I knew for a fact I didn’t have what it takes to work under that kind of pressure. That place made me wicked crazy,” she said without seeming to take a breath. “Internal medicine seemed the right fit for me. It’s kind of like taking a good mystery—the patient’s symptoms—and step-by-step solving the case by diagnosing and treating them properly. Makes me feel like a medical sleuth, kind of like that TV show, House, you know? So I’m really looking forward to working in your clinic, Dr. Montgomery.”
Just what he needed, his own House. Didn’t she understand that guy would have lost his medical license a hundred different times because of his antics? Cole definitely had his work cut out for him training a new, dreamy-eyed doctor.
Plus, she spoke rapid-fire, with a thick Bostonian accent, and to be honest he often had trouble following her. Depahtmint. Pressha. Lookin’ farwid. But it was kind of amusing at the same time. He suppressed a smile as she talked on and on, probably nervous and wanting to make a good first impression. Meanwhile, he grasped for ways to make this situation work. New doctor. New mother. New clinic. And he’d thought he was out of his depth taking over the clinic before!
For a new mother, she certainly seemed to have a lot of energy, or maybe she was just a hyper type. He hoped she wouldn’t talk his ear off all the time because that would get old fast. Gee, thanks for sticking me with your sight-unseen doctor, Trev, old buddy.
She continued on with her story, and Cole hoped she’d get around to mentioning the baby, but she conveniently skipped over that part. Instead she talked about experiences in medicine and kept assuring him she’d carry her load at the clinic, then stopped midsentence when her eyes settled on Tiberius, who still had an amused smirk on his face.
“Is that how you always smile?” she asked bluntly.
Granted, it was an odd lopsided smile, but Cole figured it was typical of Dad to be a smart aleck over the mixed-up circumstances Cole had found himself in. Then he looked closer. She was right: something was off.
Lizzie popped up from the chair and walked straight to his father. “Smile again,” she said. “Hmm. Give me your hands. Squeeze.” She glanced over her shoulder at Cole, her full arched brows raised, then quickly back to Tiberius. “Are you feeling numbness or tingling on either side?” Tiberius looked confused. “Cole, he’s noticeably weaker on the right. Is this always the case?”
Cole jumped up and strode toward his father and Lizzie. “No.”
“Raise your arms for me, Mr. Montgomery.” The right arm went only half as high as the other. “Can you say ‘the sky is blue’?”
It came out slurred and jumbled. “Sy… boo.”
“I’ll call 911.” Cole dug for the phone in his pocket and made the call.
“He seemed to walk in here just fine, but then I noticed his droopy smile.” Lizzie went down on her knees to look Tiberius in the eyes. “Is your vision blurry?”
He made a tiny shake of his head.
“He needs thrombolytics ASAP. Time is brain,” she said, slipping into doctor mode, stating the obvious door-to-IV necessity for early treatment. “We’ve got a three-hour window.”
Cole filled in the emergency operator. “We need a stroke team ready to go,” he said when he’d finished. She assured him an ambulance would be on the way with estimated time of arrival twenty minutes. The nearest hospital was in Laramie. He did the math and knew time was of the essence if they wanted the best results with his father’s evolving stroke. Panic ripped through him at the thought of losing his dad. He went to him and squeezed his shoulder. “We’ll get the help you need, Dad.”
Tiberius glanced up, seeming a bit disoriented. Trevor’s wedding had taken more of a toll than Cole had realized.
“We should give him an aspirin right now,” Lizzie said.
“He’s already on daily aspirin.”
“Let’s give him another. Research shows the benefits outweigh the risk of causing bleeding in the brain.”
Cole also knew this was an ongoing debate among clinicians. Some researchers said early aspirin was beneficial, others said it could prove risky. The key was whether a clot or a burst vessel was the cause of his father’s stroke, and only a CT scan could prove that. Yet, the overemphasis of TPA, tissue plasminogen activator, as the only treatment could also cause bleeding in the brain. He wasn’t about to take up that debate now with Lizzie when his father was in the middle of a stroke.
“Out of…” Tiberius mumbled.
What? “You’re out of something?” Cole repeated what he thought his father meant.
“Asp.” He looked and sounded like someone who’d just had Novocain injections at the dentist.
His father had a history of TIAs, transient ischemic attacks, and that was caused by blockage. Why hadn’t he gotten a new bottle of aspirin immediately? Cole wanted to wring his dad’s neck, but quickly remembered there’d been a lot of activity going on over the past week with wedding plans and parties and Cole moving back home. Today’s wedding had been an all-day affair. He’d cut his father some slack, but still wondered if this TIA could have been prevented, and whether or not it would turn into a full-blown cerebrovascular accident this time around. The thought sent a shard of fear deep into his chest.
“Let’s do it, then,” Cole said, jogging to the closest medicine cabinet in the hall bathroom. “There isn’t any here,” he called out. Frustration blended with panic.
“I’ve got some in the kitchen,” Gretchen said, close on his heels. “You should have told me you were out, Monty,” she called over her shoulder.
When they returned, Lizzie had remained with Tiberius, reassuring him and distracting him by showing her newborn to him. She cooed over her baby and smiled up at the man. That lopsided smile returned, and his eyes looked calmer and more focused since gazing at the sleeping child.
“Take this, Dad.” Cole gave him the aspirin. “Can you swallow okay?” He tested his dad with a tiny sip from the cup of forgotten tea on the table next to his chair. He seemed to swallow okay, so Cole gave it to him. If this was a true TIA, his symptoms would go away within ten to twenty minutes. If it was a CVA, there was no telling how long or how much worse it could get. By Cole’s count it had already been over ten minutes since Lizzie had astutely noticed his father’s quirky grin, and as of now the symptoms remained unchanged. A foreboding shadow settled around Cole’s vision; worry kicked up the fear he’d tried to suppress. He wasn’t ready to lose his dad. Nowhere near.
“I’m calling the Laramie ER, giving them a preliminary report. I already told them to have the stroke team ready to go the second Dad arrives.”
“Do you have a blood-pressure monitor in the house?” Lizzie asked as he dialed his cell phone.
It’d been so long since Cole had lived here, he didn’t rightly know.
“There’s one in Monty’s bedroom,” Gretchen said, setting off in that direction of the house.
Cole studied his father, then looked at the beautiful baby with a full head of dark hair, just like her mother. The child squirmed and stretched while still deeply asleep, and that simple marvel kept that odd smile on his father’s face. Whatever helped or
