“Good. Her name?” She pointed to the sick woman. Lord, please, wisdom.
“Leona Bach.”
“Mrs. Bach?”
A nod and more information that Astrid did not understand.
“What country are you from?” Astrid spoke slowly and enunciated clearly.
“Osterreich. Os—, Os—, Osterreich.”
“May I examine her?” She pantomimed as she spoke. If this was Germanic, she should be able to pick up some words. Perhaps it was some dialect. Think, Astrid. She stepped to the woman, a girl really, and laid a hand on the one clutching. “How long has she been bleeding? Short time? Long time?” She motioned to the stains on the dress and leg.
“Long.” Vigorous nodding and hand waving.
Purple circles under the eyes, skin so pale as to be transparent. So thin, no wonder she shivered sporadically. Hot to the touch. Astrid reached under the table for a sheet and a blanket. She needed to examine her female parts but how to say that? She signaled she’d be right back and went out the door in search of Thelma.
“Do you know if the Geddicks have a telephone?”
Thelma shrugged and shook her head. “Please ask Gerald, and if not, please go fetch Mrs. Geddick for me. Ask her to come right away.” She returned to the room, already sure of what she had to do. Get her moved to the hospital, where she could have some help.
She made sure she smiled reassuringly when she returned to the room and checked heart and lungs and pulse. Thready. It felt like forever before she heard Mrs. Geddick talking to Thelma. Astrid stepped out of the room to greet Mrs. Geddick. “Thank you for coming. I think they are from Europe and maybe you can understand and talk with them. I need to know when the bleeding started and if she is pregnant, and I want her at the hospital as soon as possible.”
“Ja, I do that.” Mrs. Geddick asked something, then repeated it, listening intently. Even Astrid could tell she was having a hard time.
She turned to Astrid after some back and forth. “Her husband is a carpenter here. She lost a baby early on, a month or so ago, I think, and has been bleeding off and on since then. The older woman half carried her here.”
“Thank you. I will find someone to help get her over to the hospital. Please stay with them and find out whatever more you can.” She relayed her need to Thelma, who picked up the receiver before she finished. If one needed something done, Thelma was the one to ask.
Astrid stopped in to tell Elizabeth what was happening, and within minutes, Thorliff and Trygve showed up, grabbed a stretcher out of the closet, and carried the young woman to the hospital.
“Easier and quicker than a wagon,” Thorliff said when they laid the stretcher on the gurney.
Mrs. Geddick followed along, just in case she was needed.
“Thank you. Talk about a need met quickly.” Miriam welcomed them.
Trygve touched his hat and left with a smile for Miriam. The two men were teasing each other as they went out the door.
“Danke, danke,” the woman kept repeating. By now they had more information, and Mrs. Geddick answered Miriam’s questions for the chart while Astrid and Deborah undressed the close-to-comatose patient.
“Why do they wait so long?” Miriam shook her head while Astrid nodded her agreement.
“I’m going to do an examination, and then we’ll clean her up. I fear we have both bleeding and infection here, as if the miscarried fetus was expelled but not all of the placenta.”
The woman was dirty as well as malnourished. Not a careless sort of dirtiness, rather the dingy look that comes of not having enough water to wash in.
An hour later Astrid left the hospital and returned to sit down with Elizabeth.
“Call Chicago and ask for their advice,” Elizabeth said when Astrid described the symptoms. “How I wish I could assist you.” Sitting in the chair by the window, she lifted her cup of tea. “How badly dehydrated is she?”
“That’s the least of our worries. We are pushing fluids and have her covered in wet cloths to both bring down her temperature and hydrate her.”
Astrid looked up. “Mor, what are you doing here?”
“Thelma called me. Reverend Solberg will come when school is out.”
