Bedside Manner (The Midas Touch Book 1)

  Bedside Manner

  The Midas touch Series: Book One

  Rochelle Summers

  Copyright © 2020 by Rochelle Summers

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  For my partner in crime, who is always up for passionate adventures!

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  About the Author

  Also by Rochelle Summers

  Also by Rochelle Summers

  Chapter 1

  The fluorescent lights of the hospital flashed, moving quickly above Joanna’s head as her stretcher was rushed through the hallway. She’d been pouring over her Concepts of Biology textbook, getting ready for her very first midterm exam when all of a sudden it became hard to breathe. At first she thought, oh great, I’m having a panic attack just like every other senior, how predictable, but when her roommate and best friend Porsche found her twenty minutes later with blue lips and fingernails, sitting on the ground trying not to pass out, they both knew it was time to go to the hospital.

  Joanna had never been the athletic type, usually blaming her lack of interests in sports on laziness. She had always been more of an academic in that regard due primarily to her susceptibility to any and all of the normal ailments that passed by most of the population her age. Her genetics had not been favorable in that regard but she had decided long ago that it wouldn’t stop her from experiencing life on her terms. With light blonde hair and fair skin, Joanna easily blended in with the crowd, but it was her piercing blue eyes that really stood out. She was beautiful, in her own, natural kind of way, though it had taken all of her 22 years to realize it herself. Preferring to keep her nose stuck in books, it was easy to use her condition as an excuse to stay indoors, though medically speaking there was nothing that said she couldn’t be involved in sports. Even so, Joanna always thought she’d had better lung capacity than an 80 year old smoker, which is what she felt like in that moment, sitting on her dorm room floor, struggling for air. Porsche had laughed when Joanna said as much in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, though her friend knew better than to take Joanna’s sarcasm as a sign of her good health. Something was seriously wrong, and Joanna’s sardonic behaviour couldn’t take away from that.

  One of the doctors called out to another, but Joanna couldn’t hear them, instead focusing on taking one breath after another, through the oxygen mask on her face. Her vision started dotting, but she didn’t have the energy to panic. The main thought that ran through her mind was how unfair it would be to her father if she died. Joanna’s mother had passed away when she was young, after a long battle with breast cancer, and as such, she and her father had seen more than their fair share of hospital interiors.

  The last time she’d seen her mother was her 12th birthday. They’d had a small party outside in the backyard, with a scavenger hunt and strawberry shortcake. Joanna had been under the impression that her mother was on the road to recovery, but in reality she’d given up the chemo months earlier, opting instead to enjoy her last moments pain free. When she collapsed in the middle of the party, Joanna’s dad had rushed her away to the hospital so quickly Joanna hardly knew what was happening. Her aunt Jenna had to explain everything to the birthday guests, who all left quickly, confused and saddened. By the time Jenna took her to the hospital to see her mother, it was too late. She was already gone.

  It had been a very different atmosphere that day her mother died. The doctors and nurses all lowered their eyes when they saw her, or gave her pitying stares. Now, ten years later in the very same hospital, she could tell that the doctors and nurses around her were scared. Where is Porsche, she thought. Trying to lift her head up, Joanna looked around for her friend, but she didn’t seem to be alongside the stretcher anymore. That’s when she truly started to worry. If she was somewhere that the public wasn’t allowed, then it meant something was very wrong. Her head started getting cloudy again, falling back as she tried again to get someone’s attention.

  “Don’t try to speak, miss, just relax,” she heard the doctor beside her say.

  Someone has to tell my dad where I am, she thought over and over again, as though thinking it hard enough might make it happen. She hoped that Porsche had called her dad, but Joanna couldn’t be sure. She ought to have had faith in her old friend however. Having grown up next door to each other since they were seven years old, Joanna and Porsche were inseparable. Porsche was the first person who had ever stood up for Joanna against any schoolyard bullies, making fun of her frail appearance.

  “You’re just special, and they’re just jealous. Don’t let them get you down, you’ll be a model some day and they’ll all be working at the same awful chemical plant that their parents do,” Porsche said about some of the meaner girls in their class.

  Joanna had no interest in becoming a model, but her looks did attract many photographers over the years, and more than a few scouts had approached her. She was more interested in the natural world however, spending much of her time bird watching and studying bugs and insects she found in the garden.

