the rest of your patients?” he asked.

  “I . . . I’ve seen to all of them.”

  “I know you have, but if you are so tired you collapse, what will happen to them?”

  “I suppose someone else will take care of them.” She lifted the cloth from Benny’s forehead and felt the ice pack under his neck. The ice was nearly melted—again.

  “We can do that here, but what about later, when you are the only doctor around and everyone depends on you?”

  “But how can I leave him?” The cry was wrenched from her by unseen hands.

  “You make sure there are others that can and will do what you are doing right now, and you come back to check on him. I know this sounds stern and unfeeling, but you are here to learn all that you are able, and we are here to both take care of our patients and to teach young people how to be the finest doctors they are capable of becoming.” He turned to the nurse. “Is there someone to take her place?”

  “I will get another nurse to relieve her.”

  “Thank you.” He turned back to Astrid. “Now you go get some sleep. I will leave orders for you to be called when and if the crisis occurs. You are due in the OR at seven thirty in the morning, and you will have had breakfast by then.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He ushered her out of the room ahead of him. “Good night, Dr. Bjorklund.”

  Just before falling on her bed, she prayed one last time. “Lord God, please heal this little boy.” Asleep on the next breath, she heard nothing until she felt someone shaking her shoulder. She sat bolt upright. “Yes?”

  The smile that greeted her made her blink. “Benny is sleeping peacefully. The fever broke. There is no sign of gangrene in either stump. Go back to sleep so you can do your job in the morning.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Four or so. Good night.”

  “Thank you, God, thank you.” A tap at the door at six o’clock started her day. She peeked in on Benny before heading to scrub. He was still sleeping, his breathing natural, his skin normal. Dare she hope that God really had answered her prayer? Dare she doubt? That thought made her blink. What would Mor say? Her face would be beaming, and she’d be singing “Praise ye the Lord” and thanking Him over and over.

  “So be it,” she whispered, and all the while she scrubbed she kept time with thank you, thank you, praise His holy name. She felt like shouting it and dancing around the room, but instead she raised her arms and let the water run off her elbows. Benny was sleeping, a healing sleep. No longer sliding away.

  After three surgeries in a row, one for an arm with a compound fracture, another for a stab wound, and the last a torn leg, she finished her rounds and then dropped in to see Benny awake and eating the soup a nurse was feeding him. He smiled at her.

  “You the angel?”

  “No, I’m the doctor. You didn’t get to see the angels this time around.”

  “But I saw you.”

  “She was here much of the time. Dr. Bjorklund is her name.” The nurse held the spoon to the boy’s lips.

  “Lady doctors?” His eyes widened.

  “There are more and more of us.” Astrid nodded at the child. “I’ll see you later.” She paused. “By the way, how old are you?”

  “Six.”

  “You’re missing school.”

  “Don’t go to school.”

  “Why—?” She caught the nurse shaking her head. “I’ll come by to see you later, then.”

  Sitting with her elbows propped on the table in the dining room, she could hardly hold her head up to drink the much-needed coffee. Why was this more tiring than caring for patients with Dr. Elizabeth? Of course, at home she didn’t do three surgeries in a row. Her thoughts went back to Benny. Not in school, a street child, but now one with no legs. She knew two boys who had run from New York, street boys like Benny, and ended up in Blessing. Gerald and Tony Valders. Who in Blessing might be willing to help this child? Wooden legs and crutches. It would not be easy. But there he would be loved, and he could go to school.

  “Dr. Bjorklund.” The call came from the doorway.

  Astrid drained her cup of coffee and, grabbing a sandwich off the tray, headed for the door. Time to think seemed to be an unknown commodity here.

  “We have a woman who’s been in labor for twenty-four hours. Someone brought her in and then disappeared.”

  “In the ER?”

  “For now. We want to move her to Obstetrics, but all the other doctors are busy right now.”

  “What’s her pulse?”

  “I don’t know. They just sent me to get you.”

  Astrid stopped at the sink to wash her hands and then followed the nurse to a curtained cubicle. The woman on the table stared at her through exhausted and fear-filled eyes.

  “I’m Dr. Bjorklund. What is your name?”

  The woman closed her eyes and gritted her teeth. “Uh . . .” She panted till the contraction passed. She muttered a name in a language other than English.

  Astrid turned to the nurse. “Do you understand her?”

  “I think she is speaking Gaelic. An Irish immigrant, maybe.” She wiped the woman’s sweaty forehead. “And no, I don’t understand Gaelic either.”

  “Has she had other births?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Does anyone here speak Gaelic?”

