Their Very Special Marriage by Kate Hardy

Author:Kate Hardy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mills & Boon
Published: 2015-05-26T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

ON MONDAY morning, Rachel dropped the children at school and nursery and walked into the practice. Her consulting room was exactly as she’d left it, with a framed photograph of Oliver and the children on her desk and the walls decorated with a lion made out of Sophie’s handprints and a robot painted by Robin when he’d first started school.

The one thing Caroline had left—in extremely neat handwriting—was a list of the patients she’d seen. Rachel flicked through the computerised notes on the first couple and knew she wouldn’t have to bother reviewing the rest. Caroline’s notes were concise yet detailed enough so that Rachel would be able to follow exactly what she’d done.

If only you didn’t have your sights set on my husband, Rachel thought. We could have been friends.

Surgery went quickly—the usual Monday morning aches and pains which had got worse over the weekend, a couple of infected splinters, a bad back and a sprained ankle. And then Flora Carson came in.

‘Hello, Flora.’ Oliver had already filled Rachel in on the situation. ‘Come and sit down. How are you feeling?’ Rachel asked.

Flora tried to smile, but admitted, ‘Pretty grim.’

Rachel checked her file. ‘Right. Oliver’s managed to push through your blood tests, and your haemoglobin’s lower than it should be. You’re anaemic, so I’m going to prescribe some iron tablets—they’ll go a long way to making you feel less tired and run down.’

‘Believe me, I ate a ton of spinach over the weekend,’ Flora said feelingly.

Rachel grinned. ‘Rather you than me! The urine sample showed you’re not pregnant, so that’s one complication out of the way. Oliver thinks you might have fibroids, so would you mind if I examined you?’

‘I know I should have let Dr Bedingfield do it last week. I just felt too...well, embarrassed,’ Flora explained.

‘It’s not a problem. Periods aren’t the easiest things to discuss with men. He knows the theory, but...at the end of the day, he’s a man. He’s never actually had a period.’

To her relief, Flora seemed to relax. ‘Would you like to lie down on the couch for me?’ She examined Flora’s abdomen. ‘Sometimes you can feel fibroids, if they’re very big. I can’t feel anything, so I need to do an internal exam. Is that all right?’

Flora nodded.

‘Have you noticed if you’ve needed to wee more often lately?’

‘If anything, it’s the other way round.’

Which could mean that the fibroid—if it was a fibroid—had pushed the neck of the bladder upwards and elongated the urethra. ‘OK. Tell me if anything feels uncomfortable or tender, and I’ll stop straight away,’ Rachel said. The internal exam showed exactly what she’d expected: Flora’s uterus was firm and enlarged in places. There was no tenderness either. ‘It feels like a fibroid to me, but I’d like to send you to hospital for a scan to confirm it and rule out any other problems.’

‘A scan?’ Flora looked worried.

‘Fibroids are benign tumours—they’re not cancerous,’ Rachel reassured her. ‘The scan’s a bit like you’d have if you were pregnant, and it’ll show how many fibroids you have and how big they are.

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