Come Away With Me(116)

personal

information; I can’t stop heaving long enough to form a sentence.

I manage to give a urine sample and change into a hospital gown.

“Natalie, I’m Mo. I’ll be your nurse today. Put this pill under your tongue.

It’s called Zofran, and it’ll help the nausea.” I gratefully accept the medicine from the kind, petite nurse and take a deep breath.

“Let’s get another set of vitals.” Mo smiles and takes my temperature, blood pressure and heart rate.

“Everything is normal. That’s a good sign. Dr. Anderson will be here in a few moments.”

“Thank you.” Jules pulls a chair up next to me and my phone starts to ring.

It’s Luke.

“Hello?”

“Hey, baby, I’m at the hotel.

Everything okay?”

“Yes, everything’s fine. I’m just hanging out with Jules.” Jules’ eyes go round and she mouths “What the f*ck are you doing?” at me. I brush her off.

“Okay, good. I’m heading back out to my first meeting. I’ll text you when I can.”

“Alright, have a good meeting. I love you.”

“I love you too.” I hear the smile in his voice as he hangs up.

“Natalie…”

“Stop. He can’t do anything from L.A. There’s no need to worry him.

He’ll be home tomorrow anyway.”

“He should know that you’re in the emergency room.” God, she’s stubborn.

“That pill they gave me is helping with the puking. They’ll probably just send me home.”

“Knock, knock.” A small blonde woman pokes her head through the door.

“I’m Dr. Anderson. I hear you’re not feeling well, Natalie.”

“I’ve been throwing up for about the last hour and a half.”

“Has it been steady, or does it come and go?”

“Steady. Couldn’t breathe until the nurse gave me that anti-nausea pill.”

“Any other symptoms like diarrhea, fever, abdominal pain?” She is jotting down notes in my chart as we talk.

“No, just the vomiting. I was a little nauseous early this morning, but I thought it was just nerves. Then the vomiting started.”

“Okay, well, it sounds like we’ve got that stabilized.” She pushes on the skin on my hands and looks in my mouth and nose. “You’re pretty well dehydrated, so I want to start an I.V. and get some fluids going, we’ll take some blood and run your urine and see what we see, okay?” She smiles down at me kindly.

“Okay. Will I be able to go home today?”

“Most likely. Let’s get some test results and I’ll be back in a little while.”

“See?” I say to Jules after the doctor leaves. “I’ve probably just got the flu.”

Nurse Mo bustles back into the room and starts my I.V.

“Oh, no, I’m outta here!” Jules jumps up and runs out of the room. I smirk at Mo.

“She hates needles the way most of us hate spiders.”

Mo laughs, draws some blood and bustles back out again, leaving me with Jules.

“How are you feeling?” she asks.

“Better. Still a tiny bit queasy, but I don’t feel like I’m going to throw up anymore.”

“Good. You were starting to scare me.”

We sit in companionable silence for a while, both of us checking our phones and watching a bit of TV. We wait a really long time, about two hours, before we see the doctor again.

“I’m sorry for the wait. I had a few blood tests that I wanted to run and they can take a little time.” She pulls a chair up next to me and it looks like she’s settling in for a long chat.

Shit, what’s wrong with me?

“I have some good news, and some news that could go either way, depending on how you choose to look at it.”

“Okay. I’ll take the good news first, please.”

“You’re very healthy. All of your vitals are normal, and your labs all came back completely fine.”

“Good.”

“Except, and here’s the other news, you’re pregnant.”

I hear Jules gasp beside me, but I don’t understand.

“What did you say?”

“You’re pregnant.”

“No, that’s impossible.” I shake my head adamantly. There must be some mistake.