“Is there anything on there that will tell me if I will be able to play baseball again?” Jason asked, and Sarah’s heart sank. That was the real issue. His parents had explained to her that he had been playing baseball since he was able to hold a bat and it wasn’t something that the boy would be able to give up on easily.
“There are actually some studies they’ve done in relation to athletes and defibrillators, but as of now they are recommending that anyone with a defibrillator doesn’t play most competitive sports,” David said. She could hear the regret in his voice and hoped that Jason could hear it too. David understood the loss the boy was feeling at knowing that he was going to have to give up his favorite sport. “There are other sports that you can participate in though.”
“But not baseball,” Jason said, his voice so low now that Sarah could barely hear him.
A few minutes later David walked out of the room. Sarah had heard him promise Jason that he would be around early the next morning to see him before he was taken to surgery and it seemed that the boy was finally going to accept that the surgery was necessary.
“That was hard,” David said as he joined Sarah in the hall.
“I know, but you did get him to agree to the surgery and you were honest with him,” Sarah said as they headed to see the last patient of the morning. “What did you play?”
“Basketball,” he said. “I had great dreams of making it big in the NBA.”
“What happened?” she asked as she knocked on the door of the next patient.
“I reached five-eleven and stopped growing,” he said, smiling as he turned his full attention to the little girl they found lying in the bed surrounded by stuffed animals.
Sarah looked down at the little blond girl whose breathing seemed even more labored today than it had the day before. As with a lot of pediatric heart patients, Lindsey was small for her ten years. The little girl looked up at her and smiled, those baby blue eyes hitting Sarah right in the heart. The two of them had been on such a long journey together over the past two and a half years as they had waited for a heart to become available. Lindsey been moved up recently on the waiting list so it was just a matter of waiting for a match with a donor heart. Only now Lindsey had been exposed to a respiratory virus that was making her heart work even harder.
She looked around the room and found the child alone as was often the case. Lindsey’s mother, Hannah, was very young, and a single mom without any support, and had to work long hours to provide for her and Lindsey. But Lindsey was very sick right now and her mother needed to be there. Sarah would touch base with Hannah and give her an update so that she understood exactly how critical Lindsey’s condition could become. Hannah had fought beside her daughter for so long, Sarah knew the young mother wouldn’t give up now.
As David walked over to the bed to introduce himself to the little girl, Sarah joined the nurse who was charting on the computer at Lindsey’s bedside.
“Has Pulmonary been in today?” Sarah asked.
“Yes, Dr. Lorten wants to do a bronchoscopy, but I haven’t been able to get Hannah to give us consent,” the nurse said.
“I’ll call her,” Sarah said. Then crouching down on the floor next to Lindsey’s bed, she asked, “How are you feeling, kiddo?” She pushed the child’s blond curls off her forehead and was relieved to feel it cool. No fever. At least that was a good sign.
“I’m not going to make it to see the horses this week, am I?” Lindsey asked.
“Horses?” asked David. He’d pulled a chair up beside Lindsey’s bed while Sarah had been talking with Kim.
Lindsey turned her blue eyes toward him and for the first time in the last week she saw the little girl’s eyes come alive.
“Oh, yes,” Lindsey said. “Sarah has lots of pretty horses. I’ve seen pictures of them all. Maple is my favorite. Sarah let me name her myself when she first got her.”
“And Maple will be waiting to see you as soon as you get better,” Sarah said as she squeezed the little girl’s hand in hers. “I’ll tell you what—when I get home I’ll take a picture of Maple for you and I’ll bring it in tomorrow.”
“I have to see this horse with a name like Maple,” David said as he gave Lindsey a smile. The little girl’s face turned pink and Sarah knew it wasn’t from a fever. It looked like Lindsey might have her first crush, which was so sweet to see that Sarah couldn’t help but smile up at the man who had made her special little girl happy when she was so sick.
She listened as Lindsey explained the therapy program Sarah ran at her father-in-law’s ranch teaching young cardiac patients from the community how to ride. Or if their medical condition wouldn’t allow them to participate in the riding lessons they could interact with the special therapy horses kept on the ranch. Sarah was proud of The Henderson Memorial horse therapy program that she had founded. Working with the children at the ranch wasn’t only good for them, it had also been good for her.
“That sounds like a lot of fun,” David said to the little girl.
“You can go too. Lots of times the doctors volunteer to help. Can he go, Sarah?” asked Lindsey.
“Of course he can come,” Sarah answered. “And as soon as you get better, I’ll take you out there to see Maple.”
“I don’t have any experience with horses, but I
