by Kimberly Rae
Ryan didn’t have time to argue.
Laverne Bloom had rushed back inside. He wanted to yell that they needed to hurry, that they didn’t need any more muffins, or whatever else she had thought of.
She returned quickly, a canning jar, roll of plastic wrap, and a rubber band in her arms. She climbed into the front seat of the van with more agility than he would have expected of a woman her age. “Let’s go!”
While they rode the interminably long minutes to the hospital, Laverne entertained Jose by showing him how to create a home for his frog, one where he would be safe and could breathe without getting loose.
Jose reluctantly released Frog into Laverne’s care. Once inside the jar, she covered it with plastic wrap, circled the rubber band tightly around it, then poked several holes into the plastic, “so he can breathe of course,” she assured him.
She had just convinced him that the frog would be safe while waiting in the vehicle when they arrived at the Emergency Room. Not bothering to wait for a gurney or team of paramedics, Ryan carried Kayla inside.
One look and the receptionist was on her feet. She pointed to the left, then immediately picked up the phone. Doors opened and Ryan carried her through them, where medics suddenly appeared from nearly every direction.
“We’ll take it from here,” one said. Then he took not only the situation, but the woman he loved, from Ryan’s hands.
Gently, almost, they herded Ryan backward until he was beyond the doors, and he watched helplessly as they closed in his face.
He needed to be in there. He needed to tell them what had happened, what medications she was on, what she needed. He needed to be near her.
But no one asked what he needed.
Ryan stood alone, his nose nearly touching the closed doors. He had finally done well in a crisis.
Only had he gotten around to it in time?
Chapter Eighteen
“Good afternoon, everyone.” The doctor’s voice boomed through the waiting area. Ryan and several of the teens jolted and looked to where he filled the entryway, not from side to side, but top to bottom. The top door frame actually nudged down some of his abundant white hair.
He was much older than the original ER doctor who had treated Kayla days earlier. Ryan guessed the man to be in his mid-to-late sixties. He held himself erect, his tanned, weathered skin a sharp color contrast to both his white lab coat and his white hair.
After looking around from Jose to the group of teens, then Ryan’s frantic pacing, the man focused his attention on Laverne Bloom, who stood poised and still in the center of the room, hands clasped around her shawl, eyes red-rimmed but focused.
“You look the most worried,” he stated bluntly. “May I sit with you a moment?” The doctor led Laverne to a two-seater chair, and with surprising gentlemanly charm, lowered her to the seat before sitting beside her.
“You must be Laverne Bloom.” He did not wait for a response before continuing. “I recently arrived and have studied over your great-niece’s chart.” He held out his hand. “I’m Stephen Bradley, by the way.”
“Doctor, I’m so relieved to finally have someone to talk with about dear Kayla.”
“Please, just call me Stephen. I’m scheduled to retire at the end of this week anyway.”
Laverne placed a hand against her heart. “If you’re retiring, why on earth would you be assigned to Kayla? She obviously has a serious condition and needs someone to oversee it.”
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Bloom, I—”
“It’s Miss Bloom.”
The man leaned back. “How surprising that a woman of your grace and beauty would be unmarried.”
His voice carried clearly and loudly throughout the room. Ryan stopped pacing and watched with growing impatience as Laverne Bloom blushed and giggled like she was one of his teenagers — unlike the actual group of teenagers who had all clustered and were staring as if the doctor had just grown an extra head.
“Did he just hit on her?” Karl asked in a dazed whisper.
“Aren’t they, like, a hundred years old or something?”
“Excuse me.” Ryan approached the doctor. “You had something to tell us about Kayla?”
The man rose and shook hands with Ryan. “I apologize. Let me explain.” He gestured widely, his arm seeming large in the small waiting area. “All of you come on over so I can say this just once instead of twenty times.”
The teens slowly came forward, Jose huddled behind them.
“As I said, my name is Stephen Bradley. I have been a doctor for over thirty years. I planned to retire at the end of this week. I was headed for Bermuda to learn how to surf, but that’s out of the question now.”