“We’ve given her something for the pain, and she relaxed not long after that. She is cleaned up, the bleeding is packed, and Gray Cloud is spooning broth while Dawn Breaking keeps changing the cloths. Mrs. Bach’s husband has been notified. At least they have no small children for her to worry about.” She poured her mother a cup of tea from the teapot kept warm over a candle. “I’m calling Chicago. I will return with their suggestions.” She paused in the doorway. “How did the quilting go?”
“Hildegunn wasn’t there. She sent a note saying she couldn’t find anyone to take over the post office.” Ingeborg shook her head. “The rest of us had a blessed and lively time. I just got home a short while ago.”
“Wonderful. And your devotions?”
“Would you believe I used Jesus on the Great Commandment, but the person who needed to hear it most wasn’t there?” Ingeborg smiled at Elizabeth. “Still a few of us squirmed when we talked about loving our neighbors as ourselves. We all fall so far short on that. It is a good thing we have a merciful God. Lord have mercy on us—it’s so easy to say and so easy to forget our need. Like right now. Lord have mercy on that young woman and on each of us who God calls to help her.”
“Takk. I needed that reminder too.” Elizabeth heaved a sigh. “Right now I am fighting to be merciful to Anner. He shows no mercy, but that is beside the point. How do we do this and yet make him realize what he is doing?”
“What if making him realize is God’s job and not ours?”
Astrid felt her jaw drop. “Mor!”
Ingeborg shrugged. “I don’t know. Those words just came out. I am as shocked as you are.”
“But Anner Valders is not listening to God or anyone else!”
“And our God is not stronger than Anner Valders?” Ingeborg closed her eyes and slowly, heavily, her head moved from side to side.
Astrid made her way to the telephone, her mind back on the bleeding woman, her steps slow as if weighted by the spring mud, which could stop wagon wheels. The woman’s only solution was probably a hysterectomy, removal of the uterus.
She had a lengthy conversation with Dr. Whitaker, the surgeon she had trained with when she went for her surgery rotation before she became an accredited physician. The conference did not give her peace of mind. While he assured her she was capable of performing this much-needed surgery, the thought of it made her shake. So many what ifs. She’d asked him several times about the infection present, but she asked once more.
“I agree with your analysis,” he told her, “that when the aborted fetus was expelled, part of the afterbirth remained and festered. My opinion is that you should go ahead. She will most likely die if you don’t.”
That was not at all what she’d wanted to hear. “But—”
“Dr. Bjorklund, these are the kinds of calls all doctors hate to make, but our goal is to do all we can to preserve life. You can stand by and do nothing, or you can act and give her a better chance. One of the sad things is that when she does recover, she will not be able to have children.”
Astrid hung up the receiver and rested her forehead against the oak box. He had recommended doing it as soon as possible, but she would not proceed until she spoke with the husband. She had asked Thorliff to get a message to him to come to the hospital as soon as he got off work. And that could be soon. She told Elizabeth and Mor what Dr. Whitaker had said.
“I’ll walk over with you.” Ingeborg smiled at her daughter.
Elizabeth smiled too. “And I will be praying from here. God has given you great skill in surgery, Astrid. Trust that He will guide your hands and heal this woman.”
“Ja. Thank you. Would you please tell Daniel what is going on? I hope to be done in time for the meeting tonight, but we shall see.”
“Have you done this b
efore?” Ingeborg asked as she locked arms with her daughter.
“I have only assisted and closed up. There were never any female cadavers to practice on.” When they stepped through the front door of the hospital, she inhaled and set her shoulders and mind. Letting her shoulders relax along with outgoing air, she motioned to Miriam. “I know your shift ends soon, but I would appreciate your staying late to assist with this surgery. You and Deborah both.”
Deborah nodded. “Dr. Whitaker said to go ahead?”
“He did. So please get the surgery prepared, along with the patient, and we will begin as soon as I have permission from Mr. Bach. Thorliff sent a message for him to come here right after work.” She let out a sigh, praying the weight would be gone from her shoulders. Right now she felt like she was about to sink into the floor because of it.
