Даниэла Стил - Turning Point

Everyone was relaxed and happy, they had become a tight circle of friends. They headed back to the city at ten-thirty and Bill stayed to help Wendy clean up. They’d had a wonderful relaxing evening to end the first week of the second part of their work together, and they were going to experience an earthquake drill that week, which sounded exciting. It was something entirely new and different for the French team.

When Stephanie dropped Gabriel off at the hotel, she went upstairs with him, but told him she could only stay a while. With Ryan sick, she wanted to go home. They made love again, and lay peacefully afterward, just enjoying being together. They had a long way to go, but she always felt safe and reassured when she was with him. She was sure he’d get divorced, and somehow they’d find their way.

She heard a text come in, and didn’t want to answer as she dozed in his arms, but she felt guilty not reading it, so a few minutes later, she got up and took her cellphone out of her bag. It was from Andy. “Just had a seizure. 104.8. Going to ER at UC. Meet me there. Leaving Aden with the Sanchezes.” She was wide awake as soon as she read it. The Sanchezes were their neighbors and had kids the same age. And Ryan was having febrile seizures. He’d had them as a baby. They weren’t dangerous but they were scary as hell, and so was 104.8. She started climbing into her clothes without bothering to shower. She called Andy but he didn’t answer, which panicked her.

“What’s wrong?” She was moving at full speed, and she told Gabriel as she dressed. “I’ll come with you,” he said and started to dress too, which was the right reaction but not in this case.

“You can’t. How would I explain it?” She was closer to UCSF than Andy was at home, and she knew she could get there before he did. Gabriel was gazing at her bleakly.

“I don’t want you to go alone,” he said gallantly with his pants on and no shirt.

“I have to,” she said and hurried into the bathroom to comb her hair and clean up her makeup. She looked like she had just climbed out of bed. In two minutes, she appeared relatively civilized, put on her shoes, grabbed her coat off the chair, and kissed Gabriel.

“I’m sorry. Call me after you’ve seen him. I’m sure he’ll be fine. My youngest son used to get them too.” She nodded. “Let me know if you want me to come.” But there was no way he could. He didn’t belong there with Andy, not until everything was out in the open, or when they were married, but not now.

She left seconds later, ran to the elevator, got her car from the valet, and she was headed to UCSF in minutes. She tried calling Andy again, but he still didn’t answer. She parked in her usual space in the garage, and was waiting in the ER when he got there. He was carrying Ryan, who was bright red and appeared to be unconscious. She felt him and he was blazing.

“Where were you?” Andy looked desperate, as they waited for a nurse to put them in an exam room. Stephanie had already registered while she was waiting for them.

“At dinner with the group. We had dinner in Palo Alto with the doc from Stanford. I just got back to the city,” she said as though it mattered. She was staring at Ryan now and didn’t like the way he looked. She told a nurse to get the pediatric attending in, and saw one of the nurses she knew at the desk, who came over to see her right away.

“What’s up?” she said, looking at Ryan, and took a thermometer out of her pocket as Andy held him and slipped it in his ear. Ryan stirred and started to cry and said his neck hurt. Stephanie and the nurse exchanged a look, and she checked the thermometer. “It’s 105.1. I’ll get the attending down here right now.” She went to use the phone, and had one of the nurses take him into an exam room. Andy had him wrapped in a blanket over his pajamas and his teeth were chattering.

“He felt sick when he woke up after you left, but he was nothing like this.” She could see that Andy was panicked but so was she. She didn’t like the way the symptoms were presenting, and she hoped the attending pediatrician didn’t agree with her. It looked like meningitis to her, which moved like lightning in children his age, and could be fatal. This couldn’t be happening to them. She and Andy glanced at each other as the pediatrician walked in and went straight to Ryan. He tried to move Ryan’s head toward his chest and couldn’t, and Ryan screamed and threw up. The nurse helped clean him up with a damp cloth and changed him into hospital pajamas while he shivered. Stephanie had already put the hospital bracelet on his wrist.

“You probably think the same thing I do,” the pediatrician said, looking at Stephanie. He knew she was a physician.

“Meningitis?” Stephanie said, dreading the word and he nodded.

“Seems like it to me. I want to try and get the fever down, and get a lumbar puncture on him right away, and some bloodwork.” The big question was whether it was bacterial or viral. If bacterial, the risk to Ryan was even greater. The nurse hurried out to call the lab, and ordered the spinal tap. He told Stephanie and Andy they’d put him under a light anesthesia to do it. He was sure of his diagnosis and so was Stephanie. The lab technician came in then, and drew several vials of blood while Andy held him and Ryan cried miserably. They got an IV line into his other arm for fluids, and an antibiotic. He was looking worse by the minute. “When did this start?” the doctor asked Stephanie and she turned to Andy.

“Maybe around six or seven,” Andy said in a hoarse voice. Everything was moving so quickly. It was one-fifteen in the morning, so he’d been sick for seven hours. She knew that children his age often died six to twelve hours after the onset of symptoms. It was one of the fastest moving, most lethal illnesses children could get. They were playing “beat the clock,” and Stephanie knew it as tears filled her eyes and she glanced at Andy. They took Ryan away five minutes later to do the spinal tap, and Stephanie asked to go with him, but the pediatrician wouldn’t let her. Parents were not allowed, even if she was a doctor and worked in the ER.

“He’ll be out from the anesthetic in a few minutes. We’ll get him back to you as soon as we can. I want him in Peds ICU,” he said firmly and she nodded.

“We’ll meet you there.” She squeezed Andy’s hand as they watched Ryan wheeled away on a gurney. He suddenly looked tiny. If he had meningitis, she was afraid Aden would get it, although it wasn’t certain he would. But worst case, they could lose both their children within hours. Mostly it was just terrible luck that Ryan had caught it, and unlikely lightning would strike twice.

“Is he going to be okay?” Andy asked her as they went to the elevator to go upstairs to the ICU.

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “It’s not good.” She got a text from Gabriel then, wanting to know what was happening, but she didn’t answer. This was her time with Andy and she didn’t want to be distracted by anyone. They paced the halls together while they waited for Ryan, and didn’t speak to each other. There was nothing to say.

“What do we do, Steph, if it is meningitis?” he finally had the courage to ask, and she shook her head.

“Nothing. We wait and we pray. We’re already giving him an antibiotic. They’ll give him steroids after the tap.”

They brought him back forty minutes later, still groggy from the anesthetic. They rolled him into a room and put him on a bed. A nurse took his vital signs, and another one hooked him up to monitors. He was still blazing, and they tried to cool him with damp cloths and added something to his IV to bring the fever down.

The pediatrician came back to confirm what Stephanie already knew. Ryan had meningitis. It was viral, so he had a better chance of survival, but nothing was sure, especially at his age. He was dozing from the fever and the anesthetic, as Stephanie stood next to him stroking his hair. She couldn’t bear the thought that he might die, but she was praying he’d survive it. He was too little and too sick, and when she looked up, Andy was crying, and she was too.