The Doctor's Unexpected Family: (Inspirational Romance) (Port Provident: Hurricane Hope) (2 page)

One was coming to Port Provident to take over the clinic for his aunt and uncle.

The other was to put all the dreams he’d had for the future aside. He’d once thought he was that white-picket-fence-and-two-point-five-kids kind of guy. But without Anna, reminders of that dream were more like nightmares. And in a town like Port Provident, with block after block of historic Victorian homes, there were a lot of picket fences—and the ache that came with seeing them hadn’t faded with time, as Pete had hoped.

It was time to move on. He was closing the clinic for good and had already applied to join the Mercy Medical Mission team full-time. He wanted to go to a place where he could both remove himself from reminders of Anna and finally use his medical skills to help heal people who had no access to the quality of care provided in the western medical system.

He was so close to a new beginning. But since he still had at least a few weeks in Port Provident, he had time to do Gloria and her friends a favor.

“How is she?” Pete stopped in front of a skinny young man in his early twenties. “I’m Dr. Pete Shipley. Gloria Rodriguez sent me over.”

“She’s doing ok, I think. She gets a little dizzy when she sits up. She tells me she’s fine, but I can see it in her eyes.”

The young man shot a quick glance into the tent. Pete followed the direction of the young man’s eyes and saw an equally young woman lying on an air mattress with pillows propped all around her. She was also clearly in an advanced state of pregnancy. He ducked through the cut-out that served as the door to the tent, then motioned at Pete to follow him.

“Marisa, this is Dr. Pete Shipley. Gloria asked him to come check you out. He’s going to make sure you’re ok.”

Pete put his hand out to shake, but the girl only gave a stubborn glance at him, then focused her eyes on the young man who’d squeezed into the fabric dome behind them.

“I’m fine. Quit making a big fuss over me.”

There was no mistaking the tone in her voice. But her breathing looked a little shallow, and Pete felt like her bravado was covering up a maternal fear that something was indeed very, very wrong.

“Marisa, could I just ask you a few questions? You’re right, this is probably nothing, but I’d really like to make sure of that—and I’m sure your friends and family would too. It won’t take but a few minutes.” In an attempt to get at eye level with his recalcitrant patient, Pete dropped down and squatted at the corner of the air mattress as he spoke.

Her lips pressed together so hard that they began to blanch. They also looked dry and scaly. The skin under her eyes was sunken and gray as well. Pete started adding the signs together, putting his observations on a mental checklist.

“Can we just talk for a second?” Pete tried again after he got no response. Before he’d taken over the birth center for his aunt and uncle, Pete had spent several years as an emergency room physician, where he’d encountered just about every personality type under the sun.

Stubborn women were practically a specialty of his.

Marisa bit her lip, then nodded briefly. “But
he
needs to leave.”

The tilt of her head left no doubt as to who she meant.

“Ok, Marisa, I’ll just stand right outside.” Her husband turned pointed outside, then ducked back through the tent’s door.

Alone with his patient, Pete decided not to waste any more time on pleasantries. He didn’t know when Marisa would declare the interview over. She clearly was not in a mood to chat or be fussed over.

“How much have you had to drink today?”

Pete opened the blue bag he’d placed on the floor in front of him and rummaged for his stethoscope, then he put it on and placed the flat disc over Marisa’s heart as he waited for her answer.

“I don’t know. Some orange juice this morning and a soda at lunch.”

“And that’s it? No water? Nothing else?” Her heart rate was a little fast, but nothing far out of the ordinary.

The young mother-to-be shook her head.

Pete put the stethoscope back and pulled out a small white box, a portable fetal Doppler, and a tube of gel.

“This’ll be cold, so brace yourself.” He squirted a little dollop of blue goop on her rounded abdomen, then began to slide the Doppler’s little ultrasound attachment around. “Ok, and what have you had to eat?”

She closed her eyes as the
whoosh-whoosh
of the baby’s heartbeat came through the small plastic speaker. “One of those little boxes of fruit flavored cereal this morning, and some peanut butter crackers and a bag of sour cream and onion chips at lunch.”

Pete didn’t like what he was hearing. “That’s all you’ve had to eat and drink all day?”

“It’s all we’ve got. They don’t have room service here.”

