Her Fear by Shelley Shepard Gray

Author:Shelley Shepard Gray
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-05-24T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

July 19

Even though she knew it was vain, Daisy found herself walking into the bathroom and studying her face. She didn’t know why. Her new medication would take a few days to kick in, at the earliest. The rash across the bridge of her nose wasn’t going to fade away immediately.

Besides, an unsightly rash on her skin hadn’t been what was keeping her up at night. It was the fact that she now knew that she had a disease. She had lupus. Systemic lupus. A disease of her immune system.

Soon, the doctors said, she would look “normal”—

But she wouldn’t really be ever again.

As she walked into her kitchen, the doctor’s warnings and diagnosis burned her ears. All of his words jumbled and scrambled in her head, making her wonder if she was ever going to make sense of it. Remission. A normal life. Treatment plans. Plaquenil. Kidney damage. Exhaustion. Fevers. Seizures.

She was thirty-eight years old and had a long-term disease. Try as she might, she couldn’t figure out how she might have contracted it, though the doctor said women of all types got lupus. She supposed it didn’t matter. Whatever reason, God had decided to give it to her.

Taking a peek at the pamphlets the nurse had handed her before she left the office, Daisy knew she should put on her reading glasses and read them again. Once she understood everything, she would start to feel better.

But she would still be tainted, a sneaky voice whispered in her ear.

She was growing to hate that voice. The whiny one riddled with selfish wishes and huge insecurities. The one that pointed out that she was almost forty and was still an old maid. While all of her friends had gotten married, had children, or even grandchildren, she’d been on her own.

Sometimes, in the middle of the night, that voice even tried to persuade her that she wasn’t worthy of love and marriage.

After allowing herself one more minute of doldrums, she added ice to a Mason jar and poured in some water, then she slipped a straw hat on over her kapp and went outside to the front porch, picking up her latest crochet project on the way. She’d begun crocheting baby blankets to give to a local charity organization that delivered them to new mothers in Appalachia.

As her mother had often told her, it was far better to focus on others’ needs than her own.

It seemed her mother hadn’t been wrong. An hour later she felt better. Maybe not like her normal self, but far more positive. She also had a lovely soft pink blanket to show for it.

“I guess this was perfect timing,” a voice called out.

Missing a stitch, Daisy’s hands stilled as she watched Stephen Stauffer stride up her walkway with a brown paper shopping bag in his right hand.

“Hi, Stephen.” Just as she was about to stand up, she noticed his gaze search her face. His easy smile turned into concern.

“You’re upset.”

She shrugged, and set her yarn aside. “A little.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.