‘He’s one lucky little boy, isn’t he? He’s going to need a good course of antibiotics and he’ll have a couple of sizeable scars, but that’s about it. Keep that stick—I’m sure the family’s going to want it as a souvenir.’
Holly witnessed the joy of Taylor’s parents as Ryan met them afterwards to relay the good news. They were hours late finishing their ward round but neither minded a bit. Holly had never felt so inspired.
‘I’m going to register to sit my Part 2 next year,’ she told Ryan. ‘I can’t wait to become a fully qualified surgeon.’
‘It’s a huge amount of work. Are you sure you want to throw yourself into a study regime like that so soon?’
‘I’m sure,’ Holly said firmly. Ryan wasn’t going to persuade her to slow down on this one. She had always been prepared to fight for what she wanted most. She’d had to fight for it up till now and maybe old habits never quite died. But to her pleasant surprise, Ryan didn’t even try to talk her out of anything. He smiled a real Ryan smile instead.
‘Then I’ll do whatever I can to help you,’ he said.
The realisation that she might still have to fight for some of what she wanted came a few days later after an outpatient clinic where they had seen Leo and given him an enthusiastic final clearance after his surgery. Bianca had brought the family’s newest addition along to the appointment and, at six weeks old, Sophie was still tiny.
She wore a velvety soft, pink sleepsuit and when Holly held her, she smiled. Holly was smitten.
‘I want one,’ she confessed to Ryan as they lay in each other’s arms late that night.
‘So do I, my love.’
‘Shall we try? After I finish my exams next year?’
‘Sure. Why not? It could take a while, though. We might want to get started on the paperwork well before we set up a nursery.’
‘But it might happen straight away. I wouldn’t want to cope with exams and morning sickness.’
She felt Ryan’s whole body tense. ‘Morning sickness? You’re not actually considering a pregnancy, are you?’
Holly smiled. ‘That’s the usual way most people have a baby.’
‘You’re not most people.’ Ryan pushed himself away from Holly, propping himself up on one elbow so that he seemed to loom over her in the darkness. ‘The risks of you having your own child are way too much, Holly.’
‘But you said you wanted one, too.’
‘I was talking about adoption.’
‘But…’ Holly felt bewildered. Adoption to her was a second choice. Acceptable, certainly, but only if it was not possible to have the child of the man she loved enough to want to spend the rest of her life with. ‘But I want your baby, Ryan.’
She felt, rather than saw, his head shaking. After all you’ve been through, Holly, how can you even consider it? Polycystic kidney disease is an autosomal dominant inheritable disease. Any child of ours would have a fifty per cent chance of having it.’
‘And of those people, half of them are going to get through life with no symptoms. Only fifty per cent of people with PKD require dialysis treatment before they’re sixty or even older.’
‘That’s a one in four chance of being affected, then.’
‘And that wouldn’t even show up until adulthood. Half a million people in the States have PKD, Ryan. There’s research going on all the time. We’re talking twenty years down the track. There could be all kinds of advances in both diagnosis and treatment by then.’
‘It’s still far too much of a risk.’
Holly was silent for a long moment. ‘Yes,’ she said finally. ‘It is a risk, but think about this. My parents might not have known about that risk but even if they had I wouldn’t resent them passing it on to me. I’m glad I’m alive and I’m going to fight to stay alive and as healthy as possible. Yes, I’ve had tough times but a lot of people can be born perfectly healthy and have it much harder than I have. And I’ve had my share of pure joy as well.’
She reached up and touched Ryan’s face. ‘I’m happier right now than anyone who has ever walked this earth. I’m glad I was born.’
Ryan caught her hand, held her palm against his lips and kissed it. ‘Not as glad as I am, darling.’
‘If you still feel this strongly about it when we’re ready to start a family, I’m prepared to compromise.’
‘Compromise? What—adopt half a baby?’
Holly smiled. ‘No, you idiot. I’m talking about fertility treatment. Using a donor egg, perhaps, so I can still have the joy of being pregnant and giving birth to our child.’
Ryan’s grip on her hand tightened. ‘But the risks for that are huge, too.’
‘Every pregnancy has its share of risk. To both the mother and baby.’
‘Not as much as it would be in your case.’
‘There are lots of success stories out there for kidney transplant women having their own babies.’ Holly squeezed Ryan’s hand now, hopefully reassuringly. ‘I want to be one of those women, Ryan.’
He lay down again and gathered Holly into his arms, holding her tightly enough for it to be vaguely uncomfortable.
‘I love you,’ Ryan said almost fiercely. ‘I want to keep you safe.’
‘I know,’ Holly whispered, ‘but you can’t wrap me in cotton wool, sweetheart. I want to live but I also want to get as much as I can out of every minute of being alive.’
‘We’ll work it out,’ he said softly. ‘We’ll find a way through this together.’ He kissed Holly. A touch of reassurance that quickly became something more.
A confirmation of their love? Or was it a distraction? A way of avoiding an issue that Holly couldn’t quite put her finger on but which she knew was important.
The feeling that she was missing a hidden layer in their differing viewpoints was strong enough to linger for Holly. There was something disturbing enough about it to want to let it go but Holly knew that she couldn’t afford to do that.
