19. Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Nineteen
Jane
“ R ight on time.” I stood back and opened the door for Meg. “How was work?”
My daughter carried Maya inside and set her on the floor. The dog was wearing a down coat—hot pink with a ruffle around the edge. “Same as always. You know the exciting life of small-town librarians.”
I chuckled and bent down to give Maya a one-fingered scratch under the chin. Now that she saw me on a regular basis, the Chihuahua had decided to tolerate me. “We’re having taco shrimp salad for dinner. Want to see the kitchen first?”
“Yes I do.” Meg took the lead and headed through the butler’s pantry where she stopped, clapping her hands over her mouth. “Wow, this doesn’t even look like the same house! It’s gorgeous.”
It was a masterpiece, though I couldn’t take the credit for anything aside from picking out the Mission oak custom cabinets and the white quartz countertops. I suppose I might add the stainless steel sink which I had installed with the pull-down faucet that looked like it belonged in a gourmet kitchen. The extra touches helped the overall aesthetic and made it solely mine. “I’m just grateful they got everything completed before Thanksgiving.”
“Speaking of the holiday.” Meg brushed her fingers over the island’s shiny countertop. “Do you mind if I bring a friend?”
My mommy radar picked up a positive signal. “Not at all—is this someone I know?”
She blushed. Poor Meg, with her fair skin and red hair it was impossible for her to hide anything. “Nope. A new friend.”
“Male?” I probed.
“If you must know, yes. But he’s not a boyfriend. He’s just a nice guy who came into the library to do some research on his house.” She shuffled to the sink and tested the faucet, spraying it from side to side. “He stopped by the front desk and we got to chatting. It turns out we’re both going through rough breakups, so we drowned our sorrow with Mississippi Mud ice cream.”
“Oh?” I arched my eyebrows in hopes of encouraging her to say more about her ice cream social. I hoped this was a sign Meg was recovering from being catfished by Lance. When she ignored me by opening the silverware drawer, I added, “Any friend of yours is welcome. And by the way, we don’t need silverware. The table is already set for our salads.”
She dropped the forks back in the tray and shut the drawer. “Okay. Can I bring anything—for Thanksgiving dinner, that is?”
“Just you and your friend.” I put on some oven mitts and removed the shrimp. “The plates with the salad are in the fridge if you could pull those out, please.”
She opened the refrigerator door and poked her head inside. “Should I invite Ripper?”
I laughed as I followed her into the dining room and put the finishing touches on our salads. “Mr. Subwoofer? How is he doing?”
Meg set the plates on the table. “He’s been friendly. Says hi whenever I see him.”
“Do you think he’d come?” I asked, spooning the shrimp onto each salad.
“I have no idea. I could ask.”
I put the pan on the potholder and sat at the head of the table. “Wouldn’t that be awkward, inviting the man who lives upstairs and the new boyfriend.”
Meg sat in the corner chair. “He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Okay. So, are you going to ask Ripper?”
“Will Grandma be here?” she asked, taking a sip of iced tea.
I added a dollop of guacamole on the side of my plate. “Of course.”
Meg picked up her fork. “Honestly, now that I think about it, you’re right. I mean, I don’t want to give Ripper any ideas.”
I smiled—who didn’t like being told they were right?
“You know, Grandma won’t remember being here for the holiday.”
“You’re right,” I replied, setting my spoon aside. “The next day she’ll probably complain about how much I ignore her.”
“So sad. I wish I could fix her brain.”
“I know, but she seems to like it there, and that’s important.” I took a bite. “Oh, I nearly forgot, I had a back door key made for you. ”
“Good. Someone needs to be able to check on you.” Maya jumped up on Meg’s leg. “Down. You already had your dinner.”
The corners of my lips tightened. I never approved of any dog begging at the table. “Maybe we should have put her outside.”
Meg added a small dollop of ranch dressing to her salad. “No way.”
“The backyard is fenced.”
“Yeah, but some estranged homeless person might kidnap her. Besides, it’s too cold.”
I snorted. “She’s wearing a down coat.” Maya was about the cutest Chihuahua I’d ever seen, but if anyone tried to go near her, they’d give up for all the snarling.
“You ought to advertise for a boarder,” Meg said, changing the subject. “I’d feel a lot better about your living alone if there were someone else here.”
“Oh, really?” I took a drink of water. “I’ve been by myself since you left for college. And what about you? You live alone.”
“Yeah, but I’m thirty years younger.”
I speared a shrimp and pointed it at her. “I’ll have you know I’m still in my prime.”
“Right.”
“For Pete’s sake, I am .” I pulled the shrimp off with my teeth. “I’m walking five thousand steps almost every day.”
“Okay, Mom, whatever you say.”
I gaped at her. Next she’d be telling me I needed to move into my mother’s assisted living facility, the insolent millennial. “I’d rather have a dog than a boarder.”
