“What are you not telling me?” Had she hit her head? Broken something? Nothing hurt save for a faint ache in her breast and shoulder muscles, obviously from too many hours under the heavy protective garments.
Diana looked to the other end of the room. “Madison, please give us a minute.”
A nurse Jess hadn’t even noticed until now shrugged and left with a long glance back to her patient. It was rare that a doctor turned into a patient in her own hospital.
Jess frowned. Not exactly true in her case. She had managed to wind up on a gurney in the emergency department twice in four weeks.
After Madison had closed the door, Diana swiveled back to Jess. Her gaze bored into Jess as if she wanted to read her thoughts. “Your colleagues thought the same as you did. Just a bit of dehydration and low blood pressure. They elevated your legs, but when you remained unconscious and they couldn’t find your pulse, they were clever enough to hook you up to the EKG.” Diana paused as if waiting for her reaction.
Jess made a “go on” gesture. “Tell me. In medical, not in English.” She didn’t need to be coddled like a patient; she wanted to know the facts.
“You had a VT, and they shocked you. They—”
“VT?” Jess wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. Maybe she needed the English version after all.
“Yeah, a ventricular tachycardia. I saw the EKG printout myself. You had a heart rate around one eighty with wide ventricular complexes and…”
The rest of Diana’s explanation got drowned out by a buzzing in Jess’s ears. Why? She was healthy, had never had any serious illnesses, not even as a child. Why would she develop a dangerous cardiac rhythm? So dangerous that they’d had to shock her? That made no sense. Maybe they’d gotten it wrong. Maybe Kayla and Scott had misjudged the rhythm. Maybe the cable had been faulty and transmitted extra signals. Maybe…
“Dr. Riley?” Diana squeezed her forearm and pulled her out of her thoughts.
“Call me Jess.” This was not the time to insist on decorum.
“Jess, I guess this comes as a surprise, but the EKG left no doubt. You had a VT, and electric cardioversion was the right choice of treatment. Now we’ve got to find the cause. Any prior events? Known conditions? Anything in your medical history?”
“Okay. Sounds like a plan.” Jess relaxed back as far as lying on a gurney with barely a cushion could be called relaxing. If she had to trust anyone at work, it might as well be Diana who had proven herself already. “Nothing. I’ve always been healthy, and I’ve had more than a few EKGs and echoes during my residency, as we practiced on each other. I’ve never had a problem with endurance training—I’m a long-distance runner.” She snorted and rolled her eyes. “Not so much in the last year. And since Ella’s birth, I haven’t been as fit as I wanted to be. But maybe I have unrealistic expectations.”
“Maybe. But VTs are not an usual occurrence postpartum. And…” Diana ran her hand through her shoulder-length hair, tousling it even more than before. “Before the birth in the garden, you fainted too. Your pulse was racing. I had no way to time it, but it was way over the normal limit. As you recovered in seconds, I chalked it up to stress and pain. Maybe you had a VT then too, only self-limiting that time.”
Her first instinct was to deny it and accuse Diana of a vivid imagination. Throw in a sarcastic comment or two, then jump up and stalk out. Only her bones were as heavy as the lead gown had been, and she was more tired than ever. She’d probably land on her face if she attempted to get up right now.
Jess rubbed the upper right side of her chest, which was still tender after the electric shock. Something wasn’t okay. If she was honest with herself, it hadn’t been for a while. But still, a VT? She couldn’t believe it.
Ding! Ding! Ding! The heart monitor came to life with a familiar alarm that drowned out the other sounds. Her breath froze. Beep-beep-beep. The sound of her own heartbeat wasn’t steady and reassuring anymore. She craned her neck to catch a glimpse of the monitor behind her left shoulder.
The spikes of the EKG came much too fast, were much too wide. She couldn’t deny what she saw with her own eyes. Another VT. With each spike, fear stabbed her chest with razor-sharp icicles.
The lines jiggled as her vision blurred. Dizziness and nausea rose as if she’d been too long on a roller coaster. “Fuck.” Her head fell back on the cushion, and she closed her eyes and waited for consciousness to fade.
Only it didn’t.
As if a magical button had been pressed, her heart rate switched from highly elevated to normal, and the wailing alarm of the monitor stopped. The sound of her pulse pounded in her ears, echoing the faint beeps that again reassured medical personnel that everything was all right.
But it wasn’t. Having seen it with her own eyes, Jess was no longer able to deny it. Something was seriously wrong.
She could have died.
Ella! The idea of leaving her daughter was unimaginable.
Bile rose in her throat. Jess swallowed it and pushed her fears to the back of her mind. She needed to function, not to feel.
She caught Diana’s gaze and tried to project authority she didn’t feel at the moment. “I want you to do an echo.”
Diana nodded. “I’ve already ordered one. The tech should be here any minute. And then we can—”
“No, I don’t want any fucking tech to know my business.” Jess gestured to the portable ultrasound machine in the corner of the room. It wasn’t the most modern or best equipment the hospital had to offer, but it would be enough for a glimpse at her heart. “I want you
