now she found herself wishing that she’d arranged to have it decorated. It had always been a gloomy room and a fresh lick of paint would have brightened it up. She should have got rid of some of the old-fashioned furniture, too. Ian had insisted on keeping the room exactly as his father had left it, but it was time the place was updated.
She frowned as she opened the door to her own room. It, too, desperately needed modernising. Ian had always refused to modernise the surgery but maybe it was time she did so. She couldn’t keep clinging to the past because it was what Ian would have wanted. She had to make her own decisions and it was a surprise to find herself thinking along such lines. She wasn’t sure what had sparked it off so she tried to forget about it as she summoned her first patient. There would be time enough for colour charts and fabric swatches later!
Her first patient was Diane Hartley, a teacher at the local high school. Helen smiled when she came into the room. ‘Hello, Diane. It’s not often I see you here on a weekday.’
‘No, and I feel dreadful about taking time off work, too, but I just had to come and see you.’
She suddenly burst into tears so Helen quickly got up and led her to the chair next to her desk. ‘Here, take this,’ she said, handing Diane a tissue. She waited while the other woman wiped her eyes then smiled at her. ‘Now, tell me what’s wrong.’
‘I don’t know! That’s the trouble. I feel so miserable all the time and I can’t seem to stop crying.’ Diane blew her nose. ‘It’s as though there’s this black cloud hanging over me all the time. It’s driving poor Martin mad.’
‘I’m sure Martin is more concerned about you than anything else,’ Helen assured her. She certainly didn’t want to add to the poor woman’s woes by encouraging her to worry about how her husband was feeling. ‘When did this all start?’
‘It’s been going on for a while now,’ Diane admitted. ‘I just kept telling myself to stop being so silly but it’s got to the point now where I don’t know what to do. I can’t keep on feeling this awful all the time, Dr Daniels. Life isn’t worth living.’
‘Then we need to do something about it,’ Helen said firmly, standing up. ‘I’m going to examine you to get an idea of how your health is generally and we’ll take it from there.’
She examined Diane and found nothing to alarm her. Putting her stethoscope away, she went to one of the cupboards. ‘I’d like to take a blood sample, if you wouldn’t mind. We need to find out if there’s a physical cause for the way you’re feeling.’
‘Of course I don’t mind!’ Diane sounded so relieved that Helen looked at her in surprise. Diane blushed. ‘I thought I was having some sort of mental breakdown. There’s a lot of pressure in my job and I assumed it was that which was causing the problem.’
‘It could very well be a factor,’ Helen agreed. ‘However, these feelings you’ve been experiencing could also be the result of physical changes in your body. Have you noticed anything else unusual happening recently?’
‘Well, yes, now that you mention it, I’ve been having these terrible hot spells. I wake up at night because I’m dripping wet. And my periods have become very irregular, too. I’ve always been like clockwork but I never know when I’m going to come on nowadays. Do you think they might be linked to how miserable I’ve been feeling lately?’
Helen chose her words with care. There could be a common factor linking all those symptoms and one that Diane might not be happy about, either. ‘It’s possible, if your oestrogen levels have dropped.’
‘My oestrogen levels…’ Diane repeated, then gasped. ‘You don’t think I could be going through the menopause, do you? I mean, I’m only thirty-six so surely it’s far too early for that to happen?’
‘I don’t intend to make any snap judgements today. However, you told me last year that you and Martin were trying for a baby so it’s possible that you haven’t conceived because your fertility levels have fallen. The blood test will confirm that, one way or the other.’
‘But does that mean I won’t be able to have a baby now?’ Diane asked in dismay.
‘I really can’t say what will happen until I know exactly what’s going on, Diane,’ Helen replied gently, uncapping a syringe and taking an alcohol swab out of its foil packet.
‘How long will it take to find out?’ Diane demanded, wincing as the needle slid into her arm.
‘Just a couple of days.’ Helen carefully withdrew the small amount of blood she needed for the tests and smiled reassuringly. ‘I’ll give it top priority so we should have the results back by the end of the week. And I’ll phone you immediately once I get them.’
‘And if it is the onset of the menopause, then what happens? Is there anything you can do to stop it?’
‘If it is that, I shall refer you to a fertility specialist. There’s a very good clinic near Blackpool which has achieved some excellent results. But it’s all speculation at this stage. We need to see those results before we know what we’re dealing with.’
Diane sighed as she stood up. ‘I don’t know what I’m hoping for now. If the tests show that I’m going through an early menopause, it will explain why I’ve been feeling so dreadful, but it could also mean that Martin and I might never have a family.’
‘I know how difficult it must be for you but at least we’re doing something positive and that’s the main thing.’
Helen made herself sound as upbeat as possible as she saw Diane out. However, she couldn’t helping drawing a comparison with her own situation. She was thirty-eight and her own fertility levels must be dropping, too. Ian had never wanted them to have a child because he’d had the twins. His first wife had died soon after Helen had started her GP training at The Beeches and it had seemed the most natural thing in the world to offer her help when Ian had found it difficult to manage with two small children to look after on top of doing his job.
Tom and Katie had been six when she had married Ian, and by that time she had loved them as much as she would have loved her own children. However, she couldn’t deny that it had been a blow when she’d found out that Ian hadn’t wanted to add to their family. She’d kept hoping that he would change his mind, but it hadn’t happened. Now it seemed unlikely that she would ever give birth to her own son or daughter, and she couldn’t help feeling sad at the thought of what she was missing.
No wonder Lewis was so determined to do all he could for his daughter, she thought, then sighed in exasperation. Why did every single thought lead back to Lewis?
Lewis was late for the meeting, mainly because he still hadn’t got used to judging the length of time he could spend with each patient. Six minutes were allotted for each consultation and it was far too little in his opinion. Harry and Amy were already sitting at the staffroom table with an open tin of biscuits in front of them when he arrived. Helen was pouring coffee and she glanced round when he appeared.
‘Black or white?’
‘Black, please, with plenty of sugar.’
‘Sounds like you had a hard morning,’ Amy said, grinning as he sat down. A pretty girl in her twenties, she was engaged to a policeman and in the throes of planning a summer wedding.
‘I haven’t adjusted to the conveyor-belt system you operate here so
