NIKKI hated hospitals. Hated them. They smelled of Lysol and alcohol and there were sick people-lots of sick people. Not to mention people running around barking orders at you. How was it that anyone was expected to recuperate in one of these places? Weren’t doctors and nurses always telling patients to get some rest? That was what Nikki had just been told by her unpleasant nurse in the emergency room.
Simon hovered over her and barked as many orders at the nurse as she’d asked questions of Nikki. “Can we please get some Diet Coke in here for her? She likes Diet Coke. Also, I think she’s a little warm, so a cool cloth would be good. When will the doctor be here? This is ridiculous. It’s been two hours or something totally insane. What kind of operation are you people running?”
The nurse, who looked as old as God and as happy as the devil, squinted her eyes. “Excuse me, Liberace, the last time I checked, her name”-she pointed at Nikki-“wasn’t Hillary Clinton or the likes of her. And in case you haven’t taken note, this is an emergency room, not the Ritz-Carlton.”
“Well, I never,” Simon said, completely put out by this witch.
“Now you have,” the nurse replied, imitating him.
“Si, please let the woman do her job,” Nikki begged. “I’m fine. Really I am.”
Marco stood at her head, stroking it. “I am so happy I came with Simon to get the wine for you. He would have had to leave you to call the emergency people. I was chopping and then he said he needed me to help him with the wine because I’m stronger than he is.”
“You are,” Simon said, rubbing Marco’s arm.
“If we were only there a few minutes sooner, this wouldn’t have happened to her.” Marco leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. The thought crossed her mind that these two would actually make good parents. They had worry down to a science.
Another half hour, and another meltdown from Simon, and the doctor appeared.
“You’re the doctor?” Simon asked.
“Yes.” He showed him his badge. “Dr. Woodruff.”
Dr. Woodruff looked fifteen with curly dark hair and dark eyes. He was slight and honestly he didn’t look as though he’d ever shaved-baby skin like a baby’s butt.
“Honey, I have Dolce and Gabbana T-shirts older than you.”
Dr. Woodruff wasn’t amused.
“Simon,” Nikki warned.
Dr. Woodruff asked the same questions that the nurses and everyone before him had asked, and she was pretty sure that Robinson would be showing up sometime to ask the same questions again before she’d be able to leave. All she wanted was to go home.
The doctor examined her with the boys out of the room. “Anything hurt?”
“Everything,” Nikki replied. “I feel like I’ve been pushed off a ladder, clobbered by a maniac, and then almost strung up to die.”
“Ah.” The doctor winced.
Nikki doubted he’d heard that story before. “My stomach really hurts where the guy pushed the ladder down on me. I’m not usually a baby, but it does hurt.”
“Can you point to it?”
Nikki did so.
“It’s not exactly your stomach, is it?”
“No.” Now why did she feel embarrassed? The kid was a doctor.
“That’s where your ovary is on that side. To be safe, we should have an ultrasound done. I may call in a gynecologist to do an exam on you.”
“What? Why?” There was nothing Nikki could think of that might actually be worse at that moment-hoisting her legs up in a pair of stirrups so some teenager could take a peek at her parts. It was hard enough going to her private physician, a woman in her fifties.
“A precaution. We should be sure that your ovary didn’t rupture. Looks to me like you were dealt some pretty hard blows.” He touched the side of her face.
She winced.
“Good thing you don’t need stitches, but that will bruise up. Not pretty.”
“Thanks,” Nikki replied.
Another hour or so passed, and Simon had finally calmed down when a tech rolled in an ultrasound machine. He ran the instruments over her, but gave no indication one way or another as to what might have happened, if anything. She could be badly bruised, but a ruptured ovary? That sounded horrible.
Finally Dr. Woodruff came back in. Simon and Marco had gone to see about getting a sandwich, which was fine with Nikki because she’d tired of Simon’s mother henning about four hours earlier. “Sorry, but it’s a busy night here and our on-call gynecologist is backed up. But I did show him the results of the ultrasound and he said that you do not have a ruptured ovary.”
“Thank God.”
“But.”
Uh-oh. Nikki didn’t like the sound of that.
“He said that you had a cyst in there that has ruptured. He suggested I go ahead and give you a basic exam.”
“No.”
“No?” he asked.
“No.”
“Okay,” Dr. Woodruff replied, realizing that she was serious.
Dr. Pipsqueak was not going in there.
“Can you just tell me what you and this other doctor could be thinking?” Nikki asked.
Dr. Woodruff pulled up a chair next to her bed and sat down.
“This is not my place since I’m not your gynecologist or your husband.”
“I don’t have a husband. You’re scaring me.”
“All right. My colleague thinks it is possible you could have some issues getting pregnant. Considering your age and that you had a cyst on your ovary, he suggested that you could have endometriosis. He believes your cyst could be caused by this. He suggests that you see your doctor as soon as you can if you want to have any children.”
“Okay.” She tried absorbing what he was telling her. “Are you saying that I won’t be able to get pregnant?”
“Again, I’m the wrong doctor here. I really don’t know. But it’s likely that you could have a difficult time, and if you do want to conceive, you may want to speak to the man in your life, if there is one, and the two of you may want to get the ball rolling.”
“I see. Can I go home now?”
He stood up and rubbed his hands together. “Yes. I have to sign off on the release papers, but you can go only if you sign saying that you refused a gynecological exam and that you will be seeing your regular doctor as soon as possible.”
“Sure. Yeah. I can sign that.” Nikki watched the doctor leave. Wow. The thought of never being able to have a baby had never crossed her mind. She figured when the time was right, they would have one. Yes, she knew it could be a little harder as she neared the middle age milestone, but all the same, she didn’t expect this. What if she couldn’t conceive? How would Derek feel? And if she could, they obviously needed to start sooner rather than later. How was he going to feel about that?
She didn’t know the answers to questions she hated asking even herself.