Bachelor at Her Bidding (Bachelor Auction Book 2)(35)
“Just right now everything tastes like ashes and you can’t face swallowing?”
He looked at her. “I guess you see this sort of thing a lot.”
“In this kind of situation, yes.”
“Gram’s so frail, Rach. I mean, I know she’s eighty, but I guess in my head I think of her as a lot younger than that. And it’s made me realize she could…” He choked off the words, but she knew what he meant. It had just hit him that Phyllis could die – and sooner than he’d been prepared for.
His last living relative.
Leaving him alone in the world.
“Right now it’s early days and it’s the scary stage. Give it to the end of the week and you’ll be looking at a very different picture,” she said. “Did anyone explain to you what’s actually happened?”
“The other doctor said it was a…” He frowned. “A TI-something?”
“TIA – it’s a mini-stroke, caused by a blood clot blocking an artery and stopping the blood supply to the veins. In this case, the blockage clears very quickly, so your grandmother will recover much more quickly than she would have done if it had been a full stroke,” she explained. But she also knew she had to be honest with him and tell him the full story. She took his hand and squeezed it. “Though it’s also a warning that she might have another stroke in future, and the next one could be more serious. That’s why I wanted to admit her, so the hospital could do some tests and a brain scan to see what caused the TIA in the first place. They’ll be able to give her some medication to help treat whatever caused it and hopefully avoid a second one.”
He bit his lip. “They said she can’t swallow. She’s not allowed to have any food or drink until tomorrow.”
“It’s really common to have problems swallowing after a stroke, so often patients are kept nil by mouth for a little while to make sure their food and drink don’t go down the wrong way and cause a chest infection,” she reassured him. “Try not to worry. They’ll give her fluids in a drip so she won’t get dehydrated, and when she can drink again they might put a special thickener in her drink at first to make it easier for her to swallow. But she will get better, Ry. At the moment her words aren’t coming out right and her left side’s a bit wonky, but as I said it’s early days. She will get back to how she was before the TIA.”
“Yeah.”
She could see the worry in his eyes. She squeezed his hand again. “I know right now you’re really scared for her, and that’s natural, but she’s in the best place, Ry. She’s getting the care she needs, and I can pop in to see her every day.”
He shook his head. “I can’t ask you to do that.”
“I work in the building next door to the hospital,” she pointed out. “It’s not as if you’re asking me to climb Copper Mountain in the middle of the night wearing a super-tight pencil skirt and four-inch stilettos, now is it?”
To her relief, the ridiculous picture she’d just painted made him smile. “I guess not. Sorry.”
“Hey, that’s what I’m here for.” She paused. “As your friend who just happens to know a bit about medicine. Sometimes medics forget they’re talking to someone who’s not medically qualified and they tend to talk in jargon – so if you’ve got any questions, no matter how stupid you think they are, you talk to me and I’ll make sure you get a proper answer if I can’t explain whatever it is myself, OK?”
He nodded. “Thank you.”
“Any time.” She looked at him. How could she let him drive home to an empty house, where everything would be dark and cold and make him worry about his grandmother even more? “Ry, stay here tonight. I can put your clothes through the washing machine and dry them so they’re clean for tomorrow. Plus here you’ll be nearer to the hospital than you are back at your place.”
He looked torn between needing to go home and not having to face the emptiness.
“No strings,” she said softly.
He swallowed hard. “I admit, right now I don’t really want to be on my own.”
“Then stay,” she said. “There’s no pressure. Have my bed, and I can sleep on the sofa. I’m shorter than you are so it won’t make my back ache.”
He frowned. “I can’t ask you to give your bed up for me.”
“You’re not asking. I’m offering.” She paused. “Or we can share my bed.” She hadn’t spent the night with anyone since her marriage had splintered, and it would be odd to share her space; but at the same time she knew that Ryan needed comfort. And she could do that for him, right now. “Hey. If you want a hug, you get a hug; if you want more, you get more; and no offence or anything, whatever you decide.” She stroked his face. “Ry, I so wish I could wave a magic wand for you. I can’t. But what I can do is hold you and make you feel a bit better.”
“Thank you.”
“Go take a hot bath. Help yourself to whatever you need – and I have a spare toothbrush. I’ll dig it out for you.”
She put his clothes through the washer then the dryer. She really felt for him, because she knew Phyllis was practically all the family he had left. He never spoke about his mother’s family, so she assumed that either they’d already passed away or they just weren’t close. Without Phyllis, he’d be alone. And that was a seriously hard prospect to face.