A Search For Ida

Chapter 8

Cecelia had just thrown on a shirt that she had found on the floor and shorts. She ran down to her living room to grab her jacket when she noticed all of the pictures hanging up on the walls and sitting on tables and the mantle. She looked around in a circle and the entire room was filled with pictures of her mother. Some of them had been family pictures of vacations but not a single one didn't have her mom in them. She went into the kitchen and grabbed a small trash bag and took down all of the pictures. She shoved the bag in the coat closet up at the top shelf. It would probably be best for her father's recovery (if he ever came home) if he didn't have her hovering over him eveywhere, reminding him that she left him and he was alone; that is, of course, other than her.

Cecelia jogged out of her house and down the street but her gait slowed as she reached Belvedere Blvd. After looking both ways, she raced across the street and continued on her way towards the hospital. When she arrived, she walked through the doors and was greeted by Dr. Chopra.

"Come Ms. Taylor, let's take a walk. If you don't mind."

Cecelia nodded and turned back to the way she came. "So was there a specific reason as to why you called me," as if she didn't know.

"Well... I don't know exactly how to tell you this, but," he said looking rather guilty, "your father's heart stopped suddenly last night due to, what we call, Ventricular Fibrillation."

Cecelia's heart was racing and she thought she was going to have a panic attack. She had already lost her mom, she couldn't lose her dad too!

"Which means, in other terms, that your father had a cardiac arrest, meaning his heart stopped, and that was caused by a heart attack. Now we aren't completely sure what caused the heart attack but we think that it was caused by a condition called CHD. That is, Coronary Heart Disease. Because your father has high blood pressure, plaque has been building up in his coronary artery. Eventually it hardened causing it to send less oxygen-rich blood to his heart. All of this plaque building up caused it to narrow the pathway to the heart and it ended up creating a blood clot; which in turn caused the heart attack. After the heart attack, his heart went into Ventricular Fibrillation." 

That was it. Could anything else go wrong? Her father now had so many issues that she didn't know if he would even recover.

"It was a good thing, though, that your father was here at the hospital because we don't think would have servived if he hadn't been. We preformed an insertion of a thin tube into his artery to clear and open it, otherwise known as cardiac catheterization. We also decided that is was best if we put a cardiac stent in which is a permanent mesh tube inserted into the artery to keep it open in case this was to happen again. I am dearly sorry Ms. Taylor that you have to go through all of this at such a young age."

By the time he finished explaining they reached the crossing of Belvedere Blvd and turn back. "Okay... I understand," she said looking down as a silent tear ran down her face.

"Do you have any questions or concerns that you would like to share with me at this time?"

"Well, my main concern is if he is going to recover. Will he ever be able to go back to the way he was before and live a normal life?"

"Well. if everything goes as planned, then he should recover and be ready to go home in about three days. Usually it takes one to five days to recover but we want to keep him for a few nights afterwards to make sure there are no complications. He should be able to return to his normal routine in no time as long as everything turns out good, which I'm sure it will. He has had no complications so far so I believe that he will be okay."

"Whew.." A sigh of relief. Although they aren't completely in the clear yet, she was just very glad that he was going to be okay. She caught Dr. Chopra offgaurd with a tightly-squeezed hug and as awkward as it was, he gently patted her back and acknowledged her relief.

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Ida had reached the crossing of Belvedere Blvd. and when she started to turn and walk the Blvd. she thought she spotted the back of Cecelia and what looked like Lark's doctor. She thought about just turning back before they saw her but Cecelia looked as if she was hugging the doctor, which seemed odd seeing as Cece was never very much of an affectionate person, especially to new people. 

Oh who cares what she or anyone else at that dang hospital thinks!

So Ida hastily crossed the road and slowed as she started getting close to them. She followed along for a few seconds trying to see what they were talking about but Cece must have sensed someone following her and turned around.

"Ida?"