4. Ulysses
Everything took six long, agonizing hours, but my Rosie pulled through.
I was now looking at her as she rested in the ICU where the nurse could keep a close eye on her.
While the surgery went well, there was still a chance something could go wrong.
As Dr. Arbour reminded us, this surgery was still experimental, and they didn’t have a whole lot of data to go on, especially when it came to someone like Rosie.
I let my fingers brush over her cotton candy-colored hair, needing to touch her to prove to myself this wasn’t a dream.
Over the years of knowing Rosie, I’d spent a good deal of time in the hospital with her, but the majority of that time, she'd been awake, smiling and laughing while receiving treatment.
Looking at her lying in this bed with numerous wires, tubes, and sensors going in every direction, it scared me to touch her.
Gareth was braver than I was, holding her hand, pressing kisses to it to comfort himself.
Lifting my gaze, I found Crew standing across from me, trying to hide how scared he was.
If Crew was worried, I have no idea how the rest of us were even standing right now.
No matter how tough things got, Crew was always the one to offer the silver lining.
He’d told me once that he’d been put on this earth to be Rosie’s cheerleader so she’d never have the chance to doubt if it was worth fighting to go on.
Seeing him like this had me a little worried about what he would do now that we were taking over his role in Rosie’s life. I shook that thought from my mind. There was only so much one person could worry about. Right now, the woman fighting to come back to us was my sole focus.
“Gentlemen,” Dr. Arbour greeted as he entered the ICU suite.
“I just wanted to come by and fill you in on what we’re looking for in the next twenty-four hours.
After any surgery, there is a concern with bleeding.
If you notice anything that causes alarm, please ring the nurse.
We’d rather it be nothing than risk it to be something.
I’m keeping her sedated for the time being…
the less stress we can put on her body, the better.
My hope is by the time she is ready to go home, I will be able to prescribe an accelerant. ”
“An accelerant?” I asked, having never heard the term.
“Yes, it is a recent break in medical technology,” Dr. Arbour explained.
“Think of it like a dialysis machine, but instead of filtering the blood, we are temporarily supercharging the body's ability to heal. If she can handle the treatment, it would cut Bailey’s healing time in half. Meaning instead of eight to ten weeks, possibly even longer, we’re looking closer to four or five weeks. ”
“Oh yeah, that’s something LouLou would be all for,” Crew commented. “The older she gets, the harder it is to convince her to stick to bed rest.”
“Yes, I’m well aware of her feelings on that particular treatment.
” Dr. Arbour chuckled. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going home to eat and get some sleep.
I suggest you all do the same since she won’t be waking up anytime soon.
If you need anything, my physician assistant, Timmon, is taking over her care for now.
He is someone I trust completely to make the right call for Bailey-Rose in my absence. ”
Eli reached out and shook the doctor's hand. “Thank you seems like such a small thing to say for saving my sister’s life, but I’ll say it anyway. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Dr. Arbour.”
We felt the same way but didn’t know how to express it, so we followed Eli’s example, except for Gareth, who hugged the older man. “You didn’t just save her life today, Doc, so thank you for saving us all.”
Dr. Arbour returned Gareth’s hug and patted him on the back.
“I appreciate your words, young man, but I should be thanking all of you. If she didn’t have you to fight to come back to, this could have gone very differently.
I suppose this is why they say it takes a village, and everyone has their roles to play. ”
With a final wave and a goodnight, Dr. Arbour left us to watch over our girl.
Standing there at the foot of her hospital bed, looking at her so small and vulnerable, had me almost in tears.
The soft beep and whir of the medical equipment kept the room from being too silent, but it didn’t have the same feel I was used to being here with her.
In the back of my mind, I feared that this experience would cause me to keep her in the cage of the life she’d been living just to keep her safe.
Yet that’s the last thing Rosie deserved from us.
For too long, she was told it wasn’t safe for her to experience the world like everyone else. Once she was healed and back on her feet, this surgery would change everything for her. Nurse Harlow walked through what to expect as we waited for Rosie to be placed into a room.
“Before I tell you all the amazing things that will change for Bailey-Rose, you need to keep in mind there will still be things to watch out for. The most important part of this surgery is allowing her heart to beat correctly. With the valve replaced and the spot where the hole had been as a child reinforced, it gives her the chance to experience a fairly normal life. She’ll be on blood thinners for life, but in exchange for that, she won’t need to worry about a heart monitor,” Nurse Harlow shared, all of us cheering and smiling.
Pausing, she glanced at the brothers and cleared her throat before shifting to face us more directly.
“Once she has passed all her tests and we confirm everything is healed, Bailey-Rose will no longer need to take suppressants. However, I would strongly urge you to have an honest conversation about children and if she’s willing to wait a few years for her body to adjust to a properly beating heart.
I’m not saying she can’t have children, but Dr. Arbour and I both feel it would be in her best interest to take some time.
A body healed to function and live life isn’t the same as what’s needed to carry another life. ”
Knowing Rosie couldn’t go into heat or rather shouldn’t, none of us had really talked about children.
Personally, all that mattered to me was that Rosie was healthy and happy—anything else was a bonus.
I glanced at the others out of the corner of my eye, and none of them were giving anything away with their expressions, but I knew we all would agree on is whatever was best for Rosie.
