The pain had momentarily abated, and Sophia sniffed. “Some doctor. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” she told her son.
Jeff prided himself on his patience. He had a nearly infinite amount, both at work and when it came to dealing with his mother when she was being difficult. But his ample supply was just about used up this particular morning.
A warning note entered his voice. “Mother—”
Ignoring him, Sophia said, “I had my appendix removed when I was six,” just before she suddenly doubled up in pain again.
“Are you sure?” Mikki questioned. “Forgive me,” she quickly interjected, “but according to what you just said, you were six, and maybe you’re not remembering things quite clearly.”
“Of course I’m sure,” Sophia bit off, annoyed that this slip of a girl was doubting her. “My mother told me that’s what happened.” About to continue, she suddenly grew very pale as she grabbed her son’s hand. “I can’t take this anymore, Jeffrey. Put me out of my misery.”
Interceding, Mikki laid a gentling hand on the woman’s arm to get her attention. “I fully intend to, Mrs. Sabatino, but not the way you mean.” Mikki looked at Jeff. “I have to get her to the hospital and run some tests,” she explained. “I still think it’s appendicitis, but if it is something else, the CT scan and abdominal ultrasound should show us what we’re up against.”
Jeff looked at her, puzzled. “How can it be appendicitis if hers was removed?”
“She could be mistaken,” Mikki pointed out. “At six, it’s easy to misunderstand what’s happening. Checking to make sure the appendix was removed is a simple process.”
Sophia’s laugh was harsh. “She just wants to get me into the hospital and do all those expensive tests on me.”
He was aware that the doctor was doing him a favor, seeing his mother so quickly. She certainly didn’t deserve to be treated this way. “I’m sorry about this,” he apologized to Mikki.
Mikki’s smile wasn’t strained. Instead, it was understanding.
“It’s okay, really,” she told him. “I’m not offended. Your mother’s afraid. Who wouldn’t be?” she asked, giving Sophia an encouraging look. Sophia appeared to be totally oblivious to it. “Let me just leave a note for my receptionist and I’ll ride over to the hospital with you and your mother,” Mikki told him, picking up a pad and pen.
Jeff realized what a huge imposition this had to be for the doctor, especially since his mother wasn’t even one of her regular patients. He could see why Dr. McKenna had been recommended to him. She seemed to have an infinite amount of patience.
“I really appreciate this, Dr. McKenna,” he told her, then lowered his voice before adding, “My mother can be very difficult.”
Mikki thought it prudent not to comment on that as she quickly wrote a note to her receptionist. He could say anything he wanted to about Sophia, but after all, the woman was his mother. If she agreed with his assessment, in all likelihood he would become defensive and that would make further communication difficult.
Being vague about her new patient’s disposition was the best way to go.
“Let’s just try to get her better,” Mikki responded. “I’m going to call ahead so that we can get her into the radiology lab for those scans quickly.”
With that, Mikki turned away in order to make her call.
The pain abated again for a moment. Concerned that she was disrupting his life, Sophia looked up at her son. “Just leave me here, Jeffrey. You have to get to work,” she reminded him.
“Not for a few hours yet,” Jeff corrected, “and anyway, I have people to cover for me. Let’s just focus on finally getting to the bottom of this pain you’ve been having.”
A ragged sigh escaped Sophia’s lips. “Everyone dies, Jeffrey.”
His mother could never be accused of being happy-go-lucky, Jeff thought. Or an optimist. “But not today,” he told her firmly.
Sophia began to protest just as the woman she viewed as far too young to be a doctor, much less one who was exceptionally skillful, rejoined them.
“Everything’s set,” Mikki announced. “Let’s get your mother over to the hospital. We’ll use your car.”
He didn’t ask her why, but once they arrived in the hospital parking lot, the answer quickly became apparent. The doctor pointed out a space marked Physician Parking Only and told him to park there.
“My car’s a small two-door,” she explained, “and I wanted your mother to be comfortable.” Quickly getting out of his vehicle, she told Jeff, “Wait here. I’m going in to get a gurney for your mother.”
The moment the doctor walked in through the electronic doors labeled ER Entrance, Sophia grabbed her son’s arm again. “I don’t know about this, Jeffrey.”
“Well, I do, Mom. We’re here and we’re getting to the bottom of all this. You almost cut off my circulation the last time you grabbed my hand.”
“I won’t squeeze your hand again, I promise,” Sophia told him.
“That’s not the point, Mom,” Jeff said. “You’re in a great deal of pain, and we need to find out why before your condition gets any worse.”
