Читать книгу Hannah’s Gift: Lessons from a Life Fully Lived - Maria Housden - Страница 11

TWO HOURS LATER, HANNAH DUMPED A BASKETFUL OF hand puppets onto the floor of the pediatrician’s office and sorted through the pile until she found the one she was looking for. Tucking a butterfly under her arm, she climbed into my lap, while I gazed absently at the diplomas and photographs on the wall. Already I felt relieved. Minutes before, Dr. Edman had gently examined her. His face hadn’t registered any concern. He had asked us to wait for him in his office, standard procedure, while he made a phone call. Now he came through the door and sat on the edge of his desk.

“Is it possible for you to reach Claude at work?” he asked.

My brain struggled to register what he had just said. This was not standard procedure. What could be so important that I needed to call Claude?

“Hannah has a mass in her abdomen,” Dr. Edman said gently. “I’ve called the emergency room. They’re expecting you; Claude should meet you there.”

I dialed the phone and, when Claude answered, repeated Dr. Edman’s words.

“What does this mean?” Claude asked.

“I have no idea,” I said.

Hannah slept in her car seat in the back while I drove. Forty minutes later, as I pulled into the emergency room parking lot and shut off the engine, I realized that I couldn’t remember stopping for one light or stop sign all the way there. Either I had driven through every one, or I was simply too dazed to remember. As I unbuckled Hannah and lifted her out, a question pierced through the fog in my brain: Could a mass be cancer? I dismissed it immediately. How could I possibly think such a thing? Two-year-olds don’t get cancer. Dr. Edman had said it was a mass. We would get it out, as simple as that.

As the automatic doors to the emergency room swung open, I felt better almost immediately. A nurse bustled toward me.

“Mrs. Martell?” she asked, partly a question, partly a greeting.

I nodded. Hannah lifted her head drowsily from my shoulder.

“It’s okay, Missy,” I whispered. “We’re at the hospital. These people are going to help us figure out what’s happening with your tummy.”

“I’m hungry,” Hannah said, closing her eyes and laying her head back on my shoulder.

The nurse led us to a small examining room. I sat Hannah next to me on the edge of the padded table. The nurse took Hannah’s blood pressure and temperature and then asked me to remove Hannah’s dress.

“No, Mommy, it’s too cold,” Hannah said.

I turned to the nurse, who shrugged her shoulders.

“I guess she can leave it on,” she said.

Within minutes, a parade of doctors, nurses, residents, and technicians filed in, asked questions, took notes, and left, closing the door behind them. My sense of relief at being there was fading. I wanted Claude. I opened the door to the hall and startled a group of residents and nurses who were speaking in loud, conspiratorial whispers outside our room. I looked past them and saw Claude coming toward me, almost running, his head whipping from one side to the other as he read the numbers above the doors to each room. He looked panicked and disoriented, no more capable of knowing what to do than I was.

“Daddy,” Hannah exclaimed as Claude came into the room. He and I embraced quickly.

An efficient-looking resident poked his head into the room.

“In ten minutes, Hannah is scheduled for X-rays downstairs. An aide will be by to pick her up.”

“Mommy, I want you to come with me,” Hannah said.

“Of course, Missy,” I replied.

The resident looked at me sternly. “You can go downstairs with her,” he said, “but you can’t go in the room unless you’re sure you’re not pregnant.”

My voice sounded far away when I answered. “I’m definitely not pregnant,” I heard myself say.

What had felt like the deepest loss hours ago was now enabling me to do the one thing I wanted more than anything else: to be with Hannah. Only my perspective had changed; the truth, that the baby inside me was dead, was the same, either way.