He took a look around at the wide-eyed group and let out a laugh. “I’m kidding, of course! I learned to surf when I was younger than you.” He pointed at Karl, who backed up like he’d been reprimanded by a teacher.
“I don’t understand.” Laverne Bloom rose from her seat with queen-like grace, her purse held just so, her shawl perfectly arranged. “Is the hospital so short on doctors they need to postpone your retirement for my great-niece?”
“Short on doctors — good pun!” The man laughed. He looked around at the silent group. “I’m six foot three if you hadn’t noticed. Short on doctors. Get it?” Several teenagers snickered, but after Laverne’s glare, given with chin high, the room again became quiet.
“Sir, I would like to request that my great-niece’s condition be monitored by someone not concerned with surfing in Bermuda or making jokes while she is suffering.”
The slight tremor in her voice made Ryan’s throat hurt. He had been thinking the same thing.
Doctor Bradley sighed. “Ah, one never can tell. Some people can’t stand the idea of sickness and want you to make light of things so they can handle it. Others get mad when you make light of things and decide it means you don’t care.” He took a look at Ryan. “Sometimes a guy just can’t win.”
He sat and politely motioned for Laverne to join him again. “I wasn’t really planning a trip to Bermuda upon my retirement, and even if I was, I would gladly postpone it for this patient’s sake. Not because we are short on doctors.” He chuckled a little. “But rather because I am the only doctor in the area who has experience with patients suffering from Addison’s disease.”
“Addison’s disease?” The entire group spoke as one.
The doctor focused his answer on Laverne. “Be assured, Miss Bloom, if your great-niece does have Addison’s disease, which I strongly suspect, I will continue her care even after my retirement. Addison’s is rare, and I would not want her under the care of anyone not experienced in the disease and how best to treat it.”
Laverne Bloom’s hands were fluttering. The sight pinched at Ryan’s heart — it was the same gesture Kayla did when nervous. “Can you please explain what Addison’s disease is?” Just saying the word “disease” made him hurt.
The doctor looked around. “Of course, but perhaps we should wait on that until we are sure of the diagnosis.” His slight nod toward small, worried Jose raised Ryan’s respect for him.
Cindy stepped forward. “We should be getting Jose home. Teens, you’re with me.”
With promises to return soon, the majority of the group filed from the room, leaving Ryan, Laverne, and Dr. Bradley. Jainey had asked to stay, but Ryan asked her specifically to make sure Jose got home and things were explained to his mother.
He was glad when she’d agreed; he was quite frankly terrified of what the doctor was going to say and wanted as few people around to see his reaction as possible.
The doctor motioned for Ryan to pull a chair closer. “I will tell you what I know so far. The patient had several tests run upon her return to America. The last of the results came back today, and I looked them over. You will be happy to know that all her tests for cancer came back negative.”
“Negative? Meaning no cancer?” Laverne’s voice was high-pitched. She fingered the fringe on her shawl.
Ryan breathed out. “Thank You, God.”
The doctor nodded. “Other tests, however, indicated several problems. She should have been admitted three days ago upon arrival. However, the Emergency Room doctor did not have these results at the time, so I cannot fault him for not recognizing what I would have noticed right away.”
Laverne Bloom said no words, but her tight lips and suddenly ramrod straight back spoke for her.
“The abnormal test results, combined with the dark patches on her skin, and particularly her recent violent bouts of vomiting, all point toward Addison’s. I was called in to consider that option, and at this point am certain that is what we are dealing with. I have already run several blood tests, so by tomorrow morning we will know for sure.”
Laverne Bloom was shaking her head. “But we were told she had pneumonia!”
“Indeed.” The doctor’s face took on a grave tone. Ryan gripped his knees with his hands.
“There’s more for us to know, isn’t there?”
Doctor Bradley nodded. “I’m afraid I have to tell you that the patient’s —”
“Her name is Kayla.” He could not bear to hear her referred to as just another case.
