“Mom,” she gasped, panic populating her register, “what is it? What did you see?”
I compelled myself to respire. Dr. Brooks held her hands upward gently. “Emma, listen to me,” she stated. “This is serious, but you’re in the right place.”
She contacted the visualization. “This appears to be an ovarian mass,” she clarified, selecting each phrase with care. “It’s very large for your age, and it looks like it may be twisting the ovary. That can cut off blood supply. It explains the nausea, the pain, the sudden episodes.”
Twisting. Blood supply. Surgery.
My knees turned fragile with a sick category of alleviation—alleviation that we were not imagining it, that Emma was not “dramatic,” that my internal senses had not constituted paranoia. And resentment—pure resentment—that Jason had dismissed her as though she constituted an irritation.
“Can it be removed?” I inquired, register vibrating.
“Yes,” Dr. Brooks stated. “But this is urgent. We need to move quickly.”
Emma’s eyes populated with moisture. “Will I be okay?” she whispered.
Dr. Brooks crouched to Emma’s orientation. “We’re going to take care of you,” she stated. “And we’ll send it to pathology afterward to understand exactly what it is. But right now the priority is stopping the pain and preventing damage.”
An attendant entered with authorization forms and an identification band. Suddenly everything was rapid: intravenous hydration fluids, pre-operative inquiries, a surgeon introducing himself—Dr. Michael Turner—clarifying hazards in a serene register that did not sugarcoat but did not terrify.
When they rolled Emma’s mattress toward the surgical theatre panels, she gripped my palm so securely her digits vibrated. “Don’t let Dad be mad,” she whispered, as though that constituted her grandest dread.
I inclined near and pressed my lips to her brow. “I’m mad enough for both of us,” I stated softly. “You just focus on coming back.”
Subsequently the panels secured and I was left with nothing but plastic seats and my individual reflections.
My device vibrated.
Jason.
I answered, register constricted. “Where are you?”
READ MORE ON THE NEXT PAGE…
