The Heart of Memory Read Online Free PDF Page B

but do you think I should go to the doctor?”
“That’s your call, hon. I know how you are about doctors.”
She sighed. “I know. I’m just afraid something is really wrong.”
He sat beside her. “Like what?”
“I don’t know. This just doesn’t seem right, though. No one else is sick; it’s not like this is going around.”
“Maybe not here, but maybe it is in Omaha, or wherever you were before that stop.”
She sighed. “Maybe. But …”
He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and drew her against his chest. “Look, Van, you need to listen to your gut. If you think it’s serious, then make an appointment with Dr. Helms. But if you’re just discouraged because it’s taking so long, then look for something to do today that will keep your mind busy so you’re not dwelling on it. It’s not like you’re not improving at all; your fever is gone and you don’t hurt as much, right?”
“Yes, you’re right.” She sat up. “Go to work, honey. I’ll talk to you later.”
He gave her another kiss, then left her with her breakfast. She opened her Bible and read while she ate, though her mind was only half engaged with the text. The other half was thinking about her symptoms. When she realized she wasn’t comprehending anything she read, she shut her Bible and opened her journal to the back page and wrote “Symptoms.” She followed it with a bullet-point list.
Weakness
Exhaustion
Melancholia
Writing them down made her realize she didn’t have as many symptoms as she thought she did. The ones she did have didn’t seem as concerning when she wrote them out. Shaun was probably right, she was just discouraged.
Although …
She went to the bookshelf in their bedroom and pulled a medical encyclopedia from the lower shelf. She’d purchased the thick volume when Jessie was born, paranoid that her daughter might be sick one day and she wouldn’t know what to do for her, though in the end it had rarely been used. She flipped to the flow charts that helped diagnose based on symptoms and checked each one until she found the one she wanted. She moved her finger along the page, following the path from box to box, until she reached the end.
Possible Diagnoses:
Anemia
Underactive Thyroid
Pregnancy
She shut the book. Pregnancy?
She laughed out loud for a brief moment, then moved more quickly than she had in a week to her Daytimer. She flipped the pages back until she saw the red circle, then wracked her brain for a memory of the last time she and Shaun had been intimate. She’d been on the tour for three months … but made a stop at home in July. She looked again at the date and did the math.
“Oh my goodness.”
It wasn’t possible, was it? She was forty-seven years old, for heaven’s sake. Underactive thyroid made much more sense — but would that hit as fast as this had? She wondered the same about anemia. Whereas pregnancy symptoms could hit strong out of nowhere. She’d been pregnant three times, and each time the signs had turned on as though flipped by a switch.
She thought back to her pregnancies, looking for similarities between how she felt then and now. The exhaustion, the lethargy, even the blue mood — she’d experienced all of them. Granted, she hadn’t had a fever. But what if I really did have the flu first?
It was possible. She could hardly believe it, but it was definitely possible.
She crawled back under the covers, seeking a safe place to let her emotions unravel. A baby, at this age, with their only other child already halfway through college—talk about completely un-ideal. They’d never know each other, Jessie and the baby. Jessie would be more like an aunt than a sister. And at her age, Savannah would certainly be considered high-risk, which would mean frequent appointments, ultrasounds, and other medical interventions she was not a fan of. Not to mention the toll it would take on her ministry. The timing was, in all ways, absolutely horrible.
She pulled the sheets to her chin and