Three
Thursday 3rd September
I woke to a cacophony of noises and the smell of vegetable soup.
A slow, steady beep, a high-pitched irregular bleep, a loud continuous pinging… I was in a hospital bed surrounded by corrugated curtains. Cocooned in duck egg. I took a deep breath, and it was a relief to feel the oxygen fill my lungs.
I was OK, I was alive, and I’d somehow made it into a hospital gown without my bra. There were wires stuck to my chest and a plastic tube poked out of my hand, surrounded by purple bruises. At least I still had my knickers on.
An eye appeared at the corner of the curtains, followed by a hand. ‘Ah, good evening, Sara. You’re awake.’
‘Hi,’ I mumbled, my mouth parched.
‘My name is Dr Fielding. You fainted in the office, do you remember?’
I nodded.
‘We’ve been monitoring you for the past few hours. We suspect it was a type of anxiety attack.’
I frowned. ‘Nothing to do with my heart then?’
‘No. Your ECG was clear, so no problems there. It looks to have been more of a vasovagal response.’
I leant forward to hear him better. Did he sayvaginal?
‘In layman’s terms, your blood pressure and heart rate dropped at the same time, and you fainted. This kind of reaction is usually triggered by stress and exhaustion.’
‘Right.’
‘Your colleague Cheryl Garner admitted you and informed your husband. Mark, is it?’
My stomach flipped at his name, and I nodded. I didn’t need to correct him. Markwasstill technically my husband and by default my next of kin, but I could imagine the confusion on his face when Cheryl called. Like – why was she telling him? No doubt he put her straight on to Mum.
Dr Fielding tapped away on his iPad. ‘I spoke with him earlier and he gave us full permission to go ahead with whatever treatment we deemed necessary.’Course he did. A timely reminder to update my will. Not that I had anyone to leave it to – not in the next generation, anyway. Abi and Kat would have to draw straws.
‘Your bloods are all fine, but your cholesterol has been flagged as high.’
‘Really?’ I croaked, thinking of the wine and cheese fest I’d had with the girls.
The doctor ploughed on, despite my one-word answers. ‘Do you exercise regularly?’
‘Yes,’ I said, affronted. ‘Swimming, HIIT classes, running occasionally.’Very occasionally.And I hadn’t been to HIIT for months, now I thought about it.
He frowned. ‘Typically, we’d associate this kind of episode with a trauma reaction. Has anything happened recently we should take into consideration?’
You could say that.
‘I’m a lawyer, so work is always full-on. Criminal defence.’
‘Mm-hmm. We don’t usually class work astrauma,’ he said with a wry smile. ‘Anything else?’
‘Not really,’ I whispered, scared to say the words out loud. I smiled into the silence, as Dr Fielding scratched his head, then I made myself tell him. ‘Apart from the divorce.’
My heart ached as I said it and I really didn’t want to go through it all again. Reliving the split and that awful,awful, conversation with Mark.
‘We got married too quickly,’he’d said, and I froze. I could tell immediately this wasn’t just one of those conversations. He was serious this time.‘I got carried away and that’s on me. We barely knew each other.’I’d heard the words, but I couldn’t believe he was saying them.‘I love you in principle, of course I do, but this isn’t going to work.’
‘You love me in principle?’I’d repeated, as he smashed my precious memories to smithereens.‘What the hell does that mean? It wasn’t quick – it was a beautiful, romantic whirlwind.’
