St Piran's: The Wedding!. Alison Roberts
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Had she been pushed too far by him taking up the amazing offer of her helping him to raise the twins?
If this was yet another disaster in his life, could the blame be laid, yet again, at his feet?
Ben Carter, another emergency medicine consultant at St Piran’s, was already in the resuscitation area. The defibrillator was being tested. A twelve-lead ECG machine was standing by. He glanced up and saw Josh.
‘Don’t panic,’ he said quietly. ‘We don’t know exactly what we’re dealing with yet.’
‘Status two infarct,’ Josh snapped. ‘Unstable. What the hell happened? Have you had any details? Where was she? Did she … arrest somewhere?’
‘No. That much I do know. She’s status two because she’s throwing off a few ectopics. She’s on oxygen and she’s had aspirin, GTN and morphine. Her breathing’s improving.’
‘Improving? My God, how bad was it?’
‘Josh …’ Ben stepped closer to put a hand on his colleague’s arm. ‘I’ve got this, OK? It’ll be good for Claire if you’re here but you need to stay calm.’
‘What about the children? Were they with her?’
‘I don’t know.’ Ben was looking past Josh now. Towards the double doors sliding open to admit a stretcher and ambulance crew. A nurse was pointing them towards the resus room. He turned to a nurse. ‘Has the cardiology registrar been paged?’
‘Forget the registrar,’ Josh said. ‘Get Anna Davenport down here. This is my mother, for God’s sake.’
Claire looked terrified as she was wheeled into the resus room.
‘Josh …’ she gasped, reaching out a hand. ‘Thank heavens you’re here.’
‘Of course I’m here.’ Josh took hold of the hand. He knew he was getting in the way as the ambulance crew transferred Claire to the bed and gave Ben a handover but, for the first time in years, his mother needed him instead of the other way round. He kept his eyes on her face as the staff stripped away the clothing from her upper body and started adding extra dots so they could take a more comprehensive recording of the electrical activity in her heart. Ben was drawing off bloods for urgent analysis.
‘Let’s sit you up a little bit, Mrs O’Hara,’ a nurse said, slipping another pillow behind Claire. ‘And I’m just switching the oxygen over to this plug on the ceiling so we can get rid of the portable tank. No, don’t take your mask off.’
Claire ignored the nurse, pushing the mask clear of her mouth. ‘The twins, Josh … they’re …’
‘Please keep your mask on.’ The nurse gently moved Claire’s hand. ‘It’s important that you get some oxygen at the moment.’
‘I can hear you.’ Josh leaned closer. ‘What about the twins?’
‘They’re fine.’ The paramedic was loading the portable oxygen cylinder back onto the stretcher. ‘The doctor who called the ambulance for Mrs O’Hara said she’d be bringing them straight here. She can’t be far behind us.’
‘A doctor?’ Josh was confused. ‘Was she at the medical centre?’ Getting treatment, even, for some condition she’d never let him know she had?
‘No. She was at the beach. With the children and a big dog.’
‘Crash. Oh, no …’ The woman coming swiftly into the resus room sounded as though she was starting a conversation with an old friend. ‘What’s he been up to now, Claire?’ She was smiling down at her patient. ‘More importantly, what on earth have you been up to?’
The smile was reassuring but Josh could see the concern in the face of the head of the cardiology department. Concern that increased as a technician handed her the sheet of paper from the twelve-lead ECG machine. Ben was also reading the ECG over her shoulder.
‘What is it?’ Josh forgot his confusion about a doctor being on scene when Claire had become ill. He hadn’t missed the significant glance passing between Anna and Ben.
‘Left anterior,’ Anna said calmly. ‘ST elevation of up to three millimetres. Have we got anything back on the bloods yet? Cardiac enzymes? TNT?’
Josh had to take a deep breath as he heard Ben relay the earliest results. He didn’t want to let Claire know how serious this could be. An infarct that knocked out part of the left ventricle was more likely to have serious consequences. Every minute counted now so that they could save as much cardiac function as possible.
Anna had turned to Claire. ‘You’re having a heart attack, Claire,’ she said gently. ‘But there are things we can do to minimise the damage it might be doing to your heart. I’m going to take you up to the catheter laboratory and we can see exactly where the blockage is in your coronary arteries. We’ll clear it if we can and might put something called a stent in to keep the artery open.’
‘You’re going to … operate on me?’ Claire’s face was as white as the pillow behind her.
‘Not exactly. You’ll be awake. We put a tiny tube inside an artery and that goes into your heart. It’s very clever.’
‘And Anna’s very good at it,’ Ben put in. ‘You’ll be in the best hands, Claire.’
‘We’ll give you a sedative,’ Anna added. ‘You’ll be awake but it won’t hurt and we won’t let you get too anxious.’
‘No.’ Claire shook her head. She tried to peer past the medical team crowded around her bed. ‘I can’t go. Not yet. She said I’d see the children again. Very soon.’
‘Who said?’ Josh could feel the tension of this whole situation spiralling upwards. They couldn’t let Claire get any more upset because there was still a definite risk of her rhythm degenerating into a fatal arrhythmia. Who had his children? Where were they?
‘She does.’ Claire’s lips were trembling. ‘The doctor.’
‘What doctor?’
‘The one who … looked after them … when they were born.’
‘Megan Phillips? But that’s impossible. She’s in Africa.’
‘Not any more.’
Josh froze as he heard the voice coming from behind Ben and Anna on the other side of the bed. Everybody turned to see who was at the entrance to the room. Holding the handles of the double stroller that contained the twins.
‘Daddy.’ Both Max and Brenna’s faces lit up with smiles as they spotted their father. They held up four little arms.
But Josh didn’t even see the plea. His gaze was locked on the woman behind the stroller.
Oh, my God.
Megan.
For just a heartbeat, the world stood absolutely still.
Nothing else mattered.
That his mother was dangerously unwell. That he had two tiny, defenceless children calling for him. That he was the head of a department of St Piran’s Hospital that was gaining widespread recognition as a centre of excellence in emergency medicine.
None of those things could even exist in the space Josh was sucked into for just a second.
A space of such intensity, it pulled the oxygen from the air around him and made it feel impossible for him to breathe.
The space he’d been in on that New Year’s Eve party when he’d met Megan properly for the first time. When he’d sensed the power of truly falling in love. The power that had held his mother captive and broken her life.
He’d been there again in the trauma of that emergency when it had looked as though Megan might die. When he’d sensed the power of what a parent’s love for a child could be as well, and had