She knew that Ryan cared about her. He wasn’t trying to undermine her autonomy or to take away her choices about what she did with her life or how she used her body. For heaven’s sake, it had been Ryan who’d given her the chance to use her body in ways that would have been only a dream just a matter of weeks ago.
He loved her. He would support her choices. Just as he intended to do regarding her career. It wouldn’t be the easiest life to manage two high-powered careers and still have the time and energy to make a marriage work well, but Holly was absolutely confident that Ryan would do whatever it took.
Just as she would.
The nagging worry just wouldn’t go away completely, however, and it stayed with Holly throughout the next day. By the time she reached her last task and was feeling somewhat weary, it became even more difficult not to let that worry gain precedence over what she needed to do. Seven-year-old Hannah was being admitted prior to surgery for a localised narrowing in her aorta that was preventing oxygenated blood from the heart reaching her lower body.
The condition had not been severe enough to be picked up close to birth, and other blood vessels had taken over the job of getting the blood to the right places, becoming greatly enlarged in the process. The left ventricle of the heart had also become enlarged due to the workload of getting past the obstruction but it had been a routine examination that had detected Hannah’s high blood pressure and a heart murmur that had led to diagnosis.
Holly scanned Hannah’s notes briefly to get her mind properly on track before going to see her patient. Drug treatment to combat the hypertension had been instigated two weeks prior to surgery and the response had been good. Hopefully, she wouldn’t need any drug support once the defect in her aorta had been corrected. It was hard on young children having to take pills every day.
At least Ryan had given up those parent-like reminders to Holly about her anti-rejection medication. He could take her viewpoint on board and change his behaviour accordingly, couldn’t he? And Holly could understand where he was coming from. Of course he had a vested i
nterest in the performance of a body part that used to be his own. Who wouldn’t?
She could understand his viewpoint about having a child of her own as well. But Ryan now trusted her to remember her pills and monitor her own health. He trusted that she could take on and cope with the long hours and study needed to pass her final exams and become a qualified surgeon. So surely he could come to trust her judgement regarding a possible pregnancy? That she could be equally responsible about any extra risks she took with her health?
Holly was confident that she could find a way to convince him. Only not right now because there were other things to think about. Like Hannah. Holly went to the single room that had been Michaela’s not so long ago and found a rather frightened-looking girl with the lovely combination of red-gold hair and brown eyes who was much happier to talk about school than her medical condition.
‘I love art the best,’ she told Holly. ‘Drawing and painting.’
‘She’s very good at it,’ her mother said proudly. ‘You’re going to be famous one day, aren’t you, darling?’
Hannah’s smile was modest. ‘I could draw something for you, if you like,’ she said to Holly.
‘I’d love that.’
‘What would you like a picture of?’
‘Oh, gosh. Anything.’ Holly’s gaze wandered in search of inspiration and didn’t have to go far. A bright frieze decorated the room in which jungle animals peered through improbably lurid vegetation. ‘A lion,’ she said with conviction, ‘that’s what I’d like.’ And that naturally reminded her of Ryan and the costume he intended to wear for the fun run. Holly pulled her gaze away from the frieze as Hannah spoke again.
‘How long do I have to be in here?’
‘It shouldn’t be for more than a few days. I’ve just got to make sure you’re OK for the operation first. How are you feeling?’
‘OK, I guess.’
‘She’s been coughing a bit,’ her mother said anxiously.
‘Has she?’ That could be a side effect from the medication to lower blood pressure but Holly made a mental note to pay particular attention to listening to Hannah’s chest. An active infection would mean having to delay surgery. Checking the chart on the end of the bed revealed a normal temperature. ‘Anything else? Do you have a headache, Hannah?’
‘A bit.’
‘Runny nose?’
‘A bit.’
Holly took her time to examine Hannah carefully. There was just a suggestion that she might be coming down with a viral illness and that meant she’d have to confer with Ryan. When she left to go and phone him, Hannah’s mother followed her from the room, clearly wanting to talk, so Holly stopped.
‘Is she really sick, do you think?’
‘I’m going to get Mr Murphy to come and see her as well. I don’t think it’s anything serious but he may want to leave the surgery for a day or so just to make sure.’
‘Oh, no! I really wanted to get this over with. It’s such a worry. It’s a really big operation, isn’t it?’
‘Open chest surgery is never undertaken lightly,’ Hannah agreed, ‘but Hannah’s operation is straightforward. She doesn’t need to go on bypass. All we need to do is remove the narrowed section of the aorta and join it up again.’
‘And that’s going to cure her? She’s not going to get any of those horrible complications they told us about, like heart failure and strokes?’
‘Hannah’s at the right age for this procedure to completely reverse her high blood pressure and remove the threat of aneurysms and heart failure. We’re confident that this will be the only surgery she’s going to need.’
Holly glanced through the window of the door behind them and smiled at Hannah, who was busy with a pad of paper and a packet of coloured felt pens. The girl pointed to the frieze behind her and Holly gave her a thumbs-up sign to show she understood that Hannah was already working on her lion picture.
