I wish there was better news,” the gray-headed doctor sadly told the two anxious parents. “There is just nothing more that can be done.”
Nate Coffman looked from the physician to his thirty-year-old wife, Beverly. She was a small woman graced with great strength. He’d always figured she could support the entire world on her five-foot-tall, ninety-pound frame. But he could see in her almost black eyes that this was too much.
“Are you sure?” Nate’s question hung in the air like a foul odor.
The kindly physician pushed his finger through his thinning hair and glanced out a slightly ajar door to the waiting room. There, sitting on a chair playing with a doll, was an energetic blond-headed girl. She appeared healthy, but she was a time bomb waiting to explode. And when she did, her life would be snuffed out in less time than it took to sneeze. Turning his gaze back to the couple, he crossed his arms and leaned up against his desk.
“Nate, I brought you into the world thirty-one years go,” the doctor began, his tone almost fatherly. “I nursed you through whooping cough, the measles, and a half-dozen other illnesses. I fixed your broken right arm, twice. In spite of all that and a number of other things, you grew up into the strapping man that sits before me today. But as much as it breaks my heart to admit it, I can’t do anything for your little girl.”
Walking over behind his desk, the physician eased down into his chair. After making sure both parents were looking directly at him, he continued, “Two months ago when Angel fell off the monkey bars and hit her head on the concrete, I thought it was nothing more than a concussion. That’s all it looked like then. Even when she experienced that mild seizure two days later, it still didn’t concern me that much. I figured she’d get over it. But the second one sent me scrambling.”
“It was my fault,” Beverly moaned. “I shouldn’t have let her play on those monkey bars. She is simply too young for an activity like that.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Dr. Hutton quickly snapped. “Kids are going to play and they’re going to fall. That’s the way they are. What happened didn’t create that mass in her head. It only stirred it up a bit sooner. It was like a monster hiding in the shadows waiting to leap out. There is nothing you could have done about it!”
“But surely,” Nate argued, “there is someone out there that could remove it.”
“I’ve shown you the x-rays,” the doctor sadly explained. “There is no one in Chicago that can do that kind of surgery. Heaven knows I’ve made calls. There’s a guy in London who is experimenting with a procedure that might work a few years from now, but he’s not ready to try it on humans. Beyond the scores of telephone calls, I’ve written many, many letters, and I’ve gone through every medical journal I could find. I put out the word begging for someone—anyone—who was willing to try to untangle that ungodly mass from her brain. A few neurosurgeons who have done exploratory surgery in this area have visited with me, but when they see the x-rays they all say the same thing. The operation would kill her.”
Beverly pulled out a handkerchief from her purse and dabbed her eyes. She then looked back to Dr. Hutton and forced out a question she didn’t want to ask, “How long?”
“She’ll make it through Christmas,” he assured her, his sad eyes looking toward one of the room’s bookshelves. “But as the tumor grows, the seizures will get worse. I could get her some medication that will reduce the pain and might buy her a bit of time, but it is very expensive.”
“I’ll get the money,” Nate assured him. After wringing his hands he gently reached over and caressed his wife’s shoulder. “I can take some extra flights. I think the supervisors at American can get me a bit more work. And we have some stuff we can sell. I own a nice, almost new Mercury; I can get some good money for it.”
“But, honey,” Beverly protested, her eyes meeting his with an expression of hopelessness, “we need a car. What if we have to get Angel to the hospital in a hurry? We can’t wait on a cab.”
“I’ll buy a good-running, older car,” he explained.
“Nate,” Dr. Hutton cut in, his tone that of a pastor comforting a wounded member of his flock. “That is all well and good, but is having the medicine as important as you being with your daughter in her last few weeks or months?” He paused, rubbed his forehead in frustration, and added, “I can’t answer that for you, but please think about that when you’re scheduling additional flight duty. Being home with Angel and Beverly might be more important than anything else.”
The father nodded and glanced toward the waiting room at his little girl. She was playing with a doll. She looked perfectly healthy, as if nothing were wrong. “I know. But selling things we don’t really need is not going to hurt anything or anyone. There is someone at the airline that wants my car right now. He’s already told me what he’d give me for it. And I have a camera and a few other things I can pawn. You just order the medicine for Angel.”
Hutton nodded.
“Now,” the mother said as she wearily rose from her chair, “if there is nothing else, I’d like to get home. I need to get the Christmas tree up and decorated and …” Unable to finish, she hurried out to her daughter.
Nate stood up and shook his head. He couldn’t believe the overpowering feeling of helplessness that had invaded his life. Tears ran down the rugged pilot’s cheeks as he stood in front of a man who’d brought him into the world. His clouded eyes moved from his wife back to the doctor. “What have you got to heal a broken heart?”