“I’ve never felt so awful before,” he says as I walk out of the room.
I run the teakettle under the faucet, filling it halfway before placing it down on the stove top and igniting the burner.
“Emi, what if it’s something contagious?”
He’s right. “Don’t worry, just close your eyes and try to relax. Everything will be okay.” The words just emerge on their own, a side-effect of having a nurse’s mindset.
I pull a handkerchief from my pocket to cover my mouth and nose and return with a rag I ran under the faucet. I’m quick and it’s been less than two minutes, but he seems to have fallen asleep. I place the compress over his forehead and stack the decorative pillows by his side to keep him from getting a neck ache.He could have been exposed to anything at any given time while working at the field hospital.
I sit down beside him on the sofa and hold the handkerchief over my face and the compress on his forehead. The innocence of his panic isn’t something I’ve seen in him for longer than I can remember.
I’ve been tending to Otto for days, working for Dietrich at home and making my trips to Dachau to drop off Dietrich’s paperwork. While slipping the folder into his desk drawer the other night, I came across half a bottle of penicillin and swiped it to give to Otto in case he has an infection. My assumption is that he might have contracted streptococcus, but he hasn’t complained of a sore throat. Still, even after several doses of penicillin working through his system, there hasn’t been much of a change. I have him resting in bed, trying to give him as much liquid as I can, but he’s been refusing to eat, saying he’s not hungry. None of this makes sense. What kind of nurse am I if I can’t help my own husband? With all the studying I’d done and should have been doing, I feel as though I should be better at diagnosing him, but the list of possibilities is beginning to grow, rather than shrink.
“I’m so sorry for keeping you up all night,” he mumbles, reaching his hand out. I lean toward him from the chair I’ve settled next to his bed side and take his hand, first spotting his wedding band overlapping mine. While shifting my gaze to his eyes, I notice a pink welt forming along his wrist. I push up the sleeve of his pajamas, finding more pink welts and small bumps scattered between.
“What is it?” he asks, focusing on the expression I didn’t hide well.
“You have a rash. Does it itch?”
“Now that you mention it, I have been itchy.”
“Don’t scratch any of it,” I tell him, dropping his hand to run downstairs. “I’ll get ointment.”
“Emi, it’s okay. It’s just a rash,” he says, calling after me.
I make my way into Otto’s office then fall to my knees in front of the bookshelf full of medical textbooks. I pull out several and flip through the pages until I reach the diagnosis of rashes, finding several different variations to compare his to.
Just as I’m tracing my finger down the center of the text, there’s a knock at the door. I’m beginning to hate that godawful sound. Ingrid has come back three times since Otto asked her to leave. She’s wanted to extend an apology for her behavior, which I accepted and told her was unnecessary. She heard Otto moving around upstairs so I had to tell her he’s ill, but likely with a case of influenza. She then returned with soup, then dumplings.
I open the door, feeling as though I just ran up and down the stairs a dozen times. “Ingrid, now isn’t?—”
Instead, I find Dietrich standing in front of me. I would much prefer Ingrid over him.
“I’m here to check on Otto. He must be quite sick if you made the decision to steal a bottle of penicillin from my desk drawer. At least, I assume he’s the one who’s sick, since you appear perfectly healthy.”
“Yes, he is,” I say, running my fingers through my knotted hair. “Otto is sick with symptoms of influenza and a fever, but I’ve just spotted a rash that I’m trying—” I can’t believe I’m explaining anything to this man. I would like nothing more than to kick him all the way to the curb.“I have everything under control. He’ll be back on his feet in no time,” I say hastily, still gripping the doorknob in my hand. “I’ll give you money for the penicillin I stole.”
He repeats my words in a quiet mutter before replying. “A rash?” he questions.
“Yes,” I reply.
“Yes…Good God. I was afraid it was serious,” he says. “Where is he? Upstairs in bed?”
More than anything in this world, I hate that Dietrich is the only certified doctor that either of us know. I wouldn’t trust him if my life depended on it, and I don’t think he knows much more than I do with my year of nursing classes and self-studying.
“Yes.”
He rushes past me and storms up the stairs. I close the door and follow him, worried about what he’ll say or ask Otto, who isn’t thinking too clearly at the moment.I find him inspecting the rash on Otto’s arm.
“Did you touch his rash?”
“No, and I had my face covered until today in case he had been contagious, but he’s been taking the penicillin for three days now.” I lift his shirt sleeve.
“No…That’s odd,” he says.
“What’s odd? What is it?” I shout, demanding a clearer answer.
“What is it?We only see rheumatic fever in children, but this jagged rash is most definitely a common symptom. It’s good you started him on penicillin, but unfortunately with this rash, it means the strep has already spread to other parts of his body.”
