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Chapter 48: Bedroom
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Diagnosis: Love Chapter 49: A bad turn
DEACON"Welcome back to the floor, Donnie." I grinned at Mr. Crew as I strolled into his room. Two weeks after his transfer to ICU, he was back in the oncology ward, dressed in sweat pants and a T-shirt as he sat in a chair watching television. He was a little thinner, maybe a bit pale, but overall, he didn't look bad. "Thanks, doc." His smile was open and relaxed, completely different than the expression of hopelessness I'd seen on his face a few weeks ago. "I can't believe I made it through, but here I am." "You're strong, and you fought the good fight." I leaned against a table. "I'm not saying that won't have any more surprises along the way, but recovering from pneumonia and coming out the other side as well as you did is definitely a positive indication." I tapped on the tablet. "We're going to give another week to fully recover, and then we'll start talking about your transplant. How does that sound?" "It sounds like a winner of a plan, Deacon." Donnie nodded. He hesi
Diagnosis: Love Chapter 50: Helpless
DEACONEmma was standing in front of her desk, leaning against it, her arms crossed over her chest. Noah was sprawled on the narrow two-cushion sofa that was wedged into the tiny room. They both looked up as I came in, but I didn't detect any guilt at my arrival. "Hey." I glanced at Emma, frowning. "I was just coming to tell you about Angela being admitted, but I guess you already know that." "Yes." She gave me wide eyes, trying to telegraph something to me. "Noah came down to see me while the nurses were helping Angela settle in. He's very upset because he thinks he did something to derail her recovery. I was just telling him that he couldn't have." She spread her hands. "These things happen, Noah. You knew that rejection was a real possibility from the beginning. We gave Angela some preventative treatment shortly after her transplant, but that isn't always effective. Now . . . we just need to figure out how to address the issue. Right, Deacon?" "Uh, well, we can't rule out
Diagnosis: Love Chapter 51: Rejection
DEACONBy Sunday afternoon, Angela had developed a maculopapular rash on her neck, ears and shoulders, confirming for me what had become increasingly apparent throughout the weekend, with each new test result. Angela was dealing with graft versus host disease, and it was time to step up her treatment. "Let's start her on glucocorticoid and cyclosporine." I stood with Jenny just outside Angela's room. "I think we need to be aggressive." I rubbed a spot in the center of my forehead where a headache had been forming all day. "She's getting worse, not any better." "But we haven't gone full-throttle on her treatment yet. Not really," Jenny pointed out. "Once we get the extra steroids and immunosuppresives on board, she'll probably bounce back pretty quick." I tried to share some of Jenny's optimism. "Let's hope so." I stared at Angela's latest numbers on the tablet in my hand. "She's young. Generally, we don't see acute GVHD as often in patients under forty. Not with a donor who
Diagnosis: Love Chapter 52: Wild
DEACON"Deacon!" Emma jerked back away from Noah, her face pink and suffused with what looked a hell of a lot like guilt to me. "I thought you went home.""Well, I didn't. Not yet." I glared at both of them, waiting for some kind of explanation. "Noah's upset." She said it so reasonably, as if those two words gave me all the answer I needed. They didn't. "He came to talk to you, but you weren't here. I was." Emma lifted one shoulder. "Which is probably a lucky break for him, since I'm not nearly as much fun to hug as you are." I knew I sounded petty and childish, but at the moment, I couldn't care less. Noah glanced from Emma to me, his expression confused and a little uneasy. "Uh, you know what, I think I'll go back and sit with Ang and let you two . . . talk." "Yeah, you do that." My eyes never left Emma's face. "Go sit with your sick wife. That's where you should be." One of his eyebrows shot up, but Noah didn't say anything as he strode out of my office. I sla
Diagnosis: Love Chapter 53: Decision
EMMA I was still shaking as I stopped my car alongside my trailer in the complete darkness of the late night. When I pulled the keys from the ignition, the quiet around me was nearly deafening. I sat in the driver's seat, trying to calm myself before I made the dash from the relative safety of the car to the solitude of the trailer. I smelled of sex, and I could still feel Deacon between my legs. My panties were gone-lost somewhere in his office or possibly destroyed when he'd ripped them from my body. I hadn't lingered to look for them. As soon as Deacon had pulled out of me and stood up, a mixture of shame, guilt and uncertainty on his face, I'd fixed my dress as best I could and fled his office. I'd stopped momentarily at my own desk to retrieve my purse, and then I'd sprinted for my car, driving home without even thinking about it. I knew why Deacon had looked ashamed-he had every reason to feel that way, but I had a feeling that his reason why and mine didn't match up. He
Diagnosis: Love Chapter 54: Goodbye
EMMANoah barely glanced up at me. His eyes were fastened on Angela's face, as though he was memorizing every line, every change in expression. Her chest was moving up and down rapidly, and her forehead was creased in pain."Hey, there." I took the hand that Noah wasn't holding. "What's going on, Ang? I thought we had a deal when I left yesterday-you were going to get some rest and feel better, because you promised me a girls' weekend with all your sorority sisters, remember?" The ends of her lips tipped up just slightly. "Sorry . . . Em. Might have to . . . take a miss on that one." "Hmmm." My gaze flickered over to Noah. His eyes were bleak. "Listen, Angela. I talked to Deacon and Jenny-they told me that you don't want to go up to the ICU. I understand that you feel like you're never going to be better, that you've been fighting for a long time, but if you can be brave and strong just a little longer . . . you'll be so happy that you did. I can make sure that you get the be
Diagnosis: Love Chapter 55: This time
DEACONI finished the paperwork involved in Angela Spencer's death and left it with the floor's administrative staff to finalize. Sad that in the end, that was what our lives came down to: forms and signatures. I was almost numb from lack of sleep, but I had to make two stops before I left the hospital. Mira's office door stood open, and I knocked on it before walking in. "Deacon. What are you still doing here?" Mira had gone home last night to sleep, but she'd come back early this morning. "Shouldn't you be at home, passed out?" "I'm leaving shortly. I need to speak to you about something before I go." She heaved a long breath. "Is it really necessary this morning? Can't it wait?" "I'm afraid not." I sat down in the chair across from her desk. Mira eyed me. "If this is about your relationship with Emma Carson, save it. Everyone already knows what's going on. No need to get all confessional to me now." She paused. "And while I didn't necessarily care for Dr. Carson'
Diagnosis: Love Chapter 56: Moving Day
EMMA "UGH! Where the hell are you?" The fact that the man in question didn't answer me wasn't his fault, since he wasn't anywhere in the vicinity of my voice. That was part of the problem; I didn't know where he was, and he wasn't picking up his phone. He'd promised to be here at my little home on wheels fifteen minutes ago, and I was impatient. I peered out my window, frowning. My most recently cultivated garden plots were just a few feet away, and there were promising rows of happy green plants lined up in each of them. I'd decided to leave the trailer here as a resting place for when I was out working in my fields and as a reminder of how far I'd come in a little over a year. Maybe someday, I'd gut the trailer and remodel it as a guest home, but for now, I had my hands full with my new cabin, the plants I was cultivating-and my full-time job as a naturopath at St. Agnes Memorial Hospital.Building the cabin while trying to help run the oncology wing at St. Agnes hadn't be
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