Pete raised his eyebrows. She had him there. This parking lot was a disorganized mess.  He clicked off the Doppler, then pulled out a towel and wiped the gel off both Marisa and his little machine before stowing everything back in the bag.

“Can you put out your arm?”

Marisa did as she was asked. Pete placed her hand atop one of his. Then with his other hand, he gave the skin on the back of her hand a pinch, holding it for a second before releasing. As he suspected, it stayed peaked like a little tent for longer than it should have. Decreased skin turgor was a classic sign of dehydration.

And dehydration was a gateway to a variety of bad outcomes in a pregnant woman, including fainting spells.

Pete rocked back on his heels, still squatting nearby, but trying to give her a little space. “So, Marisa, tell me how things have been for you since the storm.”

Marisa’s eyelids popped open, then she rolled her eyes and made an indelicate grunt in reply.

“I know, dumb question, right?”

She made another grunt, then fell silent for a moment before answering. “The worst.”

“How’d you come to be here at the tent city?” Pete decided to keep gently holding the hand he’d done the pinch test on. Sometimes, patients just needed to know someone was there for them, looking out for them.

“We lived in Coronado Heights,” she said, naming one of the city’s subsidized housing developments on the edge of the
La Missión
area of town. “Our place was on the first floor. They told us that the water was up to the ceiling. Everything’s gone. They won’t even let us go back inside. It’s just all gone. “

Marisa took an uneven breath, then looked up at the top of the tent with an intense gaze. “My husband lost his job after Labor Day weekend. The tourist season was over and they’d had a slow year.  So now we don’t have any insurance. The hospital’s closed, but I couldn’t afford a doctor bill anyway right now. No job, no home, no money. No nothing. What kind of mother am I, bringing a child into all this mess?”

A sob shook her chest as the tears started to flow. Pete could see the burden of her circumstances pressing down on her, suffocating her dreams and tearing apart her security net.

“I understand.” Pete gave her hand a gentle squeeze, and hoped he sounded reassuring.

 “How? How could you possibly understand, Mr. Fancy Doctor?” She pulled her gaze from the top of the tent and turned her head to look at Pete.  A hint of sheepishness crossed her face. “Sorry. That wasn’t very nice.”

A lump of ice hit Pete square in the throat. He’d hoped to be compassionate. He wanted to explain what he meant, but knew no matter what he said, it wouldn’t be adequate.

“Well, I lost my job too. The clinic where I work was destroyed by the hurricane, and we won’t be re-opening.”

“Oh,” Marisa said flatly. “But you’re a doctor. You can get another job, right?”

Pete thought of his application for Mercy Medical Mission, taken with a friend to Houston two days ago. His uncle knew the medical director of the organization and had already made a few phone calls, so the actual application was more or less a formality, pending an opening coming available. “I hope so. I don’t really know where I’ll be or what I’ll be doing. I do know something I can do right now, though.”

Marisa pulled her hand back, then tried to lift herself into a half-sitting position on her elbows. “What?”

“I know the head of obstetrics over at Mainland Medical, the next closest hospital to us.  It had very minor hurricane damage, so it’s open and accepting patients. I’ll call my friend and arrange to get you checked out, free of charge, and get you back with routine prenatal care. I think you’re pretty severely dehydrated and I believe you have a condition called vasovagal syncope.”

Her brown eyes widened. “That sounds serious.”

“It’s when the part of your nervous system that regulates heart rate and blood pressure malfunctions in response to a trigger. Your heart rate slows, and the blood vessels in your legs widen. This allows blood to pool in your legs, which lowers your blood pressure. This drop in blood pressure and slowed heart rate quickly diminish blood flow to your brain, and you faint.” Pete had seen this happen many times before over the years and was as certain as he could be without labs and other diagnostic tests. “It can be triggered by things like stress and dehydration, and you’ve got plenty of both. I want you to spend a couple of days in the hospital, getting IV fluids and regular meals and getting you and the baby checked out to make sure that there are no other underlying causes. Dr. Mitchell will make sure you get the best possible care.”

“You promise they’re not going to care that I can’t pay?” She seemed so scared, so unsure.

Pete nodded. “I promise. I’m going to talk to Dr. Mitchell personally. In fact, I’m going to step outside and make the call. Do you want me to send your husband back in?”

