The Doctor’s Secret Family by Alison Roberts

Author:Alison Roberts [Roberts, Alison]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2015-02-23T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

THE emergency department was humming.

Many of the cubicles had their curtains drawn, hiding the occupants, and Hannah had no clue which one might contain her daughter. A registrar appeared from one and Hannah could see a large woman lying on the bed behind him. A nurse flicked another curtain back as she pushed a blood-pressure cuff stand into a cubicle where an elderly man was sitting. Hannah skirted three ambulance stretchers waiting in a line in the triage area. The resuscitation areas used to treat more seriously unwell patients were all in use and all had their curtains drawn. Hannah poked her head into Resus 1 to see an intubation procedure in progress on someone who was clearly in cardiac arrest. A distraught-looking relative was still present and Hannah’s own anxiety increased further. Olivia was the only family she had. The only part of her life she couldn’t survive without.

She hesitated. Which area should she look into next? It would probably be quicker to try and catch the attention of the busy triage nurse and ask where her daughter was but when Hannah tried, the nurse looked blank.

‘Olivia Campbell? I don’t think she’s here.’

‘Four-year-old girl. Blond hair,’ Hannah prompted. ‘She’s been brought in after an accident at a day care centre.’

The nurse shook her head again, her attention rapidly diverted by the patient on the stretcher in front of her as the woman began vomiting. Hannah looked away desperately and saw Peter emerging from Resus 3.

‘Peter!’ Hannah narrowly missed a collision with a registrar pushing a twelve-lead ECG trolley. ‘Where is she? How is she?’

‘She’s fine, Hannah. She hasn’t been injured at all.’ Peter’s hands were on Hannah’s shoulders, his grip as reassuring as his tone. ‘The woman who runs the centre—Shirley, is it? She said she had to bring Livvy with them because she was so upset at being separated from Ben.’

‘Ben?’ Hannah was bewildered now. What did Jack’s son have to do with this?

‘He’s Jack Douglas’s son. Apparently he goes to the same day care as Livvy. Coincidence, isn’t it? Didn’t you know how friendly they were with each other?’

‘Yes, I knew.’ Hannah’s nod was impatient. ‘But what’s Ben doing here?’

‘He had a bit of a knock. Nothing serious, but with his condition we can’t be too careful.’

‘What condition?’

‘He has Von Willebrand’s disease.’

Hannah’s brain went into overdrive. Von Willebrand’s disease was a bleeding disorder, similar to haemophilia in its reduced factor Vlll activity but differentiated by the mechanism that produced a prolonged bleeding time. Like haemophilia, the degree of severity was highly variable but Hannah had a sudden memory of the bruises on Ben’s legs and arm. She could hear his understanding tone when he’d said so matter-of-factly, ‘Dad worries about me’, and she could just imagine how ‘cross’ Jack would have been that Ben had been riding Joseph without a helmet.

‘He’s quite seriously affected, isn’t he?’ she asked quietly.

Peter nodded. ‘He also has the complication of having type IIB Von Willebrand’s. He can’t be treated with

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.