  It only made sense that the two friends would dorm together at Waterford College, though they were studying very different subjects. As a music production major, Porsche was no help with Joanna’s biology studying, and vice versa. Still, their history made up for their diverging interests. There was so much Joanna wouldn’t have experienced if Porsche hadn’t pushed her to do so. As an avid rule abider (though she hated the term “goody two shoes”), Joanna would always rather stay at home and watch Planet Earth than do almost anything else.

  This however, was an adventure she hadn’t signed up for.

  “And how are we feeling today?” asked an unfamiliar voice, and Joanna’s eyes travelled up to a new figure walking beside her. He was young, didn’t look much older than Joanna herself. Too young to be a doctor, she thought, but there was something about his energy that made her feel at ease. In a world of patronizing medical professionals, this one seemed charmingly cavalier. His mop of shiny curls fell over his bright green eyes, which almost gave Joanna the energy to smile. He looked like the kind of guy who worked too hard and whose mother worried that he didn’t eat enough. Cute. He was cute.

  That was the last thing she remembered thinking before her eyes closed.

  Chapter 2

  The next two days were a total blur, and Joanna had hardly any memory of them. Just brief flashes of doctors and nurses, her father’s worried face, and Porsche reading to her from a fashion magazine.

  Finally, she came to and was able to sit up, though she still couldn’t breathe properly. Her dad was there, reading a newspaper, and when he saw that her eyes were open he almost jumped out of his chair with joy.

  “Jo! Hi! How are you? Don’t talk, don’t say anything. Just, squeeze my hand if you’re okay,” he said. Joanna would have laughed if she could’ve mustered the strength. Instead, she smiled and took her dad’s hand, squeezing it.

  “Mr. Mickles?” came a voice from the door, and Joanna slowly turned to see who was speaking. It was the same young man whose green eyes she remembered looking up at from the stretcher when she’d first been admitted. He must be my nurse, Joanna thought, again adamant in her own mind that he couldn’t possibly be old enough to be a doctor.

  “Dave, you can call me Dave,” her dad said, standing up to greet the ha
ndsome stranger.

  “Dave then, very nice to meet you. And this must be Joanna! Very nice to see you looking bright eyed and bushy tailed,” the young man said, coming in to sit on the other side of her bed.

  “She just woke up. I don’t think she can speak, but-”

  “I can talk,” Joanna protested, giving a passing thought to how greasy her hair must be after so many days in the hospital. Though no one could read her thoughts, Joanna was slightly embarrassed that she was primarily thinking of her appearance when, at a time like this, she probably should have been concerned with important things, such as her general health.

  “Glad to hear it. I’m Doctor Midas, but you can call me Nathan,” he said, looking down at the chart in his hands. Doctor, he’s a doctor?! Joanna thought, suddenly feeling very unaccomplished for only having just started her final year of college. If this man was a doctor, he must have graduated high school when he was a pre-teen.

  “Wow, you’re a doctor? I have to say, you look fairly young. I don’t mean any offense by it, and I’m sure you get this all the time, but-” Dave said, reading Joanna’s mind. He was clearly more than a little reticent to leave his daughter in the care of what looked like a teenager.

  “He is indeed a doctor, I assure you. Dr. Midas here was top of his class at the age of 26, a bit of a boy-genius.” An older looking man with grey hair and a blue tie strolled into the room, putting his hand on Nathan’s shoulder. “I’m Dr. Michaels, by the way, chief of medicine here at Mount Sinai. You’re in very good hands here with Dr. Midas. Pulmonologist extraordinaire. Has he told you the good news yet?”

  “No, I only just arrived. Would you like to sit in?” Nathan asked his supervisor.

  “No, no, I’ll let you handle this. Just wanted to say hello and introduce myself. You’re very lucky to have a doctor like Nathan here. Glad to see you awake, you gave us a bit of a scare there Joanna!” And with that, he was gone. Hardly the bedside manner she’d been expecting, but Joanna was left wondering why the chief of medicine wanted to see her particularly.

  “So there’s good news?” Dave asked, looking reassured after Dr. Michaels’ visit.

  “Well, so to speak. Let me start from the beginning,” Nathan said, looking straight at Joanna. She almost fainted all over again.

  Joanna had never really had crushes the way other people did, and certainly not with the same frequency as Porsche. There had been Jack in grade 5, the hockey player who called her his favorite nerd, and Will in grade 11, the would-be rapper with a penchant for video games. Nothing had ever come of any crush of hers however, and she started to doubt it ever would, as if love was a thing that happened to other people and not her. Nathan Midas however, made her heart rate rise in a way that few before ever had. She had her share of experiences with men but this was most certainly different. Why does he have to be my doctor, she thought, as if that was the only thing keeping her from giving him her number. Still, it was fun to have a distracting crush to pass the time in what was bound to be a very depressing hospital stay.