“It’s just indigestion,” Sophia cried, trying not to writhe in pain. She was desperate to have him take her back home. She hadn’t been inside a hospital since she’d lost her husband, and just being outside one brought back terrible memories.
“Enough excuses, Mom. You’re having these tests and that’s that,” he told her firmly just as Mikki returned with a nurse and an orderly in tow. The latter two were pushing a gurney between them.
“Your chariot’s here, Mrs. Sabatino,” Mikki announced, smiling as she and the two hospital staff members approached Sophia.
Sheer panic entered Sophia’s eyes when she looked up at her son. “Jeffrey?”
He forced himself to ignore his mother’s pleading tone. “You’re going in for those tests, Mom, and I’m going to be right there with you,” he promised.
“Well, maybe during the ultrasound, but not during the CT scan,” Mikki told him. Seeing the panicked expression on his mother’s face, she added, “But I can come into the room with you.”
That did little to comfort Sophia. “But I don’t know you,” she protested.
“Well, we’ll use the time to get to know each other,” Mikki told her.
Sophia murmured something under her breath that neither the doctor nor Jeff could make out. Jeff expected to see Mikki become annoyed. After all, she was bending over backward for his mother, who was being far from her usual genial self.
But the doctor only smiled, saying something encouraging to her in response.
Theresa had been right, Jeff thought as he accompanied his mother and her new doctor into the emergency room. Dr. McKenna was an absolute treasure. She was going out of her way to humor his mother and she hadn’t lost her temper once. Most people did when his mother behaved this way. It wasn’t often, but it was grating when it happened. He dearly loved the woman, but he wasn’t blind to her faults.
Once inside the emergency room, his mother was taken to a curtained-off bed in order to prepare her for the CT scan, ultrasound and several other necessary tests. Jeff waited outside the curtained area as one of the nurses went in to help his mother change into a hospital gown.
“I’ll take good care of her,” Mikki said, coming up behind him.
Surprised—he’d assumed that the doctor had left for the time being—Jeff turned around to look at the petite dark blonde.
“What about your other patients?” he asked. He remembered that Theresa had told him the doctor had a full schedule today. That was why she’d asked him to bring his mother in so early.
“I take good care of them, too,” Mikki answered with a smile.
He had no doubt that she did. There was something exceptionally competent about the woman. “I hope they’re not all like my mother.”
She laughed, and he liked the way her blue eyes crinkled.
“Oh, you’d be surprised,” she told him. “A great many of my patients require a lot of hand-holding and reassuring.”
“How do you do it?” he marveled.
“One hand at a time” was her answer.
Just then the nurse stepped out from between the curtained-off section. “She’s all ready,” the nurse told Mikki.
The latter nodded in response. “Then let’s get the show on the road.”
“Before you get started, Doctor,” Jeff said, stopping her for a moment, “I just want to say thank you.”
Her smile was warm and genuine. “No problem,” Mikki said.
“But there will be,” he replied with a sigh.
Mikki merely laughed in response.
* * *
The tests went far more quickly than he’d thought they would. He and his mother had arrived at the hospital at eight thirty. By ten fifteen the doctor had returned to tell him that she had all the results and she’d been able to diagnose his mother’s condition.
When she paused for a moment, he immediately asked, “Is it appendicitis?”
“In a way,” Mikki replied.
Anxiety sent a cold shiver down his spine. “There’s more?”
“Yes.” She chose her words carefully in order to explain the situation to him and not cause any undue confusion. “Fortunately for her, your mother’s appendix apparently wasn’t removed when she was six.”
That didn’t sound right at all to him, Jeff thought. Did the doctor have a macabre sense of humor? “What do you mean, fortunately?”
“Well, if your mother’s appendix hadn’t been there,” she told him, “then we might not have ever known about the existence of the tumor until it was too late to do anything about it.”
“Tumor?” he asked. It was all beginning to sound frighteningly surreal to him. “There’s a tumor?”
She nodded. “It appears to be benign, but we won’t know until we do a biopsy on it.” She went on to paint a picture for him. “If the appendix hadn’t been there, the tumor might have continued growing until it just burst on its own. The appendix got in its way, and the tumor was pressing on it. That’s what caused your mother all that pain. We’re going to be removing all of it, the tumor and her appendix.”
He struggled to come to grips with the idea—and its possible implication. “Will this affect her in any way?” he asked.
“You mean the operation? Yes. Once it’s over, the pain’ll be gone,” she told him. And then she smiled. “Your mother will be up on her feet and back to her old self in six weeks—or less.”