Marisa rubbed her belly and nodded. “Ok. Thank you, Dr. Shipley.”

“You’re welcome.” Pete smiled. He hadn’t done much, but if he’d eased even a fraction of her stress and worry, he’d consider today a success.

He motioned to Marisa’s husband who was pacing just a few steps away. “I’m pretty sure they’ll both be fine. I want her to go to Mainland Medical to get checked out and to get some fluids for her dehydration.”

“We can’t—“

Pete cut off Marisa’s husband before he could start. There was no need for the man to broadcast their situation out in front of the gathered crowd. “I know. I’ve already told Marisa I’ll take care of everything.”

“Everything?” The young man looked at Pete with hope and gratitude.

“Everything.” And Pete meant it, even if he couldn’t work out a
pro bono
arrangement and had to tell Dan Mitchell to send the bill straight to him.

Marisa’s husband disappeared inside the tent. Pete reached in his pocket for his cell phone, but decided to check in with Angela before he made the phone call, in case he needed to find two beds at Mainland instead of just the one for Marisa.

“She’s going to be okay?”

Angela’s arms were crossed over her chest tightly. Pete couldn’t tell if she was trying to keep something in or something out.

“I think it’s stress and dehydration. I picked up good fetal heart tones on my portable Doppler, so I think the baby’s fine. A few days at Mainland Medical getting real food and some IV fluids should have Marisa good as new. I’m going to make the arrangements, but in the meantime, I need to get Gloria to go over to the Samaritan’s Cross medical trailer and get me a bottle of a sports beverage with electrolytes. They should have some on hand. Where is Gloria? I thought she was staying here with you.”

“She was, but the Bordegos needed her to look at their daughter. She’s got an upset stomach and they’re concerned. No one wants a stomach bug to break out in here.” Angela nodded her head in the direction of a tent a few feet away. “And the Samaritan’s Cross relief team is delayed. They won’t be here for another two to three days.”

That didn’t sound right to Pete. “Aren’t they always the first on the scene of every disaster?”

“Well, before Hurricane Hope, the local Samaritan’s Cross team had arrangements with 10 different locations in town for shelters and command centers. But then the storm surge blew the doors off of every prediction, and every single place the Samaritan’s Cross team had identified—including their main office downtown—was flooded and not able to be used. So they’re scrambling, and we’re just using what supplies are being trucked in from over the causeway on a day-to-day basis.”

That threw a wrench into Pete’s plans. He wanted to start treating Marisa’s dehydration as soon as possible. He looked around the sea of people and felt even more hopeless about the situation surrounding him. Not only had most of these people suffered catastrophic losses and like Marisa, were forced to live in this crazy situation temporarily, but even the groups who should have been providing basic relief weren’t here.

These folks literally had nothing right now.

“I see Gloria. Looks like she’s walking back this way. Let me see if she has any ideas.”

Pete met Gloria about halfway and quickly gave her an overview of the situation. They discussed a few options, then she decided she would use her connections with the Port Provident Beach Patrol to bring a few bottles of sports drink and some peanut butter crackers—or anything with protein—over to the tent city from the Beach Patrol’s official stash of supplies.

It was a bit like putting together a puzzle. Not your typical medicine.  He liked it, and he couldn’t wait until everything was straightened out with Mercy Medical Mission and he was doing this kind of work full-time.

As he waited for Gloria, he called Dan Mitchell, who was more than happy to open his practice to Marisa and assured Pete that no compensation would be necessary. He agreed with Pete that Marisa had been through enough and needed a dose of compassion in addition to some medical care.

Gloria returned about fifteen minutes later, a loaded plastic bag in one hand. “What’cha thinking, boss?”

“I’m not your boss anymore.”

She smiled broadly. “
Sí
. What’cha thinking, Doctor-Who-Used-to-Be-My-Boss?”

Pete laughed a little at her new salutation. It was good to see this transformation in Gloria, who’d once been serious enough for everyone on staff in the clinic. Losing her home and her job to the hurricane—and reconnecting with her former boyfriend, Chief Rigo Vasquez of the Port Provident Beach Patrol—had seemed to free Gloria in a way. She’d been able to let the wind and the waves drive away her past. The storm surge had allowed her to rise and embrace the future to come.