And then, thanks to the association with lions, and in a blinding flash of inspiration, it struck her.
The fun run was three weeks away. Enough time for Holly to train and gather sponsorship. If she wore a costume that was enough of a disguise, Ryan wouldn’t need to know anything about it until she crossed the finish line.
And wouldn’t that make a statement about how capable she was of making her own choices and judging what she was physically able to achieve?
It could well be enough to convince Ryan and that would spell the end of that nagging worry. Holly gave a tiny, decisive nod before turning back to make sure Hannah’s mother was feeling reassured.
She couldn’t afford not to try, could she? She might not be able to run the whole way but making the attempt should be enough and it didn’t matter if she had to walk the last bit.
She would do it, though. One way or another, Holly was determined to reach that finish line.
CHAPTER EIGHT
MAYBE that finish line was further away than she’d thought.
Holly clung to the side bars of the machine as the belt her feet had been moving on gradually slowed. Her breath came in painful gasps and her heart pounded so hard it was alarming. Trickles of perspiration were running down her back and leg muscles shrieked a loud protest.
‘How long was that?’
‘Two minutes.’
‘You’re kidding!’ Holly’s face screwed into lines of dismay. She kept her head down and concentrated on getting her breath back. How could she be so unfit? She’d been walking every morning and feeling like she could easily join Ryan on his faster sections, but two minutes on the treadmill at the closest gymnasium to St Margaret’s had been a revelation.
The personal trainer assigned to Holly’s initial evaluation was a young and extremely fit-looking woman called Janine who was currently standing beside the treadmill with a clipboard in her hands.
‘OK. You’ve been stopped for one minute.’ She leaned in to see the reading on the display panel on the front of the treadmill. ‘That’s not so bad. Your heart rate is dropping quite fast. Good recovery.’
Holly could take a deeper breath now. ‘I’m horribly unfit, though.’
‘How long is it since you’ve run for that long?’
‘Probably ten years.’
‘Well, there you go. And you’ve been unwell for a long time. Plus you’ve had major surgery recently. You can’t expect to get out and run a marathon straight away.’
‘I don’t want to run a marathon. I’m just aiming for a fun run. Maybe eight kilometres or so. I don’t even need to run the whole way. I could walk whenever I got tired.’
‘When is it?’
‘Three weeks away.’ The pain of this first attempt was fading. ‘Do you reckon I can make it?’
Janine tried to look encouraging but doubt was written all over her face. ‘How often can you get to the gym?’
‘Every day,’ Holly said with conviction. She’d find a way somehow. Ryan had been supportive when she had said she was going ahead with her intention to join the gym, but he thought she was planning a gradual programme of weightlifting to boost general fitness and Holly hadn’t disillusioned him.
She couldn’t afford to appear obsessive about attendance, though. Two or three visits a week would be the maximum number that would seem reasonable but Ryan didn’t have to know about every visit, did he? Holly could slip in a session in the occasional lunch-break or use the time when Ryan made it to his regular fencing club night or embarked on a mini chess tournament with his grandfather.
Maybe it was too big an ask but there was no harm in trying. If she became unwell in some way, she would put the brakes on, but she was hoping she wouldn’t have to. After that moment of inspiration the previous day, she’d rung a costume shop after making an appointment at the gym, and from the animal costumes available had chosen that of a black panther. With enough face paint on, Ryan wouldn’t recognise her in a hurry and he’d be way ahead of her in the run in any case. The image of seeing his amazement—and pride—when she crossed the finish line was t
oo good to give up.
‘See?’ she’d be able to say. ‘I can do it.’
The sneaking suspicion that Ryan might be a lot less than pleased by the fact she was pushing herself so hard was easy enough to shove under a mental carpet. It was her body after all. Her choice of how hard she pushed. Holly had lived with such limitations on her physical capabilities for so long, it was a little scary to have the boundaries removed. How far could she go? It was exciting as well as scary. Holly wanted to find out just how much she was capable of and if she didn’t give the boundaries a good shove, how would she ever know?
Holly managed two and a half minutes on the treadmill the following day before she felt like she was about to die. And three minutes the day after that, when she took an hour from her work day when Ryan was in a meeting with hospital administration staff to discuss departmental budgeting.
It was an effort to appear cheerful when she headed back to the hospital to meet Ryan and check on their patients. The goal of completing the fun run with any kind of style seemed impossible if she could only gain a half a minute a day. Perhaps she should just give up and go back to the gentle kind of programme that everybody thought more suitable for a recent kidney transplant patient. Ryan’s surprise and a confidence that she could make her own decisions regarding her body might just have to go on a back burner for now.
He was already in the ward when Holly arrived, and he seemed annoyed at her lateness.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I got caught up a bit.’
‘You’re here now anyway.’
Ryan’s tone was cool and he looked away as soon as Holly caught his gaze. ‘Let’s get on with it, shall we? We’ve got a lot to get through.’
The administrative meeting he’d just attended was probably responsible, Holly decided. While they kept their private and professional lives as separate as possible, he seemed far more distant than normal.
But his smile for Taylor Johnson, the boy who’d been speared with the tree branch, was as warm as ever.
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