Chapter 44
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
MATT
It’s been one hour and twenty-four minutes since Maggie returned to tell us Ellie was being taken back for surgery. No other information, no doctor, no nothing. Just surgery. It feels like the world shrank to that one word.
My parents are sitting quietly at the two-person table and Nate’s in one of the chairs against the wall.
They’re all probably tired of me pacing the tiny room.
I can’t stop though. Every time I try to sit I feel like I am going to puke.
Ellie is having surgery. And I don’t know what for.
What I do know is even the simplest of surgeries has risks and that is why I feel sick to my stomach.
What if something happens to her? The thought is so horrific I can’t even entertain it. She has to be fine.
My phone has been blowing up, but the only thing I’m interested in on there is the time. I’m sure people are wondering what’s going on. I just can’t think about anything other than Ellie.
“You should probably call her dad, Matty,” my mom says quietly.
Shit. Shit. I definitely don’t even have his number. Maybe the hospital would have it as an emergency contact for her? Or maybe I could call Zo—
The door clicks open and my head whips in that direction. A middle-aged woman in scrubs and a white coat steps inside. She’s got a clipboard. Hopefully she has a fucking update or I might lose my shit.
“Are you Eleanor’s family?”
“Yes,” I nearly shout.
My parents and Nate stand up. “We’ll go grab coffee. We have our phones, okay?” My mom’s voice is low, but I can hear the stress there.
I nod without taking my eyes off the doctor. I feel Nate hesitating, but he follows them out the door. I’m so anxious for the doctor to start talking that I don’t want to waste the time to tell them they could stay.
She watches them leave with a perplexed look on her face and then flips a page on the clipboard. She looks back to me. “Mr. Ford?”
Mr. Ford? Ah, Ellie’s last name. She thinks I’m her husband?
“Matt,” I tell her. My impatience makes my voice come out harsher than I intended.
Correcting her fully would take too much time and, also, I quite like the idea of people thinking we’re married.
Belonging to Ellie. Ellie belonging to me.
The frisson of pleasure at that idea is abruptly snuffed out with the doctor’s next words.
“Do you want to have a seat?” She gestures to the chairs along the wall. My heart stops beating in my chest. I shake my head.
“Okay,” she says with that same mild smile Maggie gave me. Do they teach that to medical professionals? “I’m Dr. Sultana. I’m one of the OB-GYN physicians taking care of Eleanor.”
“Ellie,” I mutter reflexively. I rack my brain for what OB-GYN means. Don’t they deliver babies?
“Ellie,” she confirms with a nod. “When Ellie arrived she was in critical condition because her blood pressure was quite low and she was showing signs of internal bleeding.”
I try to suck in a breath while she keeps talking, but it feels like there isn’t enough air in this room.
“The emergency doctors ran some quick tests including an ultrasound and some blood work, and discovered she had a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. This means a fertilized egg had implanted outside of the uterus—in her case, in one of her fallopian tubes—and the tube burst, which is what caused the internal bleeding.”
I walk a few steps over to the chairs on numb legs and drop into one. Pregnancy. Internal bleeding. I feel my breath coming fast, like I still can’t get enough oxygen. The doctor walks over and sits on a chair near mine. “She was pregnant?”
“She likely didn’t know because she had an IUD.
Unfortunately, IUDs can increase the risk of an ectopic pregnancy, though the risk is very low.
Now, because this was a life-threatening condition, we had to move quickly and get her into surgery to stop the bleeding.
We performed what’s called a unilateral salpingectomy, which means we removed the ruptured fallopian tube.
It was necessary in order to get the bleeding under control and to prevent further complications.
The other tube and her uterus were not affected. ”
Life-threatening.
“Is she—” I start. I try twice to clear the lump in my throat. No luck. “Is she going to be okay?” I don’t recognize my own voice.
“She’s stable now, which is great. We expect her to make a full recovery. And as soon as she’s moved to a room, you can go see her. It should be another fifteen to twenty minutes until they move her over. Can I get you some water?”
I shake my head again.
She hesitates. “All right. I’m going to have Maggie come get you when Ellie is in her room.
She works with her and will be monitoring her through the night.
Once Ellie’s awake, I’ll come talk to her and share everything I just told you.
She might be a little groggy and confused at first, since she was in and out of consciousness before the surgery. ”
I nod to let her know I understand. It takes a minute, but then I hear her get up and the door click shut behind her.
Stable. Full recovery. I try to focus on those two things, but my mind is determined to focus on everything else.
Ellie was pregnant. I wait for the panic that normally accompanies that idea, but all I feel is sadness.
She was pregnant. And it almost killed her.
My body shudders at that thought. Is she going to be sad?
They said her other tube is okay, so she should still be able to have babies, right?
If she wants to? She’s never explicitly said, but based on how things went with her ex, I assume she wanted kids then at least. Would she want kids with me? I hope so.
The foreign thought takes me by surprise. And then a knock at the door brings me back to reality. First I’m going to make sure Ellie is okay with my own eyes. Then we can deal with everything else.