Ring of Fire(93)

She wondered what Harvey would take in trade for his prodigious supply. Maybe Mike Stearns wouldn't miss one or two of the town's pickup trucks. "What did you think of Grantville?"





"I saw so many wondrous things, my head fair spins." He tapped his temple. "It is a marvelous place, but you are all so very far from home."





"This is our home now." Anne looked out through the small window at Uli's farmhouse. Tibelda reminded her so much of Granny, and over the past months Sharon had been like a sister to her. Even the lofty Dr. Harvey had brought something back to her life—pride in her work and her heritage.





The coffee didn't hurt, either.





"I am glad you feel that way." Adam watched her eyelids droop. "Does your husband share the same sentiments?"





"No husband." Anne yawned, then lifted her left hand and languidly wiggled her ringless fingers. "No time . . . for . . . one. . . ."





As she fell asleep, Adam caught her hand and gently lowered it to rest at her side. "Ah, but Lady Anne, you are in a different time now."





* * *



Despite his aggravated gout, Harvey refused to be kept from the patient, and limped in several hours later. Since Drud's heart rate had improved, and his fever remained low-grade, Balthazar called everyone to the table. Father Mazzare tactfully invited Uli for a walk and guided the peasant woman out of the house.





"Sharon has stabilized the patient, and will monitor him so that we may concentrate on diagnosing his condition," The physician scanned the faces around him. "Dr. Harvey, you have far superior knowledge of anatomy, while Frau Tibelda understands the nature of botanical medicines. I myself have studied a wide variety of healing practices used in many different lands and have learned much from my new colleagues in Grantville. If we consult together—"





"With her?" Harvey rose to his feet, gasped, then dropped back in his chair. "It is our duty to drive women practitioners out of our profession, man, not collaborate with them!"





"If it wasn't for Frau Tibelda, Drud would be dead," Anne said from the doorway. She still looked shaky, but the color had returned to her face, and her voice was much stronger. "I didn't keep him alive until you got here. The medicine she made did."





When Harvey glanced at Balthazar, he nodded.





"Very well." The English physician regarded the herbalist with thinly veiled dislike. "We will consult on the matter . . . together."





Anne thought of morning ward rounds as they went together to examine Drud. Balthazar listened as she described the patient's progression, and showed him the makeshift chart she'd kept on his vitals. Sharon had performed an EKG earlier, and explained the results to Tibelda and Harvey.





"An incredible device." Harvey examined the paper strip. "It also supports my diagnosis. As you can see"—he pointed to several clusters—"the lines that are shorter, here, here, and here. This can only be attributed to dysfunction."





"The lines are the same, at the same spaces," Tibelda said. "Would they not grow more shallow as his lungs seize?"





Balthazar examined the tape, then consulted the vitals on Drud's chart. "You are both right. The lines do indicate a dysfunction, but one that is regular. This condition may have originated much earlier in his life, and been of some duration."





"Wait." Anne recalled something the English physician had said. "Dr. Harvey, you told me you'd seen a lot of people with this condition die. How old were they?"





"Most of them were children or adolescents." Harvey's shrewd eyes moved to the patient. "Now that I think of it, I've never actually treated a middle-aged person with this type of dysfunction."





Anne took a quick breath. "A congenital heart defect, like abnormal walls, or valves, or vessels. That's it. He's had this from birth, Dr. Abrabanel."





"Corrective surgery or implanted devices sustain patients in your time, Anne, but as for the present"—Balthazar shook his head—"such a defect means retarded growth and development, and an early grave. Even if Drud somehow survived childhood despite this, as an adult his health would have rapidly deteriorated."





"Perhaps not." Tibelda looked thoughtful. "Anne, what manner of defect would make Drud this way?"





"It could be aortic valve stenosis—having two flaps in a valve in his heart, instead of three. Over the years, the flaps tend to become calcified, and that causes regurgitation of blood into the ventricle. In other words, his heart doesn't pump enough blood out." She rubbed the back of her neck. "But Balthazar is right, it doesn't fit. An untreated defect would become very serious in adulthood. Drud's symptoms appeared out of nowhere."