‘Why don’t you give the baby to Nat and hop up here so I can have a look?’
Nat smiled at Nina and held out her arms. ‘What’s his name?’
‘Benji.’
‘Come on, Benji. Let’s give Mummy a bit of a break.’
The baby went willingly enough, sneezing three times during the transfer. ‘Bless you, bless you, bless you,’ Nat cooed, as she settled him on her hip and began swaying.
Alessandro was momentarily distracted by the sight. The baby had stopped crying and was looking at her curiously, watching the swish of Nat’s ponytail as she rocked him from side to side. She chose that moment to look up at him and Alessandro shot her a lazy smile.
She looked good in her uniform. She looked good in shorts. She looked good in her night shirt. And she looked absolutely sensational out of it. He should have guessed she’d look good with a baby on her hip.
Nina, oblivious to their undercurrent, climbed up on to the gurney, swung her legs up on the mattress and proceeded to roll up her jeans. ‘That’s a bit of a climb, isn’t it?’ she puffed.
Alessandro’s wandering attention returned to his patient. ‘So, have you injured yourself in any way?’ he asked, half his brain still engaged with other thoughts. Images of Nat last night straddling him, smiling down at him.
Nina shook her head. ‘My calf’s been sore ever since I got off the plane yesterday.’
Suddenly Alessandro’s brain snapped into laser-like focus. ‘Plane?’ He frowned. Painful calf. Air travel.DVT? ‘Where did you fly from?’
Nina’s brows furrowed. ‘Perth.’
His gaze sought the area that Nina was rubbing. Perth was only a four-hour flight, which made it less likely for a blood clot to have formed in the deep veins of her leg but it wasn’t impossible.
‘But I guess that was only a day after our flight from London,’ Nina continued. ‘Boy was that an awful flight. I was stuck in my seat the whole time with Benji needing to be fed constantly because of the cold playing havoc with his ears. He drank practically all through the flight. It’s times like those I wished I’d chosen the bottle over the breast all those months ago. At least his father could have helped out.’
Alessandro’s antennae started twitching crazily. Firstly, without even laying hands on her, he could see the swollen red area of Nina’s calf. That didn’t bode well. But secondly, and perhaps most importantly, as far as the big picture went, was Benji’s cough. It may have seemed quite innocent when Nina had walked in – just another childhood cold – but teamed with the wordLondonit was potentially much more.
Swamp flu was prevalent now in theUKas well as the Americas. The cases they’d had in Victoria had all been carried into the country through international air travel, although not yet from theUK. There’d been nothing in Queensland so far but as part of their preparedness for this virus, there were procedures he had to follow.
He didn’t necessarily think that Benji had swamp flu but he knew he couldn’t let them leave without making sure.
First things first, though.
Alessandro gently examined Nina’s calf, the concentrated area of heat obvious beneath his palm. He felt for a pulse at the back of her knee and also felt for her foot pulses. ‘Can you draw your toes back towards your knee?’ he asked.
Nina complied, wincing immediately. ‘That felt like a hot arrow right to the centre of my calf.’
‘Okay.’ Alessandro nodded. ‘I’m just going to feel for a pulse in your groin.’ Satisfied when he located the full bound easily, he asked. ‘Any chest pain?’
‘Nope.’
Placing his stethoscope in his ears he ran the bell over her chest. Lung fields clear. ‘I think,’ he said, helping Nina into a sitting position, ‘you may have something calledDVT. Heard of it?’
Nina’s brow furrowed. ‘That clot thingy? The one they do the talk about on planes?’
‘Uh huh,’ Alessandro confirmed. ‘You have the classic symptoms and your forced immobility on the long-haul flight definitely put you at a higher risk. We’ll get an ultrasound to confirm the diagnosis.’
Nina looked at him, a worry line between her brows. ‘I’m not going to die, am I?’
‘They are potentially very dangerous but, caught in time, they are very treatable.’
Nina looked relieved. ‘So… what happens now? Do I have to go into hospital? I have three other kids as well as Benji.’
‘I’m afraid it will mean a short hospital stay. We need to start you on a special intravenous drug that helps to thin your blood. And once you have therapeutic levels you go on to an oral form of the drug for several months.’
Nina looked at Nat. ‘Holy cow.’