“We will keep that in mind to talk about once we are out of the woods,” Yun-Sun said with a kind smile. “There had been some concern on her end about bonding since that would throw her into a heat. Does that worry no longer apply, or should we also wait on that as well?”
Nurse Harlow grinned at the question and how Yun was phrasing it since Eli and Crew were sitting in the room.
“My answer to that would be, as long as she is cleared for normal physical activity, and there are no apparent complications Dr. Arbour mentions, then she would be cleared to resume normal life. Just to be clear, when I say normal, I mean normal for the average Omega who never had a heart problem.”
Eli cleared his throat loudly and shifted uncomfortably in his seat but didn’t say a word. That man had more self-restraint than a monk, but as we saw today, when he reaches the limit of his restraint, you better watch out.
“You mentioned there would be things we need to be careful of,” Warrick reminded.
“Yes, yes I did,” Nurse Harlow mumbled as she pulled a few pages off her clipboard and handed them to Warrick.
“While many things won’t be a concern in day-to-day life, there are a few areas of her health we won’t be able to fix.
Her diet will need to remain much like it was, but the one thing that isn’t a negotiation is no caffeine.
By that, I mean no coffee, energy drinks, stimulants, or drugs.
We fixed the plumbing issue of her heart, but the genetic aspect of this messes with the electrical signals, and getting mixed messages from things like caffeine isn’t going to be helpful. ”
Warrick offered me the sheets he’d been handed, and I looked over the list of post-surgery concerns which seemed fairly typical. Flipping to the next page, I found bullet points and explanations for lifestyle changes, many of which Rosie had already been adhering to.
“What does this mean, sudden drops in blood pressure?” I asked. “I thought you said she didn’t need her monitor anymore?”
“I suppose that was a bit hasty for me to say,” Nurse Harlow admitted.
“She won’t need it to track her heart rate as precisely as she once did or if her blood pressure rises due to activity.
Now, you’ll be looking for the opposite.
It’s a side effect of some of the drugs she’ll have to be taking for the rest of her life to prevent any rejection of the foreign material used.
Normally, it wouldn’t be a problem, but… ”
“Bailey-Rose isn’t a normal case,” Crew said, finishing her thought. “Yeah, I was waiting for that to come up… it always does.”
Nurse Harlow shifted so she could see him, her expression heartbroken for ever having to bring it up.
“You know we do everything in our power to give her the best life possible. However, there simply isn’t any other choice.
On a bright note, it does put her in the category of patients who can request a service dog.
I know she’s always been hoping that would be an option for her. ”
Feeling Rosie’s foot twitch under my hand pulled me out of past conversations and back to the present.
There was an odd blip on the heart monitor, followed by another.
Vili, who was sitting next to her, started to sing softly.
A gentle croon in his native language had her relaxing, and the small frown between her brows relaxed hearing Vili’s voice.
Could it be that she'd gotten worried when we stopped talking?
“Guys, I think she needs to know we’re here,” I pointed out. “Remember how they always say people in a coma can still hear what’s happening around them? I would bet anything hearing us close by is comforting her.”
“Makes perfect sense to me,” Yun-Sun agreed. “Just like right after we met, she had an instant attachment to us, and it was hard for her to be away from us.”
“Pretty sure that goes both ways now,” Gareth added. “I can’t even process the thought of ever going back to work. It’s not like they really need me. It’s just assumed if you’re a Watson, then you work at the family business.”
Feeling a wave of fatigue wash over me, I sank heavily into the open armchair. “God, I can’t even think that far ahead right now, but I understand where you’re coming from. What could possibly be more important than being with her?”
“Guys, think about it… our Omega owns four percent of The Snuggery. None of us would have to work if we didn’t want to,” Warrick reasoned.
His idea received a rather disgruntled sound from Eli, pretending to sleep on the other couch.
“I didn’t say that’s what we were going to do, just that it was possible,” Warrick muttered, crossing his arms like a pouting kid.
“Besides, I don’t need to run The Fat Mule.
I choose to. If I brought in a manager I trusted to run the place, I could be hands-off dealing with things from home pretty easily. ”
Yun sipped on his coffee from where he stood near the window of Rosie’s room.
“Might I suggest we see how things go with her recovery before we make any major life changes? Today has been traumatic not only with what happened with Bailey-Rose but with our meeting with the Scent Matcher. We all need time to process as does the one person who can’t share her vote on this matter. ”
“Yeah, we know how much she loves it when we make choices for her without telling her,” Gareth said with a huff of laughter then leaned forward. “Hey, what was Nurse Harlow talking about when she mentioned the service dog? Somehow, I think that should be something we do a little research on.”
“Let’s tackle that tomorrow. Right now, I think we should take turns getting some sleep,” I suggested. “If Rosie needs to have one of us talking to her, that means someone should be awake. Vili, you good to stick with her for like an hour or so?”
Vili shot me a thumbs-up, letting me off the hook as my body seemed to melt into the armchair.
I don’t know what it is about hospitals, but they seem to put you in a time freeze.
Right now, I had no concept of what time it was or if we were still in the same day.
The only reason I knew it was nighttime was because of the window in the room.
Flipping the legs up on the armchair, I attempted to get some rest. Now, if only my brain were as tired as my body, it would slow the hell down enough to let me sleep.