Loving Her (Mitchell Family #9)(2)
Author: Jennifer Foor

When we pulled into the hospital, I jumped out and was inside before the ambulance had unloaded. The triage nurse wouldn’t let me into the back until they had checked in Iz. I knew Miranda was with her, but not knowing what was going on was gut-wrenching.

I waited, impatiently, bitching the whole time, in hopes that they would let me through to keep the peace. Finally, after Conner had parked and come inside, they allowed me back to her room.

Miranda looked like she’d been crying the whole time, while nurses were taking new vitals and preparing Iz for an I.V.

“What do we know?”

Miranda shook her head and I pulled her into my arms, kissing the top of her head. “I don’t know. I guess they have to do tests. She’s never been sick like this. Somethin’s really wrong, Ty,” she whispered.

I held her tight and watched the nurses working on our daughter. Izzy remained unresponsive to questions. Her eyes were barely able to open and the redness, even after a freezing bath, hadn’t gone away. The monitor displayed that her fever was one hundred and five.

A doctor came in right away. He talked to the nurses and did a thorough examination of our daughter. He ordered a bunch of tests and then started up on the questions.

Was she allergic to anything?

Did she have a history of high fevers?

Had we traveled out of the country?

How long were the symptoms apparent?

Is anyone else suffering from the same symptoms?

The list went on and on, and when he was done we had nothing to go on.

Upon changing her clothes, we all looked in shock when they lifted her to pull on her gown. Her back was covered in ticks, at least twenty of them, protruding from her skin, swollen, with bulls-eyes around each one.

The nurse got the doctor tools and they stripped Izzy down, starting on her back and removing them one at a time. They started to pump her with medication to bring down the fever.

After a good hour, they’d removed seventy-two ticks off of our daughter in total. They’d found so many more than what was on her back. She was eleven and didn’t need supervision in the bathtub. The child was starting to develop and wanted privacy. She’d never mentioned ticks to us, but a few marks were apparent on her stomach, showing us that she’d removed some herself.

They found some under her arms, in her ears and even in her private parts. The child had been covered in them.

Due to their sudden discovery, they started treatment with antibiotics for Lyme’s disease. Within a few hours, her fever had come down and she was starting to be able to talk more.

Because it was so soon, the doctor doubted that the test would show up positive for Lyme’s, but he assured us that it was definitely the culprit.

We stayed there with our daughter, reminding her that everything was going to be okay.

By nightfall we were sure the treatment was working and that our daughter was going to be coming home and back to her normal spunky self in no time. We were confident and trusted the doctor with her life, because that is what we are taught to do. Putting the faith in a caretaker is what reassures us and allows us to be supportive.

Unfortunately, after two days, Izzy’s symptoms continued to show up. Her fever would come back and they would fight it. Her skin would get red and she’d become lethargic and unresponsive again.

When the doctor called in resources we realized we were dealing with something more serious. Our daughter didn’t have Lyme’s disease, and whatever it was, it was slowly killing her.

Chapter 2

Miranda

I swore it had to be a nightmare. There was no way that this could be happening to our healthy little girl. She hadn’t acted sick, or anything that would have led to this outcome.

A mother’s biggest fear is losing one of her children. From the very moment when you discover something is wrong, all you want to do is take whatever they’re suffering from away. You begin to pray, to plead silently in your mind, to whoever will listen.

Having Bella changed my life. She’d made me want to be a better person, a mother, and even a wife.

When panic sets in, you almost lose awareness of anything else that could be going on. I knew the boys were somewhere around, but I didn’t remember seeing them. All I was focused on was my daughter, lying in that freezing cold tub, with red skin. She was so still and unresponsive. The more we tried to get her to speak, the more worried we became when it didn’t happen.

I knew I was shaking, imagining the thought of this being so serious. With three kids, we were always passing colds back and forth to one another. That was nothing new. This, however, was different. This was like nothing I’d ever seen before.

In a matter of hours our bubbly daughter had become so ill. She needed to get to a hospital and I feared that her life depended on it.

Normally, when I saw Ty’s mom just storming in the house I’d get a little irritated. She had a habit of doing that.

Except when I saw her running in with that frightened look across her face, I knew she was going through the same emotions that I was. That motherly instinct was there and all she knew how to do was protect the people that she loved.

She’d seen the paramedics pulling up and probably heard the sirens. I can’t imagine what she must have thought was going on.

I watched the men swiftly grabbing her and putting her on the stretcher to carry her out to the ambulance. Ty was there, watching in disbelief, like someone had stabbed him in the heart.

I wanted to run to him; to cry against his chest and hold onto hope through the comfort of being close to him, but I couldn’t. I had to stay close to Bella.

Before I knew it, we were pulling away from the farm. I watched out of the tiny glass doors as the dirt road got smaller and further away.

My brother’s truck appeared, and I knew he’d grabbed Ty and was following us to the hospital. With the paramedics still taking her vitals, I leaned over and whispered in her ear, “Momma’s here, Bella. You’re goin’ to be okay, sweetie. Just rest.”

I didn’t want her to rest, in fear that she wasn’t going to wake up. I know it was horrible to think that, but to look at her, to see her so unresponsive, I couldn’t bring myself to accept that she was going to be fine. I knew whatever was happening was serious.

The paramedic turned to me and smiled as he listened to her pulse. When he removed his fingers and jotted down her results, I sat there, waiting for some sign of hope. “Do you have any idea what’s happenin’ to her?”

“No, ma’am. I’ve seen children with fevers react differently. Does she suffer from any other kind of illness? Is anyone in your family sick?”