20. TESSA
TESSA
“Morning,” I called out as Blake strode into my hospital room, the early morning sun dappling through the window.
My half-eaten breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast sat, forgotten, on the tray beside my bed. The dark circles under his eyes suggested he hadn’t slept, and the manila envelope in his hand made my stomach clench.
“What is it?” I sat up straighter, my gaze fixed on the envelope. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”
His silence spoke volumes. When Blake Morrison was at a loss for words? That never spelled anything good. My throat became unimaginably drier as I watched him stride across the room and sit on the edge of my bed, the weight of his unspoken words feathering across my skin.
“Your test results,” he started, then methodically recounted everything he’d run, all the doctors he’d consulted with at the hospital to ensure he hadn’t missed anything.
That’s when I realized where this was going.
“It all came back normal,” I spat, though my anger wasn’t directed at him. It was at my body. My biggest traitor, systematically attacking me physically, mentally, and emotionally, skilled at hiding all evidence from medical experts.
“I’m sorry,” Blake managed.
“Don’t be.” I wiped away a tear I hadn’t realized was there. “I don’t know why I got my hopes up for a hot second that this time would be any different.”
Maybe because my heart stopped. You would think that if your heart literally stopped beating, there would be a trace of some goddamned explanation for it lingering in your body for them to find. But nope.
“I’m not giving up,” Blake added.
My gaze snapped to his, anger flaring. Again, not directed at him.
“Blake, I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me. But you’ve probably run more tests in the last few hours than have been run in the last year combined, and none of them have told us anything.”
“Tessa, I know this is frustrating?—”
“Respectfully, you don’t know.” I pushed myself straighter in the bed.
“You’re a good doctor, and I know there are tons of great doctors out there, but you don’t know what this feels like as a patient.
You don’t understand the catch-22 of enduring a medical mystery.
” I pressed my palm against my forehead, fighting back tears.
“You want answers so desperately, but at the same time, you pray each test comes back negative. You don’t want Lyme disease or some horrible heart condition.
You don’t want lymphoma or stomach cancer.
But with each negative result, you’re another step further from explaining why your body is betraying you, until finally …
” My voice cracked. “You can’t decide which is worse: getting a diagnosis that could change the rest of your life or never getting one at all. ”
Blake moved closer, his expression softening. “Tessa?—”
“No, you need to listen to me.” My voice trembled, a year of pent-up emotions unexpectedly deciding now was the perfect time to finally explode.
“You don’t see how many nights I’ve cried myself to sleep, wondering if maybe I’m imagining things.
If maybe this is all in my head. If maybe this is just me getting older.
” I twisted the blanket between my fingers.
“And then having to find the strength to get up and keep advocating for myself, keep insisting something is wrong, only to be told repeatedly they can’t find anything. ”
Blake’s eyes intensified. “But one thing has changed, Tessa. Your heart stopped this time.” His voice dropped lower. “And the fact that we don’t know why should terrify the hell out of you.”
“So, you want me to feel afraid? Is that it?”
“I want you to find that fire in you,” he said gently. “I want you to get to the bottom of this.”
“You don’t know what it feels like to have your life completely disrupted by some physical ailment that no one can seem to pinpoint.”
“Pinpointing something going on in the human body is much harder than people realize.”
“Clearly,” I said.
“Tessa, there are thousands of possible explanations, and you have to hear me when I say this: ruling stuff out gets us that much closer to the truth.”
“Really? Because from where I’m sitting, none of these tests have ever even pointed my doctors in the right direction.
In fact, it feels all compartmentalized.
If I have a problem with my skin, they send me to a dermatologist. If I have a symptom with my heart, I see a cardiologist. But no one can seem to put these puzzle pieces together to figure out what the source is, and you know what?
After a year of going through this, I have finally accepted that the human body is complex, and mine just doesn’t function properly. ”
“You need to find out why.”
“Do I? You have no idea what this has cost me, Blake. Not just the physical pain or emotional toll. Do you know how hard it is to launch a small business when you can’t even promise people you’ll show up?
I have lost clients over this, Blake. I had to spend money on marketing to capture those clients, and then they understandably fired me because I kept missing appointments.
As if that weren’t financially hard enough, do you know how expensive health care is?
My premiums are absurdly high, and so is my deductible.
Money I don’t have to be spending on this.
But more than all of that right now is, I just want to move on with my life. ”
Freedom—true freedom—was learning to live with this condition. Moving on, even if it didn’t have a name.
