Page 83 of Booked for Kidnapping

He winced and leaned in my direction. “Mercy?”

I twisted to regard my fiancé with a frown. “Bradley?”

“I think he’s learned his lesson, but if it makes you feel better, I’ll make sure he doesn’t run away.” Bradley grinned and held out his hand to Dr. Castor. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Dr. Castor.”

She smiled and shook with him. “The pleasure’s mine. How long has Miss Asurella been demonstrating anxiety?”

“I would say it started in earnest when she clued in Dad might have a heart attack when we got onto the 1 and the roads got a little crazy. It was her first time really focusing on the scenery in the area, and she just went off. She was aware of his heart attack risk before we left the hotel, but she didn’t ramp up until we got onto the narrow roads. In good news, she didn’t have any problems with driving, but if she’d had a knife, she might have found a place to pull over to deal with the cholesterol build up. I figured since she was just worrying versus having an actual meltdown, it was fine to leave her as she was. When we head home, we have a date with some therapists. She’s typically calm and collected during actual emergencies, so I think the problem was more related to her inability to fix the problem right that second. When she’s working with a patient, it’s during an emergency and it’s typically a life-or-death situation.”

I sighed and released Mr. Hampton’s ear. “I can’t believe you’ve been running around while you’re a heart bomb ready to blow.”

“I have legitimate reasons for not wanting the standard procedures,” he replied.

“They are legitimate reasons, Miss Asurella,” Dr. Castor confirmed. “Would you like to review the medical file? I acquired a copy of it to review after he called me.”

“I don’t need it. I’ll just monitor his blood pressure while I work, and if I can’t work because his blood pressure drops, I’ll just yell at him some more. I don’t know what his medications do.” I scowled at the reality I’d missed a whole lot of helpful education. “I learned on cows, and they just don’t give cows blood pressure medications! And when there were drugs involved, I just did what I could. Usually, I’d just purge any foreign material out of the blood stream and wait for the doctors to use their medications, get a feel for what they wanted to happen, and roll with it. I did a lot of rolling with it in the ER. The drug overdoses were the worst. Depending on the drug, I could kill them just yanking that shit out of their blood, so we had to experiment, and nothing is quite as nerve rattling as experimenting on some dying patient’s blood because the doctors don’t have the labs back and we don’t know if we’re dealing with a time bomb of a drug.”

“His medication shouldn’t be an issue, although he’ll need to be weaned off of it to prevent some unwanted side effects. You don’t need to worry about that,” Dr. Castor said, keeping her tone soothing. “You can leave the drugs intact in his blood stream unless his blood pressure drops, and you can begin lowering the amount in his blood stream until his blood pressure is where you want it. We’ll then adjust his dosage and wean him off the medications to avoid the side effects.

“What are the side effects?”

“A stroke or heart attack comes to mind.”

The entry of the Mission-style home had a bench to go with the elegant yet sparsely decorated end tables, and I flung myself onto it, covered my head with my arms, and wailed over the unfairness of it all.

“Janette?” Bradley asked. “Are you all right?”

“I’m not going to be able to sleep for a week because he might have a stroke or a heart attack.” I allowed myself another wail, heaved a sigh, and sat up, straightening my clothes and glasses, and gave a nod. “Okay. That’s better.”

Bradley stared at me with his mouth hanging open.

“You won’t have to stay awake for a week monitoring him,” Dr. Castor assured me. “I already have an updated prescription to handle the problem until he can be weaned off in a safe fashion. He’ll be fine. He’ll feel a lot better once you’re done with him, too. And yes, I understand that reaction. The first time I had a critical patient, I felt the same way. How dare anyone suggest I sleep when I might lose my patient if I take my eyes off him for even a moment? You won’t lose a week of sleep, as he’ll take his medications right on schedule and be checked daily until he’s clear.”

“That implies he hasn’t been feeling well.”

“Heart disease of the severity he’s suffering from is not ideal. So, no. He wouldn’t have been feeling well. After you’re done with him, I expect he’ll sleep quite well, and he’ll be eager to do more strenuous forms of exercise. His former physician ignored the signs, so his treatments were started late. That isn’t his fault. He has a new physician who has been treating the problem, but his new physician advised waiting for you to handle the serious work and has been making certain your patient would survive the wait.” The doctor looked me over. “I would definitely like to discuss how exsanguinators can help treat heart disease. I’ll admit, I was unaware heart disease was your domain. Cholesterol and plaque aren’t blood-based, although they certainly hamper the flow of blood throughout the body.”

“Exsanguination is more than dealing with blood,” I admitted. “I suppose I’m a walking bodily fluids expert. I can manipulate spinal fluid and even stuff like bile and stomach acid, although blood is easier. I can also work with infections, although that’s more challenging as well. But if it’s a fluid in the body, chances are I can manipulate it. Cholesterol and plaque directly come into contact with blood, and I can use the blood to wear away at the plaque and remove the base cholesterol deposits. Plaque takes more work to remove, but when I’m done with him, he’ll have squeaky clean arteries. I can detect the differences between the artery walls, the cholesterol, and the plaque. I’ll shunt all the unwanted material into his bloodstream, prick his finger, and eject it that way. He might need a single stitch once I’m done with him, depending on if there are any larger chunks I can’t break apart. And if there is, I’ll open a hole nearest to where that chunk is, and then I’ll have to monitor for clotting.”

“Fascinating. Can you explain what you’re doing while you’re doing it?”

Nobody had ever asked if I would walk them through such a procedure while doing it before, and I stared at her with wide eyes. “Sure, but if I’m doing something delicate, I’ll wait to talk until after I’m done the work. But I’ll let you know I’m about to do something delicate. When I’m clearing out his heart, I’ll be quiet, but I’ll start with the ascending aorta, checking to see how bad that section is. If it’s blocked, I’ll clear out the heart itself and the descending aorta before tackling the ascending and minimize the heart attack risk. I need to make sure anything I clear out doesn’t pump into the heart and cause the heart attack I’m trying to avoid. But, I can control the blood flow and bypass the heart altogether if needed. Depending on the severity, I might. I’ve worked with a lot of heart attack victims in the emergency room, and blockages are a top culprit. My job is to keep the patient’s blood oxygenated and reaching organs as needed. If I stop talking, it’s because I’m busy.”

“Of course. The patient’s health always comes first, even in research situations. There are many ethical rules physicians must follow when studying even rare diseases, and doing our best to cure the patient is one of them, even in cases of terminal diseases or extreme trauma. Whenever I work with a trauma patient, my goal is to restore their life to them in the best possible fashion. Sometimes, difficult choices must be made, but they are always made with the patient’s consent.”

Interesting. I eyed Bradley’s father. “You better consent to having me fix that train wreck.”

“I wouldn’t have bothered Dr. Castor if I wasn’t willing to have you do the work, Janette. I would have been all right with you doing the work at the hotel, but I thought it would be more sanitary at Dr. Castor’s home rather than you raiding the kitchen to get a steak knife.”

“Steak knives aren’t really sanitary, but I would have made sure you didn’t get an infection.”

“Let me get a blood pressure cuff and my travel bag. Please come with me. We can take care of this in the sitting room. There’s a leather couch I’m certain an exsanguinator such as yourself can clean up if needed. Having seen his medical record, I will bring sufficient storage for the deposits.”

“That bad?” I heaved a sigh and shot Bradley’s father a glare.

“A few days wasn’t going to make any difference, Janette. It’s well controlled, and I know what symptoms to watch for. I would have told you if I’d experienced any of them. I’ve been enjoying my vacation relaxing, so I was at minimal risk in the first place.”

I stared at him. “Is that true?”