Shelter for Adeline Read Online Free PDF Page A

really?”
    “Really.”
    “Jesus, that sucks,” Dean told her, pushing his now empty soup bowl to the side and reaching across the table for her hand.
    Without thought, Adeline extended her hand toward him and tried to ignore the tingles that shot up her arm when he grabbed hold of her.
    “How do you feel about that?”
    The question surprised Adeline, but made her feel good. So many people had told her how they thought she should feel about surgery, rather than asking what she actually felt. “It completely freaks me out, to be honest,” she told Dean candidly. “My sister and mom really want me to consider it, but I’m just not sure I want someone to cut into my brain. I mean, removing a part of my brain to try to reduce the seizures isn’t my idea of a good time. What if they take out too much and I’m not me when I wake up? What if I don’t remember my sister or her husband, or my parents? What if the knife slips and I’m a vegetable for the rest of my life?
    “But just when I’ve talked myself out of having the surgery altogether, I think about a life where I don’t have to worry about when or where I might have an episode. About how nice it would feel to not have to constantly be concerned about seizing as much anymore. The surgery scares the hell out of me, but I’m almost at a point where I’m willing to take the risk if it means that I can live a life without seizing so often.”
    “I imagine those are all completely normal thoughts,” Dean told her in a soft voice.
    When he said nothing else, Adeline lifted an eyebrow. “No other commentary?”
    He cocked his head in confusion. “What do you mean?”
    “It’s just that usually people have all sorts of opinions about what I should and shouldn’t do.”
    “Adeline,” he said in such an understanding tone it made her want to cry. “It’s your body. You’ve lived with the disease your whole life. I don’t have epilepsy and I have no idea what it’s like to lose control as you do when you have a seizure. I would no sooner tell you how you should feel or what you should do than I would someone who was contemplating having cosmetic surgery or any other kind of procedure. I might have my own thoughts on the subject, but one, we’ve only just met, and two, I don’t know enough about you or your history of seizures to presume to give you medical advice about it.”
    Tears sprang to Adeline’s eyes and she took a deep breath to try to keep them at bay. The last thing this beautiful man needed was a woman he’d just met bawling in front of him. “Thank you.”
    “For what?”
    “For understanding. For not telling me how I should feel or think. For just…everything.”
    “You’re welcome. Where does your dog fit into everything?” he asked, gesturing to the black Labrador retriever sleeping under the table.
    Adeline appreciated his change in subject. “Coco?”
    “Yeah. How long have you had him? Did you get him because he was a seizure alert dog?”
    She shook her head. “Nope. I was staying home more and more. I was terrified of having seizures in public. They were uncomfortable for me and everyone around me, and dangerous too because I never knew when they’d hit. I got a dog because I was lonely. There’s actually quite a controversy about seizure alert dogs in the epileptic world. Some people claim dogs can’t be trained, others say they don’t actually work at all, and on the other side, proponents claim that this type of service dog absolutely can be trained to let people know they’re going to have a seizure.
    “No one was more surprised than me when Coco seemed to actually start alerting me when I was about to have a seizure. I’d had him a year before the first time he alerted. That first time it happened, I thought it was a fluke. Coco had always been loving and attentive, but when he continued to jump on me before I seized, I finally made the connection.
    “I noticed that about ten minutes before I was going to