Laverne leveled him with a look, but Doctor Bradley nodded with understanding. “Of course. Normally Kayla’s condition would have improved with the heavy doses of antibiotics the doctor prescribed. However, Addison’s disease compromises the immune system, leaving the body vulnerable to any kind of stress or illness. Despite the medication, her condition has worsened. The pain she has felt in her side is pleurisy, which means the lining next to her lung — meant to be a padding — is inflamed, leaving each breath feeling a lot like sandpaper scraping against her lung. Pleurisy is quite painful.”
Ryan’s eyes were closed, seeing Kayla’s tears as she’d taken the shortest breaths possible.
Laverne’s hands were now fanning her face. “Oh, Lord in Heaven, help my little girl.”
Doctor Bradley spoke with authority, his booming voice lowered to a more calming volume. “Miss Bloom, I have given Kayla an emergency dose of hydrocortisone — this is the hormone her adrenal glands would normally make in response to illness. If she does have Addison’s, and I am certain she does, her adrenal glands are damaged and could not produce the cortisol she needed to fight this illness. This is why she has had so many different symptoms that have increased over a long period of time. I would suspect she has been suffering from various symptoms for years now, but never considered they could all be coming from the same source.”
“When we can catch Addison’s in time, the hydrocortisone does its work and the patient heals quickly. However, in Kayla’s case…”
He paused and Ryan edged forward. “In Kayla’s case?”
“Because it was not diagnosed earlier, the pneumonia has spread. She now has fluid in her lungs, and I believe the vomiting was the first phase of an Addisonian Crisis, which is fatal if not treated. I have transferred her to ICU—”
“ICU!”
For a moment Ryan wished he was Laverne Bloom so he could wave his hands around and start talking in hysterics. He was supposed to sit and act like a man, while his world was spinning out of control. How was a man supposed to react when he hears the woman he loves might die because her disease is so rare no one caught it in time?
Ryan stood. On second thought, he did not want to flutter his hands. He wanted to hit something. Hard.
“In ICU, her condition will be monitored much better. I want to keep a close eye on her overnight and see how much the hydrocortisone improves her condition. If it is a significant enough improvement, we will continue giving her high doses and monitor her.”
Ryan’s teeth clenched. “And if not?”
“If not, she will need surgery to scrape the infection from her lung, and we will need to insert tubes to drain the fluid.”
Laverne was now crying. She pulled an embroidered handkerchief from her purse and held it to her eyes. “What should we do?”
The doctor shocked Ryan when he reached for Laverne’s shaking hand and bowed his head. The man’s clear voice called out to God with no hesitation or embarrassment.
Ryan saw several passing people stop to stare at a doctor praying right there in public. The loud talking in the hallway became hushed, and Ryan himself turned to join the prayer.
When the doctor said, “Amen,” the three lifted their heads. The doctor was the only one without tears in his eyes. “Thank you,” Ryan said, his voice husky. He would have to tell Kayla that there were more outside-of-church ministries than construction ministries. There were medical ministries as well.
If he had the chance. “Can I see her now?” He heard the pleading in his voice and did not care. “Please?”
Chapter Nineteen
Ryan started pacing again. Stephen Bradley had told him no. No, he couldn’t see her. Not now. Not later in the evening. The doctor wanted to give her body uninterrupted rest, and as much of a chance as possible to avoid major surgery.
He could not argue that. But waiting to see her until the morning was unbearable. Aunt Lavender was having just as hard a time accepting the same restriction. She wheedled and cajoled until the doctor had to get plain stern with her. “Miss Bloom, you’re just going to have to trust me on this one.”
“Trust you.” She had risen, towering over him in her powder-blue dress and crocheted shawl. “I don’t even know you. Give me one reason I should trust you to know better than I do what is best for my great-niece.”
