Ashley Bell (Ashley Bell #1)(9)
When the light moved to the 4 on the directory and the doors of the cab slid open, her anxiety did not abate. Room 456 was to the right. When she and Murph got there, the door stood open. The room contained two unoccupied beds, the sheets fresh and taut and tucked.
Bibi’s drawstring bag stood on the nightstand beside the bed that was nearer to the window. When Nancy peered into it, she saw a toothbrush, toothpaste, and other items, but no pajamas.
Each bed came with a narrow closet. One of them proved empty. In the other hung Bibi’s jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt. Her shoes stood side by side on the closet floor, her socks stuffed in them.
With the squeak of rubber-soled shoes and the scent of soap, a young blond woman in blue scrubs entered the room. The nurse looked too young to be credentialed, as if she might be just fifteen and playing hospital.
“They told us our daughter would be here,” Murph said.
“You must be Mr. and Mrs. Blair. They’ve taken Bibi for tests.”
“What tests?” Nancy asked.
“An MRI, blood work, the usual.”
“None of this is usual to us,” Nancy said, trying for a light tone of voice and failing.
“She’ll be all right. It’s nothing intrusive. She’s doing fine.”
The much-too-young nurse’s reassurances sounded as hollow as a politician’s promises.
“She’ll be a while. You might want to go down to the cafeteria for lunch. You’ll have the time.”
After the nurse left, Nancy and Murph stood for a moment in bewilderment, looking around the room as though they had just now been teleported into it by an act of sorcery.
“Cafeteria?” he asked.
Nancy shook her head. “I’m not hungry.”
“I was thinking coffee.”
“Hospitals ought to have bars.”
“You never drink before five-thirty.”
“I feel like starting.”
She turned toward the window and then, with a sudden thought, turned away from it. “We need to tell Paxton.”
Murph shook his head. “We can’t. Not now. Don’t you remember? His team is on a blackout mission. No way to reach them.”
“There’s got to be a way!” Nancy protested.
“If we tried and Bibi found out, she’d want our scalps. Even though they’re not married yet, she’s getting more like him each day, tough-minded and committed to the way things are in that life.”
Nancy knew he was right. “Who would have thought it would be her we’d have to worry about instead of him?”
She switched on the TV. None of the programs was entertaining. All of them seemed intolerably frivolous. The news inspired despair.
They went down to the cafeteria for coffee.
Later, Bibi would be told that the CT scan had been inconclusive but suggestive, that her doctors would have preferred a stroke to what was now suspected. Having eliminated the possibility of embolism or hemorrhage, they proceeded with a growing concern that they refrained from sharing with her. Their smiles were masks, not because they wished to deceive her, but because physicians, no less than their patients, live to hope.
Later, too, she would learn that if embolism and hemorrhage were ruled out, her best chance of a full recovery might be a diagnosis of brain abscess, which was a pus-filled cavity surrounded by inflamed tissue. This life-threatening condition could be treated with antibiotics and corticosteroids. Often surgery proved unnecessary.
They drew blood for a culture. They took chest X rays. They hooked her up for an EEG that lasted almost an hour, to study the electrical activity of her brain.
By the time she was gurneyed to another room for an MRI, Bibi felt as though she had run a marathon up countless flights of stairs. She wasn’t merely tired but fatigued. Such weariness couldn’t be the result of what little physical activity the day had entailed. She assumed that her growing exhaustion was yet another symptom of her illness, like the head-to-foot tingling along her left side, the rancid taste that came and went, and the weakness in her left hand.
She had no appetite for lunch, and they had offered her only water. Perhaps fasting was required for some of the tests. Or maybe they were anxious to gather all the information required for an urgently needed diagnosis.
Because the MRI machine was an enclosed tunnel only slightly greater in diameter than a human body, a nurse asked, “Are you claustrophobic?”
“No,” Bibi said, refusing a mild sedative as she lay on the table that would carry her into the ominous cylinder.
She refused to admit even the possibility of such a weakness. She wasn’t a wimp, never had been, never would be. She admired toughness, fortitude, determination.
Instead, she accepted earbuds that allowed her to listen to music and a handheld device with which she could signal the equipment operator if she became distressed.
Her time in the machine would be lengthy. Modern MRI technology allowed scans with highly specific purposes. A functional MRI would provide measurements of nerve-cell activity in the brain. Magnetic-resonance angiography could assess heart function and blood-vessel flow throughout the body. Magnetic-resonance spectrography would provide detailed analysis of chemical changes in the brain caused by a variety of afflictions.
The music proved to be wordless, mellow orchestral versions of songs she couldn’t quite identify. From time to time, the machine made thumping noises audible through the music, as if the technician needed to spur the MRI along with hammer blows. Bibi felt her heart laboring. The signaling device grew slippery in her sweaty hand.