The next few weeks flew by for Peyton. No time to think about her and Valentino’s couch shenanigans. Or the way they’d parted with the sceptre of an unplanned pregnancy turning everything very, very real.
Life was fuller, crazier, than normal.
Further mapping sessions of McKenzie’s implant –notby Valentino – and twice-weekly speech therapy chewed up her remaining three weeks at home. But the rewards were amazing. After a few days it was evident that McKenzie heard just about everything, and it was like witnessing the world being created, seeing her wonderment of it all.
Instruments in the toy box that had only ever moved in the past now made noise. The drumstick did more than bounce off the taut surface of the bongos – it actuallybonged. The tambourine did more than shimmy – itrattled.And the sleigh bellstinkled.
But not just that. The doorbell chimed. And the plughole sucked and gurgled greedily as the water swirled away. And the television talked to her. Bluey talked to her! Every sound was new and amazing.
In the beginning she’d caught McKenzie just looking at objects that created noise, as if expecting them to produce sound completely unaided. But she’d caught on quickly and no object was safe.
Her speech had also come on. In just a few weeks she already had a handful of words. Peyton had never dared hope for theday that she would hear her daughter say ‘Mummy’. But she had. Flat for sure but clear.
And it had simply been the best moment of her life.
McKenzie still signed as she spoke – they both did – and Peyton wondered how long it would be before her verbal communication skills were such that they outstripped her signing vocabulary. They would always need to sign as McKenzie was still deaf without her external device so it was vital to keep up their signing vocabulary. And, anyway, being bilingual was such a skill – Valentino being a classic example – it would be a shame to lose it.
Before Peyton knew it, it was time to go back to work, which she did reluctantly. Every minute with her daughter as she discovered a whole new world was precious and Peyton resented having to surrender any of them.
Sure, McKenzie was in good hands with her parents but that didn’t stop the gut-wrenching emotion she felt as she kissed her daughter goodbye three mornings a week. The only consolation was she still got to see McKenzie when she came in for her speech therapy and she made sure she scheduled her daughter’s appointments for the days and times she was on the clinic.
There had to be some advantages when you ran the show.
Three weeks in and everything was back running like clockwork. The op had been successful, intensive therapy had been instituted and the care arrangements clicked smoothly back into place. And McKenzie hadn’t been sick in months. There was even some roundness to her face for a change, although Peyton didn’t hold too high a hope for cracking the twentieth percentile any time soon.
She and Valentino had even managed to find a happy medium in their relationship. She’d expected it to be awkward at first, like the day they’d first met again after that night on her couch for a routine weekly follow-up appointment, but they’dboth been invested in making it work. And he was great with McKenzie, who had also learnt to sayDr Valentinovery quickly.
Finally, also, there’d been encouraging news with little Ben, who’d been transferred out of Intensive Care to a specialist acquired brain injury rehab ward. Things were great for once. All the planets were aligned. The gods were smiling. Life was good.
And then it all went to hell.
The last day of her third week back started as an ordinary Friday. Nothing remarkable. Until she was standing in neck-to-toe green, masked and hatted, waiting for Valentino to finish drying his hands and gown up, when a strong urge to urinate gripped her bladder.
She frowned as she mentally suppressed the urge. For goodness’ sake, she’d already been three times this morning. Once when she woke up, once when she got to work and just prior to scrubbing up. How on earth could she possibly want to go again?
And, anyway, she couldn’t just walk out of the theatre and go to the bathroom. She was scrubbed, sterile. It would require de-gowning and then rescrubbing and re-gowning, and with theatre times tight they didn’t have the luxury of running on the whims of her bladder.
She gritted her teeth and ignored it, holding the cuff of Valentino’s glove open ready for him to thrust in his hand.
‘Thanks,’ he murmured as he repeated the process on the other side.
Peyton could tell by the smile in his eyes that his dimples would be flashing beneath the mask. Normally that would be exceedingly distracting, despite their determination to keep things platonic, but today, as her bladder twinged again, it didn’t even rate.
She clamped down on the sensation, trying for mind over matter as the three-hour operation stretched in front of her.There was no physical way her bladder could be full again. She’d had a glass of water with breakfast and that had been it. Years of working as a scrub nurse had taught her not to drink tea or coffee prior to commencing surgery for just this reason.
It wasn’t physically possible to have anything much in her bladder – surely?
Maybe she had a urinary tract infection? But no. It hadn’t stung or burned at all. Fever? She did feel hot but she was swaddled in a gown, under bright operating lights and holding her muscles so tight she was probably overheating every cell in her body.
Ten minutes later, though, she knew she couldn’t hold on any more. She was actually crossing her legs beneath her gown. ‘Darren, can you scrub in, please?’ she asked, hoping the discomfort in her abdomen wasn’t detectable in her voice. Darren was one of the two scout nurses on for the theatre today.
Valentino, who was just preparing the drill, stopped and looked down at her. ‘Everything okay?’
She nodded as she passed him the next instrument. ‘Fine.’
The five minutes it took for Darren to wash his hands, re-enter the theatre, dry his hands and gown up felt like an hour as her bladder stretched to painful proportions.
‘Excuse me for a moment,’ she murmured, stepping back from the table and degloving/gowning as quickly as possible.