“Deborah, will you please telephone our other two nursing students to come in now or as soon as they can get here. We may need their help, and they need this experience.”
Deborah assigned jobs to the others, and they all went about their duties as if they did this every day. Astrid sat down in her office and leaned back in the chair. With her eyes closed, she walked herself through every detail of the coming surgery: the blood vessels, muscles, nerves, incising the layers of skin and muscle, tying off both veins and arteries, separating the uterus, lifting it out, and closing the site, leaving in a drain. She pictured the anesthesia. Miriam would be in charge of that, with Deborah assisting Astrid.
A knock at the door and Deborah announced, “Mr. Bach is here.”
“Send him in.”
A sturdy young man, his hands mangling his hat, stepped into the room, just barely. He moved when Deborah closed the door.
“Please sit down.” She pointed to the chair. When he sat on the very edge of the chair, she asked, “How well do you understand me?”
“I say English better than my wife.” In spite of a heavy accent, she could understand him. Probably thanks to Amelia’s teaching.
“Your wife is bleeding and has an infection.”
His brow wrinkled. “What? Bleeding but . . . ?”
“Infection. Very sick. I want to do an operation to help her.”
He shook his head and shrugged. “No, uh . . .”
“No to the surgery?”
“Surgery. Uh . . . cut into her?”
“Yes. If I do, she cannot have more children.” Astrid paused and rephrased. “I cut—no more babies. I do not cut—she may die.”
He stared at her a long, long moment. “Ja, cut.” He leaned forward. He pointed to her. “You make her good. Ja?”
“I will do my best.”
“Best, ja.” He collapsed against the back of the chair, obviously understanding that. He shook his head and pointed at her again. “You do.”
“Just a minute.” Astrid stood and went to the door. “Is Mrs. Geddick still here?”
“She went home.”
Astrid returned to her mission. “I will do my best.” If only she could understand him better. “You will wait here?”
“Ja, wait.”
“Did Mrs. Geddick learn what country they are from?”
Deborah looked at the chart and shrugged. “Wherever Osterreich is.”
“I think it’s Austria, so we’re probably struggling with German here.” Astrid took the chart from Deborah. “Someone show him where he can wait. I sure hope someone else comes to be with him.”
“Reverend Solberg will be here. And your mor.”
And God. That thought did bring comfort. A quote from Sunday’s sermon wandered into her mind. “God inhabits the praises of His people.” That brought her more comfort. He would use her hands.
As soon as everyone was scrubbed and the patient prepped, Astrid closed her eyes. “Dear Lord God, I know you are right here with us. Guide us all, our hands, our hearts, our minds. And please bring healing to this young woman. And, Lord, we will give you all the thanks and praise.” She opened her eyes and looked around at her team. “Ready?”
They all nodded. Astrid made the first incision on the line she had marked. The lights heated up the room, along with the tension, as she blocked out the world and concentrated on the job at her hands. The muscle layers. Almost no fat at all. Most people had at least some abdominal fat.
Astrid gasped as she reached the uterus. It was red, angry, ready to burst with the poison in it. Get it out of there!
Miriam and Deborah followed her instructions well, as did the others. When sweat blurred her vision, Corabell wiped it away without being asked. Deborah was like another pair of her own hands. What a blessing, these women.
Finally, finally, Astrid stood erect. “You close,” she said to Deborah when the area was cleared with no further visible bleeders and disinfected again.
Deborah gave her a startled look but went ahead as Astrid had taught her.
“Corabell, you and Vera do the dressing. Miriam, let her begin to come around. But as soon as she comes out of the ether, we will keep her sedated with morphine for at least the next twenty-four hours.”
“She is breathing well,” Miriam reported. “Heart rate as to be expected.”
Astrid watched as her nurses worked. Splendid nurses! When they were all finished, she said, “I thank our God and I thank each of you for doing a fine job. We have done our best. Now we will do all we can to help her recover. Gray Cloud, please bring in the gurney, and we will transfer her. Each of you take a corner of the sheet, and we will repeat what we did in the beginning. Then we’ll do the same in her room.” They had prepared one of the two private rooms.