“Maya!” Meg shouted, hopping out of her chair. “You naughty girl.”
I turned to see the little devil-princess standing beside a puddle. Jeez, these were my newly refinished floors. “What did I say about putting her outside?”
“She can’t go outside by herself.” Meg headed for the kitchen. “I’ll clean it up.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t get a dog,” I hollered after her, smiling to myself. Naughty Chihuahua or not, moving to La Crosse was a great idea. I love being able to have Meg over for dinner on a whim. Maybe Bob, too.
Google maps indicated the drive to Rochester would take an hour and fifteen minutes. I tacked on another half-hour to find parking and locate the fifth floor of the Gonda Building where I was having my appointments. The clinic must have been accustomed to out-of-town patients because they scheduled me for a full body CT scan at ten in the morning and a face-to-face appointment with the specialist at one in the afternoon.
Thus far, I’d been impressed with how the Moya system worked. At least I really liked Dr. Wahl, which was unbelievably refreshing. “Like” wasn’t a word I usually used when referring to a medical practitioner. Dr. Panda aside, I was more accustomed to terms such as arrogant, aloof, apathetic, and cocksure.
However, as I crossed the Mississippi into Minnesota, it wasn’t doctors or FMD I was thinking about. I appreciated Bob’s help refinishing my floors. The man worked exceedingly hard and he refused to take any money. And though there had been several contractors at the house since I moved in, installing everything from air conditioning to kitchen cabinets, Bob had gone out of his way to be helpful. And I did like him. I was comfortable around him—able to be myself. I’d spent so much time in the corporate world acting the way Leon expected me to, the rigid persona I’d affected leaked into my personal life and took over—made me uptight and hard.
But Bob’s easygoing attitude often had me laughing. I liked his smile, his affable nature. He was nice to talk to and as far as I could tell, he carried no chips on his shoulder. He was self-confident, smart, and polite—all qualities I admired in a man.
However, like is where it had to end. I was damaged goods—plagued by this whole FMD/dissection/TIA fiasco. Bob surely wouldn’t want to get involved with a person who was at risk of having a stroke. Worse, not everyone who had a major stroke died. Some ended up vegetables being hand-fed, bathed, and diapered.
I shuddered.
Who was I fooling? Sure, the man had come around to the house often enough, but he’d never made a pass. He hadn’t even asked me out on a date. Bob had seen how I applied myself to painting and floor refinishing…and a gazillion other little things in the house, like putting replica brass drawer pulls on the dining room’s built-in china cabinet. He saw a person with a good work ethic. Full stop .
He wasn’t looking for a girlfriend and I sure as hell wasn’t on the hunt for a boyfriend. I had boyfriends in high school and college. The term seemed adolescent for a middle-aged woman.
However, a companion might be nice.
And I’d been adamant from the outset that I was definitely not ready to retire.
Perhaps his proposed partnership might be what I needed. We could pick and choose our jobs. Hell, if someone didn’t like my work and refused to pay me, I’d still survive. Though Bob might have to restrain me from taking out their knees with a side kick. Black belt here had gotten pretty good at knee kicks—at least on the punching bags.
By the time I took the exit off Highway Fifty-Two in Rochester, I’d decided that when I got home, I’d call Bob and suggest we sit down and draw up a business plan. Maybe tomorrow if he has the time.
The Google assistant quickly fired explicit directions. Though Rochester had looked small on the map, the downtown area reminded me of a city like Denver or, perhaps Des Moines. I parked on the fifth floor of the garage across from the Gonda Building, then followed the signs to the subway—no train, but a freaking underground city if you ask me.
Talk about going to the hallowed mecca of medicine. The ground floor of the clinic was hewn from white marble and there were more wheelchairs assembled by the doors than I’d ever seen in my life. There were little shops and four elevator banks. It took me a minute to find the right one, but in no time, I was checked in and waited for about ten minutes before I was called for my CT scan.
Everything was carried out with efficiency except I nearly peed my pants when they injected the dye into my veins during the CT. Thank goodness the hot-sweaty sensation only lasted about a minute. In between appointments, I ate a tuna salad in the Skylight Commons on the subway level, browsed through a few of the shops, then rode the elevator back up for my appointment with Dr. Davis.
She was younger than me with a full head of brunette hair. “Tell me what you know about FMD.”
Since she was the expert, I considered throwing that one back at her, but answered truthfully, “Only what I’ve read online.”
“I hope you’re sticking to credible sites like Moya and Cleveland Clinic.”
“Yes, ma’am. And the Fibromuscular Dysplasia Society of America. They have a lot of information. ”
“Good, good.” She scrolled through my information on her computer screen.