“And if your heart stops again?” His voice was sharp with barely contained anger, the kind that came from fear. “Damn it, Tessa, you’re talking about risking your life!”
“I’m risking my life? I tried everything in my power to get to the bottom of this, Blake.
I ran the ball down the field for a year through twists and turns and hailstorms and rocks being thrown in my face, and you’re asking me to go all the way back to the beginning.
I don’t have that in me. And maybe that makes me sound weak.
Hell, maybe I am weak. There are warriors who charge on with medical mysteries for years, but I don’t have that in me anymore.
And that is my choice. If you want to judge me for deciding that I want to move on with my life, go ahead. ”
“I’m not judging you, Tessa. I’m scared.”
“I was, too, for a while. But fear has a short shelf life with me. If there was something dangerously wrong with me, they would’ve figured it out by now.”
“Dangerous? You went into cardiac arrest.”
“The cardiologist said I was probably dehydrated and extremely low on electrolytes, which they have supplemented.”
Blake’s jaw clenched, and he stood up. Started pacing.
“He’s coming up with the best hypothesis he can because the truth is, he doesn’t know, Tessa! It is not normal for a thirty-three-year-old woman’s heart to stop beating.”
“I will follow up with the cardiologist. I will wear that remote monitoring thing that he wants me to wear. And if, by some chance, those heart results finally answer the question? Great. But otherwise, I’m done.”
“How can you be this reckless?”
Reckless. Was he not listening to a word I said?
“You want to know what happened at my last appointment? I met another patient in the waiting room. She’d been chasing her medical mystery for three and a half years.
Her cousin? Twelve years.” I stopped, hoping that would sink in for him.
“For some people, that might be inspiring, seeing and hearing about people with such a strong will that they’d stop at nothing to get answers.
But for me? I saw the next twelve years flash before my eyes: spent in doctors’ waiting rooms, explaining my symptoms over and over.
Going literally bankrupt, just to be told I’m getting older, or hormonal, or depressed.
That everything is fine. In that moment, I made a decision.
No more. I chose to reclaim my life. I chose to learn to live with the symptoms, just like a lot of people do with medical conditions. ”
His voice softened as he reached for my hand.
“You’re not in this alone anymore. That’s the other thing that’s changed.
For the last twelve months, you’ve been going through this alone, and I’m sorry.
I didn’t know, but if I had known …” His thumb traced circles on my palm, sending shivers up my arm.
“I would’ve knocked down your front door and held your hand through the entire process.
I would’ve gotten you the best doctors in the industry on your case, and I wouldn’t have accepted no for an answer until we got to the bottom of this. ”
He squeezed my hand gently. “So, let me take over now. Let me shoulder this burden for a while. Let this become my fight.”
“Blake …” I looked away. “I don’t want this to be your fight.”
“Let me take this from you mentally and emotionally,” he insisted. “You focus on your work and whatever else you want to focus on in your life. All I ask is that if I need to run a test, you let me run it. That’s it.”
Blake took my chin, tilting it up.
“Let me put this another way.” His voice was low and intense.
“I will not stop until I get answers. It will become exceedingly more difficult for me to do that without your cooperation. So, have some compassion for me. Cooperate.” His thumb brushed my jaw.
“I will be investigating this with or without your help because I will not let you drown in this ocean, Tessa. And I can promise you this: I will not rest until I figure out what’s hurting you. ”
I swallowed hard, the intensity of his gaze leaving me breathless.
His eyes dropped to my lips, and for a moment, I forgot to breathe.
My heart thundered in my chest, a surge of affection mixed with a flicker of fear.
Was I just a medical mystery to him? I didn’t want to be just a case for Dr. Blake Morrison.
“Even if I considered this,” I started, “I wouldn’t be comfortable with this going on indefinitely. There would need to be an end date.”
He seemed to consider this. “A year?”
I laughed. “I was thinking a week.”
“Test results alone can take two. And I might need follow-up testing. Six months?”
“One.”
“Tessa.”
“One month, final offer.”
He let out one deep-ass breath. “Fine. One. Give me four weeks. You go about your normal life. Run your business, go out with friends. Do everything you want to do. Just give me four weeks.”
I chewed on my lip, considering his words.
Four weeks. To either find answers or finally close this chapter of my life. And all I had to do was agree to work with the one person who could complicate everything.
I met his gaze, finding both determination and something else there. Something that gave my body a whole bucket of symptoms that had nothing to do with my medical condition.
“Four weeks,” I whispered.
His answering smile was both a victory and a promise.
If only I knew the side effects that were about to come along with this …