Motherhood is Murder(36)

I imagined them examining the contents for the poison in order to figure out how to treat Laurie.

Was she going to have to have this awful tube inserted?

The thought of Laurie threw me into overdrive and tears streamed down my face.

“Calm down, honey. We’re almost through here. You’re going to be fine.” Nancy patted my arm.

Trying to suppress the sobs was making my breathing speed up. But breathing fast with a tube down your throat is really difficult so I willed myself to stop panicking.

Laurie was with a doctor and Jim. Surely they were taking good care of her.

Dr. Wong prepared a syringe.

“We’re going to take a small sample of blood to send to the lab,” Nancy said as she wrapped a rubber tie around my arm.

I wanted to nod my understanding, but didn’t want to move the tube.

Screw it.

They were going to take my blood whether I nodded or not.

I hardly felt the pinprick of the needle over the tube, which seemed to be growing inside my throat. Weren’t ten minutes up yet?

After they drew the blood, Dr. Wong examined the package attached to the tube and nodded to Nancy.

She leaned over and said, “Okay, Kate, the procedure is complete. I’m going to remove the tube now. You’ll feel a little discomfort as I do this.”

“A little,” of course, turned out to be an understatement. It felt like she was ripping out my throat. What followed was a severe case of dry heaves.

Nancy rubbed my shoulder. “Yes, yes. This is normal. Take your time.”

I recovered a bit and lay down on my back. It had been the worst experience of my life, bar none.

Please, God, don’t let Laurie have to have her stomach pumped!

Dr. Wong leaned into me. “Kate, the contents of your stomach and your blood will be analyzed in the lab. We’ll be monitoring you for symptoms. I need you to try and rest as much as possible.”

I nodded.

I guessed that they would compare my results to Celia’s and Helene’s in order to figure out a treatment for Laurie. With the procedure over, I had nowhere to turn my thoughts except to Laurie.

An image of her, with all sorts of tubes attached to her tiny body, popped into my head. This image charged me with so much emotion that my heart felt like it was collapsing onto itself and suffocating me.

I prayed and wept.





CHAPTER SIXTEEN





Faux Pas





I awoke with a start. Jim was sitting on the end of the bed, holding my feet in his lap. Suddenly the events of the previous hours flooded my mind. I was in the recovery room at the hospital, everything looking foreign and sparse. I bolted upright.

“Laurie! Where is she? How is—” A sob choked off the rest of my words.

Jim rubbed my feet. “Laurie is fine. She’s being spoiled rotten over in the pediatric unit. The nurses keep passing her around and cooing at her. She’s loving it.”

I swallowed hard. My throat was extremely sore and dry from the procedure and crying made it feel worse, but I couldn’t help myself. Tears streamed down my cheeks as relief overwhelmed me. “She’s okay? What did they do? Did they pump her stomach?”

“No. They didn’t have to do anything to her. She was perfectly fine,” Jim soothed.

“I . . . I . . . didn’t poison her through my milk?” I sobbed.

Jim squeezed my feet. “The doctor doesn’t think you were poisoned.”

I stared at him.

Not poisoned?

This was good. This was very good. Laurie hadn’t had to be treated. I had not been poisoned!

Why didn’t I feel elated?

Because I’d had my stomach pumped for NOTHING! “What about my symptoms?” I asked.

“What symptoms, honey?”

“I threw up. My tongue was getting thick. It was hard to breathe. I was sick.”

“Honey, those weren’t symptoms of poisoning. The doctor says most likely you were experiencing a panic attack.”

I shook my head. “No. No. I was sick. I threw up in the toilet at Bruce’s condo. What if I flushed the evidence?”

“They’re going to run the test anyway, but they probably won’t have results for a week or so. The doc said you didn’t have the same stuff going as Celia. He’s pretty sure your results are going to be negative.”

“But if they don’t know for sure, what about Laurie?”

“She never showed any signs of distress. No shallow breathing, drowsiness, slowed heart rate, and whatever all else. The doctor rattled off so many symptoms that I lost track. Point being, she didn’t have any of them.”

Thank God for all the doctors and nurses, going to medical school, studying so hard, and sacrificing so much to be able to help us!

“How is Celia?” I asked.

“She’s in stable condition. She was almost unconscious by the time they got her here. So they think her results are going to show something. But anyway, they were able to pump her stomach in time and expect a full recovery.” Jim’s expression was grave. “You saved her life.”

We sat in silence for a moment.

“My throat is killing me,” I said.

Jim handed me a cup of water with a straw from the bedside table. I sipped the water and felt it burn going down. Swallowing made the pain worse.