“I assume I have a higher-than-average risk for stroke,” I added, sounding none too confident. If Bob ever found out there was a chance I might become a vegetable, he’d probably withdraw his partnership offer.
“That would be correct, though we can help prevent potential events with medication. Tell me about your dissection.”
I explained what happened at the dojo, and not going to the ER until two days later, which in retrospect was a mistake. I omitted the details about how difficult it had been to get the urgent care doc to approve the scan of my neck the following week.
She took a couple of steps across the exam room to a big computer monitor on the wall and flicked it on. “This is the CT scan we did today and here is the point of dissection.” She used her pen to show me exactly where my twisted carotid had been weakened. “I would have thought it might have healed by now, but it appears to be chronic.”
“It is?”
“Yes, and there’s stenosis forming at the site.” She moved her pen. “And a plaque here at the branch.”
“Already?” I asked.
“You need to be on a blood thinner and cholesterol medication.”
“I take a statin, is that okay?”
“Yes. I’ll prescribe a blood thinner.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. Wasn’t I too young? “What about low dose aspirin?”
“I want you to take the prescription for at least six months, then if you’d prefer to go on 81 milligrams of aspirin, that will be your choice.” She brought up another image of my vascular system and pointed. “You have pronounced tortuosity in your splenic artery and two fairly small aneurysms.”
The word meant death. The room was suddenly too hot. I narrowed my eyes. “What do you consider fairly small?”
“One is point-nine millimeters and the other is one centimeter.”
“Oh, my God,” I mumbled under my breath. “My father died from a burst brain aneurysm.”
“Well, the good news is that your brain scan is clear. However, you also have a three-millimeter aneurysm in your right renal artery and a tiny, two-millimeter aneurysm in your left carotid which also is more twisted and torturous than your right. Regardless, that one concerns me because it’s new since your Denver scan and we’re going to have to keep a close eye on it.”
She flicked back to the neck scan and pointed to a bulge that I had missed, mostly because the entire artery was beaded and looped around like a wet noodle. How could they tell beads from little aneurysms? “I don’t want you to worry. We won’t do surgery until they reach two centimeters.”
“Two?” If I had my druthers, they’d all be fixed immediately. “Why is that?”
“Oftentimes we find they’re dormant. It’s not uncommon for splenic aneurysms to develop during pregnancy. You could have had them for years. You’ll need to get another CT scan in six months, then we’ll decide how often you should have them after we establish a baseline.”
“Oh.” I stared at the image of my twisty splenic artery with the two bubbles which indicated the aneurysms. “So, what does all this mean? I just wore a heart monitor for a week because my heart rate gets pretty high in fitness classes.”
Dr. Davis flicked off the screen and cleared her throat. “About that, your best exercise is walking. I don’t want to ever see your heart rate above one-forty.”
“But Dr. Wahl said one-sixty was okay.”
“That might be all right for someone else, but with your history of dissection during exercise, one-sixty is too high. You’re taking a risk every time you push too hard.”
My stomach churned, threatening to throw up my tuna salad. “Just walking?”
“Yes. I reiterate, don’t push . Be wary of bearing down when you’re on the toilet—you know what I mean, when you push so hard your face gets red?”
“No bearing down? No straining and putting pressure on my face?” For Pete’s sake, it was a wonder I was still alive. I’d been driving myself athletically since I was a kid.
“Correct. And if you have the time, I’d recommend ten thousand steps a day.”
“Ten thousand?” I did a quick calculation. “That will take over an hour.”
“It is a time commitment that might save your life—five thousand at the very least.”
I mentioned my headaches and dizziness before Dr. Davis used her stethoscope to examine my neck, finding a bruit—which she explained was causing my pulsatile tinnitus (that thundering heartbeat I always heard in my ears, especially when I bent over, or exercised, or at three in the morning when everything was quiet…the one Dr. Vaughn had said was in my imagination).
We discussed my mitral valve prolapse and she gave my heart a good listen, then said she wasn’t overly concerned, but would add it to the list of things to monitor.
At the end of the consultation, I told her about Meg’s dissections and Dr. Davis definitely wanted to see my daughter as soon as possible. In fact, she had me get together with a scheduler and we called Meg and set up appointments for her before I left the Gonda Building.
God save me, this was one of the first times in my life I felt like the doctors were listening to me, but the experience wasn’t gratifying at all. It was terrifying.
I have four aneurysms. I have twisted and torturous arteries, stenosis, and a concerning plaque in my aorta. I need to exercise but not push myself.
The outlook on my longevity just took a nosedive and it scared the bejeezus out of me.
Maybe Meg was right. I am getting old.
When I got to my car I realized I still didn’t have an answer for my dizziness or the headaches. I slid behind the wheel trying to recall—I had told her about them. I’d even put them on the pre-appointment questionnaire. Did vascular specialists not treat headaches?