Chapter 7: The Changing Tide

Cam waited until after nine the next morning before he called the hospital.

"Can you tell me if Ms. Glynnis Urquhart is allowed to have visitors, please," he asked the receptionist.

"Let me check, Sir," she said, pausing for a moment before speaking. "No, Sir. She is still in Intensive Care. Are your Mr. Stuart?" she asked.

"Yes, that's right. Is there a problem?"

"I can't answer that, Sir, but Doctor Chan would like to see you on Monday morning."

"Oh ... okay ... what time?"

"If you come to the regular reception desk, they will page him for you. I'd suggest some time after nine in the morning, as he'll have rounds."

"Very well. I'll call then. Thank you," he said, hanging up and sitting back in his chair.

This did not sound good. The worry from yesterday was back, big time. What was wrong? What weren't they saying about her condition? She was still in ICU. Was that normal? The doctor had said she might be in a ward today.

"When can we go see Mom?" Jamie asked a few minutes later.

"I'm sorry, Jamie, you mother is still not well enough for visitors. I'm going to see the Doctor on Monday morning."

"But you said she was going to be okay. You said she could come home soon," the boy said, his face a mask of fear.

"I don't think it's anything serious, Jamie. But, she had an operation, and that can be hard to predict how quickly someone will heal from it. I don't want you to worry. I'll talk to the doctor on Monday and we'll find out exactly what is going on. It may be something quite simple that just needs a few extra days to heal."

Jamie didn't look like he was satisfied with Cam's answers, but didn't know what to ask next. He was frightened. His mother was all he had in this world ... well ... until Cam came along. Now, she was sick and in hospital and no one could tell him when she was going to get better. He could feel the worry in the pit of his stomach.

The next twenty-four hours were nerve-wracking for Cam. Jamie accepted that he couldn't see his mother yet, but remained sceptical that she would get well. Cam, on the other hand, had no idea what Glynnis's situation was, and wouldn't know until he talked to Dr. Chan. The short, Asian doctor exuded an aura of confidence and it was this that Cam clung to, praying that nothing had gone wrong during the operation.

Finally, just before nine o'clock on Monday morning, he presented himself to the reception desk with Jamie in tow.

"My name is Cameron Stuart and I was told to have Dr. Chan paged."

"Yes, Mr. Stuart. I'll page him now. He should be just about finished his rounds," the young lady advised politely.

Cam and Jamie found a seat in the reception area and waited for the doctor to appear. Jamie found a magazine that interested him, but Cam couldn't concentrate on anything at that point. He was worried and upset that there might be more to Jamie's mother's condition that had been let on. It was almost a half-hour before the doctor made an appearance, and he indicated Cam and Jamie should follow him into a small room.

"Doctor Chan, this is Jamie, Ms. Urquhart's son. I hope you don't mind my bringing him along. He's in my care right now."

"No, that's fine. I wanted to bring you up to date on Ms. Urquhart's situation. As I told you on Saturday, she went through the operation with no problems arising. However, when we reviewed the printout from the heart monitor, we saw an anomaly we didn't expect. I contacted our senior resident cardiologist and had him look at the situation. He believes Ms. Urquhart has a problem with one of her heart valves.

"She wouldn't realize it and wouldn't have been made aware of it until a full cardio workup was done. We conducted some further tests this morning and Dr. Rippen is confident that it is a heart valve problem. If that is confirmed, we can do a valve replacement fairly easily. This is a much less invasive procedure than in the past. However, we won't be able to confirm the diagnosis until she has healed from Saturday's operation. I'd say it would be October before we could conduct a full examination of the situation."

"Does she know?" Cam asked.

"No, she's a little slow coming out of the anaesthetic, so we won't drop that on her until she in much further along in her recovery. You'll be able to visit her this afternoon, but only briefly. If there's just the two of you, I'm sure the ward nurse won't object to her son being with you," he smiled.

"Thank you, Doctor. I appreciate your forthright explanation. I'll need to know how to proceed in October, however."

"Don't worry. Doctor Rippen's office will contact her to have her come in for a consultation and further testing."

Cam nodded and thanked the doctor once more before taking Jamie by the hand and leading him back to the parking area.

"Can't we see Mom now?" he asked.

"This afternoon, we'll both go and see her," Cam promised.

"What's a heart valve?" the boy asked.

"Well, it's a muscle that controls the amount of blood that comes in or out of the heart. We each have four valves in our heart and they think maybe that one of your mom's valves isn't working properly. They can fix that, but not until your mom is good and strong once more."

"But she'll be okay, won't she?"

"Yes ... I'm absolutely sure she'll be okay. But here's the bad news, Jamie."

The boy looked at him in alarm.

"You and I are going to have to do the housekeeping and most of the cooking. Your mom is going to have to take it easy until she is completely healed. Are you up for that?"

"Yeah. I just want Mom to get better. I don't want her to die," he said, tears forming.

"Don't worry, we aren't going to let her die. That's a promise," Cam said forcefully, pulling the boy into a warm hug. "But please don't say anything about the heart valve to your mom. We don't want to worry her, okay? It's our secret for now." Jamie agreed, looking a little more confident, but still worried.

It was Tuesday afternoon before they could get to see Glynnis. Cam was shocked at her appearance as he led Jamie into the private room. She looked pale and gaunt, despite the fact that she'd only been in the hospital three days. She turned her head as they entered and smiled and Cam immediately felt better.

"Hi, guys. Thanks for coming," she said weakly.