The man stood, now towering over her, his posture as starched and formal as if he was wearing a tuxedo. “Ma’am, I nursed my own wife through Alzheimer’s until she died. I have held the hands of men and women going into eternity, and I have ushered hundreds of babies into this world. And I have knowledge and experience with Addison’s disease, a malady you had never heard of before this afternoon.”
Laverne Bloom held the handkerchief to her eyes. “That was several reasons.” She sniffed. “I only needed one.”
He smiled tenderly. “Miss Bloom—”
She lifted her eyes. “Could you please call me Lavender? Lavender Blossom? I really hate being Miss Bloom.”
His eyes widened. “You’re Lavender Blossom? The author?” His voice rose in volume again. “My wife loved your books.”
Laverne’s eyes instantly brightened. “Really?”
“She used to have me read them to her when her eyesight failed.” His chuckle echoed off the walls. “I actually grew to like one or two of them myself.”
She flapped her handkerchief in his direction. “Don’t talk nonsense.” She giggled.
“Well, I liked some of your women characters, but I have to say your men needed some more manliness.”
Laverne’s spine became impossibly straighter. “I beg your pardon?”
The giant of a man shrugged. “They all talked like girls. What guy in real life says, ‘I wasn’t being sensitive to your emotional needs’ or stuff like that? I mean, I know you’re writing what the women want to read, but a man needs to sounds like a man sometimes.” He looked over to Ryan for support. “Right?”
Laverne started sputtering objections. Ryan rose and left the room, not bothering to interrupt the doctor’s teasing or Laverne’s ruffled-feathers responses to say goodnight.
He could stay in that hospital no longer. He was going back to Laverne Bloom’s house, then up the trail to the edge of the mountain to look over the view and be reminded God was in control.
And while he was there, Ryan had several things about Kayla Madison and himself that he needed to discuss with God.
****
Kayla moaned when she tried to roll to her left side. Everything seemed blurry, even her memories. She had snatches of pictures in her mind. The bathroom floor. Jainey yelling in the hallway. Ryan’s face over hers, so worried, so full of… something.
She was aware enough to know she was back in the hospital, th
is time in a much more comfortable bed than the Emergency Room examining table had been. She was in a hospital gown. Who had put her in that?
Looking to her left, she saw a storefront display’s worth of medical equipment. An IV embedded into the top of her left hand led to some kind of hanging bag of liquid. More tubes of various sizes connected her to several beeping boxes that flashed numbers or lines or—
A frantic beeping started somewhere from one of the boxes. Kayla held her breath.
When a nurse appeared, Kayla immediately spoke. “I didn’t touch anything!”
“It’s okay, sweetie. This little guy fell off your finger, that’s all. It keeps track of your pulse.”
“Oh.” Kayla swallowed the uncomfortable feeling of being called “sweetie” by a woman. This was the South, she reminded herself.
Another nurse entered. “Hey, there, darlin’. You must have done something quite impressive to get yourself a room in the ICU.”
“I’m in the ICU?” Kayla shuddered. Wasn’t that where they took people when they had no more hope of recovery? “Why am I in the ICU?”
Cancer. It must be cancer. Kayla broke out in a cold sweat. Where was Ryan? Aunt Lavender?
Where was God?
****
Night brought darkness but no rest. Kayla tried unsuccessfully to sleep. One of the heavy medications dulled the pain, but another, the high dose of hydrocortisone, while helping her immune system, also made her feel wide awake and extremely hungry.
In the past several hours she had learned she did not, after all, have cancer. However, she also learned she was likely facing a major surgery the following morning, another fact that made sleep impossible.
Kayla had never even had stitches. Now all this talk about anesthesia and cutting made her feel dizzy. Or was it the medicine?
She tried to find a comfortable position, but it was difficult to do without pinching one of the many tubes or wires attached at various embarrassing places on her body. An hour ago, she had not been able to contain herself any longer and asked for help going to the bathroom. It had taken thirty minutes to get her and all her tubes and machines safely across the two feet to the portable toilet, another exercise in humiliation.