  The young nurse shrugged. “I’ve been on the floor for only a couple of weeks. I don’t know.”

  “Talk about the blind leading the blind here.” Astrid laid her stethoscope against the woman’s extended belly. “The baby’s heart rate is accelerated.” She lifted the drape and checked for dilation. “What information do we have on her?”

  “I can go check. All I know is she’s been in labor for more than a day.”

  “Go.” Astrid tried to keep
her voice steady. Panic wouldn’t be helpful, that was for sure. She smiled at the young woman. “I’m going to examine you to see what the problem is.” She dipped her hands in the basin of carbolic acid and shook them out, then laying one hand on the abdomen, she explored the birth canal with the other. What she felt was not a smooth little head.

  The woman groaned and thrashed her head from side to side. She tried to sit upright.

  “Don’t be afraid.” Astrid kept her voice soothing but firm, smiling into the terrified green eyes. Surely if she’d had other children she wouldn’t be so frightened.

  “There’s no one out there waiting for her,” the nurse said as she returned. “Admitting said two men half dragged her in, then hightailed it out again. Nurse thought maybe she is a lady of the night.”

  “A what?”

  “A prostitute, Doctor.” She looked around as if she’d been caught cursing.

  Astrid blinked. So sheltered had her life been in Blessing. She’d not learned the term until she came here, where the hospital served the dregs of humanity. “So that means she’s not seen a doctor or possibly even a midwife?”

  “Sometimes when the midwife can’t help, they send the women here.”

  “Well, if they’d do that earlier, it would sure help.” She checked the baby’s heart again. “We’re going to lose this one if we don’t do something different and soon. Call an orderly so you can hold her down while I see if I can turn the baby. It’s either breech or posterior presentation.” Astrid tried to remember the stories her mother had told of the babies she’d birthed through the years. Cesarean was an option but a last resort. How could she turn the baby?

  An older nurse came in with one of the orderlies, who waited by the door. “Sean here speaks Gaelic. Tell him what you need.”

  “Thank you.” Astrid told him and waited while he talked with the woman.

  “First baby. She doesn’t want to die.”

  “That makes all of us. Tell her I am going to examine her again and she has to lie still or you will hold her down.”

  He translated while the three of them took opposite positions. “Ready.”

  As soon as the contraction passed, Astrid tried again. When she closed her eyes to concentrate more fully, she could hear her mother once saying, “We had the woman get up on her hands and knees, and I was able to turn the baby.”

  “All right. Here’s what we are going to do. We’re going to turn her and help her to her hands and knees, then you all will hold her there while I try to turn the baby.”

  The nurse gave her a questioning look but nodded.

  As they rolled her over, the woman screamed like an animal caught in a trap. The orderly kept talking with her as they forced her to kneel, even though she was so weak she couldn’t hold the position by herself.

  Dr. Barlow pushed aside the curtain. “Do you need help?”

  “Someone rub her back. See if we can get her to relax.” God, help us. “Hold her up!” The woman screamed again, the cry fading into faint groans.

  Astrid got her hand into position again. Please don’t let us lose her either, God, please. I can’t stand another one dying. The next contraction threatened to cut off the circulation in her arm, but the baby turned, and Astrid gave a yelp of joy when she felt the head in the birth canal. “We got it. Turn her over. Sean, you brace her against your chest and let’s get this baby into the light. Tell her to push now. Scalpel.”

  The baby had blue fingernails, toenails, and lips when he slid into her hands, but even so, he wailed at the shock. The nurse laid him on a blanket on his mother’s chest. “Here you go, dearie. A fine son.”

  Astrid ignored the tears streaming down her cheeks. When she heard one of the nurses sniff, she knew she wasn’t alone.

  “Well done, Doctor.” The older man patted her shoulder. “Come and talk to me when you get her cleaned up.”

  Astrid nodded. Her attention, now focused on cutting the cord when it stopped pulsating and letting the nurse take over on that process, focused back on her patient to stop the bleeding. “Here, massage her belly,” she told the young nurse in training as she packed soft cloths in place. “We can help the uterus contract that way and expel the afterbirth. Here it comes.” Another contraction delivered the remaining tissue.

  The older nurse stopped beside her and spoke under her breath. “I’m going to scrub as much of her as I can while the others care for the baby. She is filthy.”

  “Do you get many like her?”

  “No. Most don’t get pregnant. There are ways to prevent it, you know.”

  “I heard what I thought might be an old wives’ tales and that the Indians know of a way.”