That sounded almost as impossible as his mother having a tumor. “Really?” he questioned.
“Really,” she assured him. “The whole thing sounds worse than it is, trust me.”
He found himself doing just that. Which raised another question. “Who’s going to be doing the surgery?” Jeff asked.
“Well, unless you have someone in mind who you want me to contact,” Mikki began, waiting. When he didn’t say anything, she went on to say, “It’ll be me.”
“Oh, I want you,” Jeff told her with feeling. Then realizing how that had to sound, he tried to correct the impression. “I mean—”
Mikki laughed, and he caught himself thinking that the sound was almost endearing.
“I know what you mean, Mr. Sabatino, and I appreciate the vote of trust,” she told him. Mikki glanced at her watch. “This is going to take a couple of hours once we get her ready and wheel her into the OR. After that, she’ll be in recovery for another hour. From there, she’ll be taken up to her room.
“If she responds like everyone else, your mother will be in and out of consciousness for the rest of the day, so I suggest that if you want to go to work, you do so without any guilt. Your mother’s not going to be fully awake until sometime tomorrow morning, if not later.”
“Is my mother still conscious now?” Jeff asked.
Mikki nodded. “We haven’t given her anything to sedate her yet. So if you want to say a few encouraging words to her before we put her under, now would be the time to do it. They’re getting the OR ready for her.”
He heard something else in the woman’s voice besides a recitation of the chain of events. “Then it is urgent,” he asked her.
She didn’t want to frighten him unnecessarily, but she didn’t want to be evasive, either. Mikki offered him a smile. “Let’s just say—without being melodramatic—that you brought your mother in just in time.”
He was both relieved and stunned by the news. “Does she know?”
“I believe in keeping my patients informed, but not in scaring them,” she replied. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to call my office to tell them I won’t be in for a while—and then I have some less than fashionable blue scrubs to put on.” She turned to go, but paused for a moment. She sensed that the tall, handsome man standing in the corridor needed a little reassuring. “She’s going to be fine, Mr. Sabatino.”
“Jeff,” he corrected as he took in a steadying breath, thinking of the bullet they’d just been dodged. “Call me Jeff.”
Mikki nodded. “Okay. Are you planning on staying here until your mother’s in recovery—Jeff?”
He knew he wouldn’t be able to focus if he went anywhere right now. “Yes, I am.”
“Then I’ll send someone out to let you know how it’s going,” Mikki promised.
“That’s very kind of you,” he told her.
“Practical,” she corrected. “Otherwise, your imagination might just run away with you and then I might have another patient on my hands.”
The moment the doctor left, Jeff went in to see his mother.
“Jeffrey, she’s operating on me,” Sophia lamented the second she saw him.
“I know that, Mom,” he said kindly.
She looked somewhat surprised—and perhaps even upset. “And you’re all right with this?”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way, Mom,” Jeff told her.
Sophia fixed the drooping shoulder of her hospital gown and drew herself up. “I think we need a second opinion.”
“This from the woman who didn’t want any opinion,” Jeff remarked. He took her hand in his. Hers was icy to the touch. “Mom, you’re just stalling. You know that a second opinion is most likely going to be the same as the one you just received.”
“Maybe not,” she cried.
It had never occurred to him until just now how much his mother looked like a little girl. A frightened little girl.
Closing his hand over hers, he assured her, “It’s going to be fine, Mom. When you wake up, the pain’ll be gone.”
“Ha! You’ve obviously never had an operation,” his mother said.
Jeff inclined his head, giving his mother her due. “Okay, let me rephrase that. The pain that brought you here will be gone.”
Sophia snorted dismissively. “Trading in one pain for another doesn’t exactly put me ahead of the game, you know.”
“It does if the first pain can eventually kill you,” he pointed out. The nurse entered just then, saving him. “They’re going to get you ready for surgery now, Mom.” He saw the clear panic in her gray eyes. “I’m going to be right here, waiting for you. I’ll see you when this is all over,” he promised.
“You hope,” Sophia said.
“I know,” he corrected. “Now, behave yourself,” he told her, giving her hand a squeeze.
“Sir, we have to begin,” the nurse gently prodded.
Releasing his mother’s hand, he stepped back, about to leave.
“Tell Tina and Robert I love them,” his mother suddenly said.
“You’ll tell them yourself after this is over,” he told her patiently.
“And if this doesn’t turn out well, tell them that I forgave you,” she called after him.
Jeff suppressed a sigh. “I’ll tell them, Mom.”