Once they had her in the bed, they heaved a collective sigh of relief. “Vera, you and Dawn stay with her now. She is not to be left alone, even for a minute, so we will all do shifts tonight. I am going to talk with her husband, and I am sure he will be in here too.”
She fought off the exhaustion that threatened to knock her to the floor and entered the office where Reverend Solberg, Ingeborg, and Mr. Bach all stood at her entry.
“Mrs. Bach made it through the surgery and is now in her room. Mr. Bach, we have a comfortable chair in there for you.”
“She . . . she is good?” The fear in his eyes made her take his shaking hands.
“Ja, but sleeping.”
He nodded. “Sleeping. I see her?”
“Ja, come with me.”
Reverend Solberg smiled at her and went with them. Mr. Bach took his wife’s hand, tears streaming down his face. He looked to Solberg. “You pray?”
Astrid nodded and kept herself on her feet until the amen. “I will be back.”
Back in her office, she collapsed into a chair and leaned against her Mor. “Thank you.” Please, God. Please.
Chapter 14
Sorry I’m late.” Reverend Solberg paused in the doorway to the crowded newspaper office. All the chairs were taken, but there was a bale of newsprint. He sat on that.
“Glad you got here. How is that young woman doing?” Thorliff asked.
“She came through the surgery fairly well. We can be proud of our hospital and those who are working there. They all were pushed beyond what they thought they knew or were able to do. Astrid told me her team did as well in the operating room as any she has worked with. We prayed that God would guide their hands, and He most certainly did, their minds too.” He blew out a breath, puffing his cheeks out. “Do any of you know anything about Mr. Bach?”
Trygve nodded. “He’s on Toby’s crew and a hard worker.”
“My mother says he’s been faithfully attending her English class,” Daniel said. “She didn’t realize he had a wife with him. They are sharing a tent with an older couple. They came with the last group of immigrants and had not been in the United States very long before they came here.” Daniel Jeffers leaned back. “The four of them have put in for one of the apartments. I have a feeling there might be more than one family in some of those.”
“If we can finish the building. I can’t carry it much lon
ger without more cash.” Thorliff felt the anger rising. “Would you start us with prayer, John? God knows I need plenty of that.”
John Solberg waited for what seemed an interminable time before he began. “Lord God, Creator of all that we have and all that we dream of, we praise and thank you that we can ask for your help and guidance, that you have promised us in your Word you will always answer, that you will always love us and be with us. We really need your wisdom here, because ours is too small and too narrow. And, Lord, our feelings get in the way. We want everything to be fair and all your people to be loving. But you know us far better than we know ourselves, so we ask you to guide and guard us. Thank you for your work in the hospital surgery today. Our hope lies in you. In your Son’s name we pray, amen.”
“Thank you.” Thorliff looked around at the men gathered. “You all realize this meeting is private. Please keep the things we discuss tonight to yourself. I cannot say you shouldn’t talk it over with your wives, for we all know that they are praying for us as we meet.” He sat down, as the others already were. “Any questions, clarifications?”
“You tried to reason with him?” Daniel asked.
“I tried, yes.”
“Part of the problem, the way I see it, is that we have given him the authority to make decisions through the years.” Lars spoke slowly and gently, as usual.
“But has he ever abused his authority before?” Daniel asked. “I mean, do you know of anyone else turned down for a loan?”
“I don’t think so.” Thorliff’s jaw ached from keeping what he wanted to say under control. “The freedom we have given him has created a tyrant.”
“Is there sufficient liquid cash in the bank for the loan to be approved?”
“That’s a good question, one we usually get the answer for in January at the bank meeting.” Thorliff stared up at the ceiling.
“But the building boom has happened since then, right?” Garth asked.
“Pretty much.”
“Are there loans in arrears?” Daniel asked.
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