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“Yessir. And once, when my dad and me were fishing, I got a fishhook stuck in my thumb.” He showed the doctor a tiny crescent-shaped scar.
“Man,” Dr. Prentice said. “How’d you ever get the hook out?”
“Dad cut the sharp part off with pliers.”
“Wow. Bet you cried buckets.”
“I didn’t cry at all, did I, Dad.”
Max grabbed Nate’s hand. “Not a single tear. You were tough as nails.”
“I’m impressed,” the surgeon said. “And that run-in with the fishhook? I can absolutely guarantee the blood tests won’t hurt nearly as much! Just a teeny tiny pinprick, one for each test. You think you can handle that?”
Nate lifted his chin. “Sure. No sweat,” he said, grinning to prove his bravery.
“Well, we might as well get busy, then. Sooner we get started, sooner you can go home.” He stuck his head out into the hall and summoned a tall, lanky orderly. “George, drive my friend Nate here to the X-ray department, will ya?”
“Can…can my dad come, too?”
Hearing the tremor in Nate’s voice, Lily grabbed his hand, gave it a gentle squeeze. He squeezed back.
“The more the merrier,” Dr. Prentice said. With that, he strode from the cubicle, white lab coat flapping behind him.
“Gotta oil these wheels,” George said as the gurney squeaked down the hall. “Sounds like somebody ridin’ over and over a mouse’s tail, don’t it!”
Nate grinned. “Yeah. A mouse’s tail.” He giggled softly.
“You’ll like Doc Prentice. He’s the best.”
When Lily let go of Nate so George could steer the gurney into the elevator, Max grabbed her hand. “Thanks,” he whispered.
“For what?” she whispered back.
He only shrugged. “Just…thanks.” And as his son had done moments before, Max squeezed her hand.
She wanted Max to be happy, the way he was back in high school. Wanted Nate to be safe and healthy, too. Lily stared at the toes of her white sneakers. Everything’s going to be all right, she said to herself. The Lord will see to it. He makes miracles happen every day, right?
But she knew only too well, having lost her mother when she was barely Nate’s age, that not every story has a miracle ending. She closed her eyes tight. If anyone needs to witness a miracle, Lord, she prayed, it’s Max.
“I know I neglected to tell Nate about the catheterization earlier, but I honestly didn’t think we’d need one. The test results make it necessary.” Dr. Prentice leaned against a wall in the small waiting room as Max and Lily sat woodenly on orange and blue upholstered chairs.
“Sounds painful,” Max said.
“I won’t lie to you…it’s not comfortable. But I’ll give him a local anesthetic, and a mild sedative, as well. He’ll be loose as a goose by the time we do the procedure—probably be asleep through the whole test.”
Lily leaned forward. “Will we be able to stay with him the whole time?”
“I don’t have a problem with that, long as you don’t mind gowning and masking up.” The doctor pulled a chair around to face them and sat down. “That kid is a real trouper, all right.” A look of genuine admiration crossed his face. “He’s seen half a dozen technicians this afternoon alone, who introduced him to some weird-lookin’ gizmos. Most kids don’t come through it the way Nate did. He’s brave, that boy of yours.”
Lily bit her lower lip, wondering if now was the time to ’fess up, admit she wasn’t Nate’s mother. Max slid an arm behind her, as he had in the E.R. cubicle.
“He’s truly a gift from God,” she said instead.
The words were no sooner out than Max withdrew, sat forward and leaned both elbows on his knees. “How’d this happen?” he asked. “I mean, what caused Nate’s fainting spell?”
“Well, I won’t know for sure until all the rest of the test results are in,” Dr. Prentice said, mimicking Max’s pose, “but from everything I’ve seen so far, it looks to me like he has an atrial septal defect…a hole in his heart.”
Max swallowed so hard that Lily heard it from where she sat.
“A hole in his heart? Why hasn’t he shown symptoms before now?”
“I wish I had some concrete answers for you, Mr. Sheridan, but the fact is, we don’t know for sure. Some kids are born with it. In other cases, a bacterial or viral infection is the cause. The thing to remember is, we can usually repair things, and most kids grow up to live perfectly normal lives.”
Max hung his head. “Should I have known? I mean…” He ran both hands through his hair. “If I’d been on the ball, would I have noticed something, and maybe headed this off?”
“Absolutely not. Kids get fevers and colds, and most of the time, the stuff clears up and goes away. Other times, some damage gets done. There’s no reason to beat yourself up because there’s absolutely no way you could have predicted this.”
Dr. Prentice faced Lily. “I must say, Mrs. Sheridan, you’re awfully calm and quiet.” He smiled. “Now I see where your boy gets his stoicism. Can I answer any questions about your boy?”
“Much as I wish it were true, Nate isn’t my boy,” she blurted. “I’m just a friend of the family.”
“Not just a friend,” Max put in. “I don’t know what we’d have done without you today.”
The doctor continued his explanation. “The catheterization isn’t as gruesome as it sounds. We’ll insert a small plastic tube in through Nate’s groin, moving it slowly until it reaches his heart. Then we’ll take some blood samples and measure blood pressure through the catheter. We’ll inject some blue fluid through the tube into a blood vessel in his heart. The fancy word for the process is angiocardiography. But in plain language, it’s an X-ray that’ll let us see what’s wrong with Nate’s li’l ticker.”
“How long will it take?” Lily asked.
“Oh, an hour, maybe two, usually.”
“And how long before we can talk to him?”
“Takes a few hours for the sedative to wear off. He might wake up with a slight fever, an upset stomach, so don’t be concerned. That’ll all pass in a couple of hours, too. And by that time, I should have the rest of the test results back, and we can talk about treatment.”
“Treatment?” Max’s voice was thick with emotion.
“Could be we’ll find it’s not a large enough hole to require anything further. Or, he might just need surgery. But let’s not put the cart ahead of the horse, okay?” He grabbed one of Max’s wrists with his right hand, one of Lily’s with his left. “No sense getting all worried and upset until there’s a good reason for it. And I see no reason for it at this juncture.”
Max inhaled a deep breath and held it, while Lily rubbed soothing circles on his back. Dr. Prentice got to his feet. “Get some rest,” the doctor said. “Hopefully, you won’t need it.”
But his “just in case” warning was clear, all the same.
He walked backward down the hall, talking as he went. “See you bright and early. I’ve scheduled the procedure for 8:00 a.m.” He saluted, then rounded a corner and disappeared.
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