Chapter 5
The cart wheels squeaked before I saw her.
A woman in navy scrubs pushed a machine into the bay, the cord trailing behind her and the screen already glowing. The room smelled like disinfectant and the cold gel they keep in the warmer. My IV was still dripping from the pole, steady, and my mouth was dry because they’d put the NPO sign up at the foot of my bed. No ice, no water, nothing to drink.
The social worker who’d been standing near the sink took a step back when the tech came in. She didn’t leave, she just made space. My mom stayed right where she was, on the stool beside the bed, and she found my hand without me having to look for it.
“I’m Jenna, I’m ultrasound,” the tech said. She had short hair pulled back and a badge that swung when she moved. “We’re going to take a look at your belly, okay Maya? It’s going to be some pressure. You tell me if you need a second.”
I nodded. My throat was too dry to answer.
She dimmed the overhead light just a little and pulled the curtain all the way closed. The monitor cast a pale glow across the pale blue wall. She pulled my red t-shirt up just enough and tugged the sheet down to my hips, keeping the gown they’d given me folded neatly. The paper sheet crinkled under me.
“Cold gel,” she said, and it was.
I flinched. She didn’t pause long, she set the probe low on my right side, just above where my jeans waistband would have been if I still had them on. The pressure started light and then deeper.
I sucked air through my teeth. My whole abdomen tightened. My fingers clamped down on my mom’s.
“Right there?” Jenna asked.
I nodded. I couldn’t get a full breath.
My mom didn’t answer for me. She just held on. Her thumb made a slow circle on the back of my hand, and she leaned in a little so I could see her face. She was breathing with me, slow and even, like she wanted me to copy her.
“Try to keep breathing for me,” Jenna said quietly. “Small breaths are fine.”
She moved the probe an inch, angled it, pressed again. A sharp, deep ache shot up and I made a noise I didn’t mean to make. Jenna eased off for a second, then went back, her eyes flicking between my face and the screen where gray shapes shifted.
On the screen I couldn’t tell what anything was. It was all moving snow and dark pockets and then a thick, swollen oval shape that stayed on the screen while she measured it. She pressed two buttons, little crosses appeared. She didn’t say what it was.
Her expression didn’t change. She was careful about that, I realized later. She kept her mouth relaxed, her breathing steady, but she reached for the phone on the wall with one hand while keeping the probe still with the other.
“Dr. Patel, could you come view images in bay four when you have a sec?” she said. Her voice was even. “I’ve got something you’ll want to see.”
My mom looked at her, then at me, and squeezed my hand tighter.
Jenna wiped the gel away a little and put a warm blanket back over my middle, but she left the machine on, the image frozen on the screen. She stood beside it, waiting.
It wasn’t long. Dr. Patel came around the curtain, still holding a chart, and Jenna turned the screen toward her without saying anything. The two of them looked together. Dr. Patel stepped closer, tipped her head.
“Maya, I’m going to press right here again for just a second, okay?” Dr. Patel said to me before she touched me. “Tell me if this is the worst spot.”
I braced. She pressed where Jenna had, and the pain flared hot and deep. I gasped.
“That’s it,” I whispered. My eyes watered.
She let go right away. She nodded, once, to Jenna, and then looked at my mom and me.
“What we’re seeing is not normal,” she said. Her voice was calm and clear. “The ultrasound shows an enlarged, thickened structure on your right side that’s very tender to the touch. It could be your appendix — it’s swollen and holds fluid — or it could be your ovary twisting on itself. Both of those are what we call an acute surgical abdomen. It means it needs a surgeon to evaluate right now, not later.”
My mom’s hand shook a little in mine. She didn’t let go.
“So this is why it hurts so much?” I asked. My voice was small.
“Yes,” Dr. Patel said. She looked straight at me when she said it. “This is real, Maya. You were right to come in. This is not something you can push through or wait out.”
I felt my chest loosen even while my stomach still throbbed. I’d been holding that word for hours. Real.
Jenna was already printing a strip of images. Dr. Patel touched the bottom of my bed rail.
“I’m upgrading you to a stat surgical consult,” she said. “That means the surgeon comes now. If the ultrasound isn’t a hundred percent clear on which it is, appendix or ovary, we’ll get a CT scan to be sure before we go to the operating room. Either way, you need to stay NPO and keep that IV going. I’ve paged surgery.”
She looked at Jenna. “Thank you.”
May you like
Jenna gave me a small, kind smile as she started to wheel the machine out. “You did great,” she said. “Just keep breathing like that.”
The curtain swished behind her. The NPO sign stayed where it was, the IV kept ticking, and for the first time since my dad threw that water, I wasn’t the only one who knew I wasn’t faking.
