Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 103428 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 517(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103428 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 517(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
“Thank you.”
The attorney stepped outside the nursery and waited for me to join her. “Hi, Mr. Crawford. I’m Nina Walters from the hospital’s legal department. Would it be okay if we went somewhere to talk for a few minutes?”
I looked back at the incubator, at my daughter safely sleeping inside again. “Sure.”
We walked to the waiting room, which was empty, and sat down.
“Your fiancée’s medical team has filled me in on everything that’s transpired over the last few months. I’m very happy Eloise is doing so well.”
I nodded. “She failed her hearing test, but they said that was common and may work itself out.”
My little girl was tough. She had some fluid stuck in her middle ear, and they couldn’t guarantee there wouldn’t be developmental issues as time went on, but she was one hell of a fighter, born at only twenty-nine weeks.
Nina took a deep breath and exhaled. “You’ve been through so much already. I hate to even talk to you about this, but the hospital received a court order today.”
“Because I didn’t sign the DNR? From who? Amelia hasn’t spoken to her mother in years.”
The woman shook her head and held out some official-looking documents with a blue back. “This isn’t related to your medical decisions for Amelia. The court has ordered the hospital to collect DNA from Eloise for a paternity test. The petitioner is someone named Aaron Jensen.”
• • •
The following afternoon, I was sitting in Amelia’s room when the monitors suddenly started going off. I stood and watched the normally steady lines start to jump all over erratically. But Amelia hadn’t moved a muscle. A nurse ran into the room, took one look at the screen, and yelled back to the nurses’ station.
“Code blue! Grab the crash cart!”
A half-dozen people piled into the room in the next thirty seconds. The doctor listened to Amelia’s heart, while another nurse grabbed an arm and counted the heartbeats from the pulse on her wrist.
“Mr. Crawford, can you please step outside?”
I backed up to make room for them to work. “I’ll keep out of the way, but I’m staying right here.”
They were too busy to argue with me. The shit that happened after that played out like a scene from a TV show.
Her heart rate display on the monitor fell to a flat line.
The doctor fired up the defibrillator paddles and told everyone around the bed to clear their hands from the patient. Then he pressed them to her chest and shocked her.
Amelia’s body jumped, but it went right back to the limp state it had been in since the day she arrived here.
Everyone stared at the monitor.
Nothing.
They shocked her a second time.
Still nothing.
A nurse injected something into her IV and measured her pulse manually again. She looked up at the doctor and shook her head with a frown.
“All clear!”
The doctor adjusted the knobs on the machine before setting the paddles once again.
Amelia’s body jumped even higher.
The monitor made a blip sound and the flat line started to jump up and down again.
The doctor’s shoulders visibly relaxed.
“Why did that happen?” I asked.
He returned the paddles to the portable machine they’d wheeled in. “Could be a number of reasons.” He shook his head. “A blood clot, electrolyte abnormalities, or even just her system shutting down because it’s exhausted. The last few months have been tough on her body, including her C-section.”
“A blood clot? Because of the medicine she was given? They told me that was a risk when they asked for permission to try it.”
The doctor held up his hands. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We don’t know that there was a blood clot yet. And even if there was, patients who spend months in a coma are at a high risk for such a thing.”
I rubbed my forehead. “Is she going to be okay?”
He looked over at the monitor. “She’s stabilized now. But like it’s been since the beginning, we have to take this one step at a time. Let’s start with running some tests to see what we’re up against now.”
I nodded and blew out a loud puff of air. “Okay.”
• • •
The following morning, I’d just finished holding Eloise in the NICU again and returned to Amelia’s room to check on her. The monitor showed her heartbeat was normal, so I sat down by her bedside and shut my eyes for a minute. I’d been here all night, afraid to go home and have something else happen. Then a woman knocked at the open door.
She smiled. “Hi, Mr. Crawford. I’m Kate Egert. I’m from the hospital’s social services department. We met a while back when Ms. Evans was first brought in.”
I nodded, though she barely looked familiar, and stood. “Sure. Good to see you.”
She seemed hesitant. “Do you think we could talk outside for a minute?”
It was never good news when they didn’t want to talk in front of Amelia. But how much worse could shit get than the last two days? “Sure.”