  “Don’t know about the Indians, but—”

  Thinking she might want to explore this subject further, Astrid tucked it away in her mind and turned back to check on her patient. How could anyone be so dirty? Did she not have access to clean water? She checked her patient’s pulse and smiled down at her. “They’ll bring your son back to you as soon as he is cleaned and dressed. We’re going to move you to the ward now.”

  She shook her head.

  Wishing Sean were back, Astrid listened to the weak voice tell her something that seemed very important to the patient.

  “I wish I could understand you.” Astrid turned back to the nurse.

  “I’ll check back later. Let me know if there is any change. Make sure she gets some soup and . . .”

  The nurse was nodding.

  “Sorry. You know all that. Thank you for helping.”

  “I’d not seen something like that done before. I was sure we were on our way to the OR.” The older nurse tut-tutted almost like Mrs.

  Valders when she didn’t quite believe something.

  Benny was sleeping again when Astrid stopped by his bed. The chart said he’d eaten dinner and taken his medications, his temperature was slightly elevated, and the doctor had ordered the dressings be changed in the morning. She left him and continued her rounds. When she had only half an hour until class, she dropped by the dining room for a cup of coffee and a handful of cookies. Sitting down at the table, she took her pad of paper and pencil from her apron pocket and started a long overdue letter to Joshua.

  Dear Mr. Landsverk,

  Thank you for your letter. I’m glad to hear you are enjoying building windmills. That certainly is a job that makes life easier for your customers. They must be very appreciative.

  Life here at the hospital is extremely busy. It makes me wonder how we will ever have a real hospital in Blessing. The operating rooms here seem to be busy all the time. I assisted with a little boy who fell under a dray wagon and lost both his legs. Such terrible things happen on these city streets. How I long for the open air and quiet life, although that’s not how I thought about it when I lived there.

  She paused and rubbed her chin with the pencil. What else could she tell him? About dissecting the cadaver? He’d probably be mortified. The woman who’d finally given birth? One did not discuss such things with a person of the opposite gender. Sex was another word never used.

  I will add to this later. It is time for my afternoon class. She stuffed the pad and pencil into her pocket, stopped by her room to pick up her text and notebook, and headed up the stairs to the third floor, where the classrooms were located. For a change she was the first one in the room.

  She dug into her other pocket for a handkerchief and found the letter from the missionary in Africa. She removed the sheet and read it again. Lord God, is this from you? One minute I think it is, the next I’m sure it’s not. Or is it just that I don’t want to go to Africa? I want to go home to Blessing, the sooner the better. She thought of crinkling the whole thing and tossing it in the wastebasket.

  “You’re here early,” Red Hawk said as he sat down beside her. “A letter from home?”

  “No, from Africa.” She folded the letter back up.

  “Africa? The so-called dark continent?”

  She thought a bit. Coul
d she talk with him about something this important? Or would he go into his mocking, cutting responses? “Do you believe in God?”

  He looked at her for a moment before answering, “I believe in the Great Spirit.”

  “Does your God talk to you?” She squirmed a little at his concentrated gaze.

  “In visions and through the elders.” He paused. “I do think you and I believe in the same God.”

  “So you read the Bible?”

  “Some. My mother did, which is why she named me Isaac, although I prefer Red Hawk. What does this have to do with your letter?”

  Astrid paused for a moment. Why was he being so forthcoming this time? She wanted to hear more of his story, but for now she had to finish. “I will explain, but do you believe God calls us to different services?”

  “I believe He brought me here to learn to be a doctor so I can help my people.” He glanced over his shoulder when he heard someone else entering. “If that is what you refer to as a calling, I guess I do.”

  “Before I left home, I heard this man talk about his mission in Africa. He said they needed medical missionaries and looked right at me. Now he writes to me telling me more and encouraging me to come to Africa.” How amazing it was to be talking with him like this, as if they weren’t just students across a cadaver.

  “I see. Had you ever wanted to go to Africa?” His mouth twitched just a fraction as if he were trying not to smile.

  She shook her head. “Not in the least. I am a homebody. We are dreaming of building a hospital in Blessing, and I’m to be one of the doctors there.”

  “Unless you go to Africa?”

  She nodded. “Why do things have to get so complicated?”

  As Red Hawk leaned toward her to answer, another student stopped at her side. “I hear you may have saved a woman’s life today, and her baby. Where did you get such an unusual idea?”

  “My mother has been helping birth babies and caring for the sick in our area. I remembered her telling about an experience like that.”

  “Have you also done a cesarean?”

  “No.”

  She saw Red Hawk shut down into his impassive look again. Could he be jealous of her medical experiences? She kept herself from staring at him, willing him to come back. One of these days she’d just ask him.