  “Our first thought was that you must have pneumonia, which would explain the condition of your lungs. But I had a bit of a hunch, based on your history of lung issues and Dr. Michaels was nice enough to let me see it through. So we ran some tests, and it turns out my hunch was correct. What you have is a very rare genetic disease called Hermansky-Pudlak Syndrome, of which chronic lung issues are often a symptom. I’m sorry to say that there is no cure, and as one of the side effects is pulmonary fibrosis, we’re going to need to get you a lung transplant as quickly as possible,” Nathan said, and Dave sunk back into his chair.

  “I’ve got to admit doctor, this hardly sounds like good news.”

  Joanna wanted nothing more than to hug her dad. She only understood half the words that had just come out of Nathan’s mouth, but she had heard enough doctor’s speeches to understand when the outlook wasn’t great.

  “Well, the good news in this case is that since you’re still 22-”

  “Barely. My birthday’s in two weeks,” Joanna interjected, instantly feeling incredibly embarrassed for having brought it up.

  “And a happy early birthday to you! I only mention it because of your situation there is a very high recovery prognosis and I was able to convince the transplant board to bump you to the front of the transplant list. We have a set of lungs for you, and we’ll be able to move into surgery as soon as they arrive.”

  The relief on her father’s face was evident, though there was still so much Joanna herself was confused about.

  “I’m sure you have many questions, as this is hardly a disease that even we doctors know much about, but I assure you, we’re going to do our best to work through this with you. While there is no cure, you can certainly live a happy, long life with HPS, if the right steps are taken. Of this, I can promise you,” Nathan said, looking deeply into her eyes again. Whether or not she could or should, she believed him.

  * * *

  Like the previous few days, the next seven melded together in a drugged up haze of hospital blue, IV drips, apple sauce, Nathan’s green eyes, her dad’s concerned gaze, Porsche’s laugh, and pain. The surgery, by all accounts, had gone very well, but even a successful lung transplant had a hefty recovery period attached to it. Porsche took care of sorting out everything at school, which unfortunately meant delaying her semester. Still, Joanna tried to be thankful that she was alive at all. School wasn’t going anywhere.

  Soon, she started feeling well enough to notice the difference between the days and the nights. Which also meant Joanna became very familiar with boredom. The room was private, which was certainly a blessing, but Joanna felt herself longing for a roommate of some kind, to accompany her misery so to speak. Eventually her dad brought her laptop, and she did all the research into HPS that she could. It was all very confusing, and the possible complications associated were lengthy, but part of her was relieved to have finally received a diagnosis. It explained so much about her body that she’d let go unexplained or ignored over the years. Now at least, she felt understood. She was quite young to require a lung transplant, but it seemed that most HPS patients needed one eventually, and given that youth was on her side, she would most likely make a full and fast recovery.

  Besides obsessively researching HPS, the best part of her day was when Nathan came to visit. Or Dr. Nathan as she playfully called him in her head. His visits weren’t long, but it was almost the only thing she looked forward to when she woke up in the morning. Joanna was very aware that her isolation and boredom were probably compounding her crush on him, but she didn’t care. The distraction was a welcome one. Her dad was blissfully unaware of her infatuation, but it didn’t take Porsche long to clue in.

  “Do you want me to wash your hair? Maybe pop a little bit of makeup on you? Just a little blush and mascara maybe, nothing that will be hard to wash off later. Not that I’m saying you’ve lost your color, but like… it’s incredible what a little mascara will do to your eyes,” Porsche said, fiddling around in her purse. “Look! I just got a new one today, so I won’t even infect you with my eye diseases. I’m only kidding, I don’t have any eye diseases. That I know of. What do you say? A little dry shampoo? Let me pamper you! Just to make you feel fresh. So Dr. Nathan can see you looking fresh, just saying...”

  Joanna rolled her eyes, but secretly she did want to look her best. She could only imagine how sunken her eyes looked at the moment.

  “Fine. You can braid my hair. But no blush,” she said, and Porsche jumped to work gleefully. “And maybe a little mascara.”

  Porsche smiled and nodded, but didn’t dare tease her friend any further.

  * * *

  “Jo, you’re looking… well if you don’t mind me saying so, you’re looking quite pretty today!” Nathan said when he came in a few hours later. Porsche was long gone by then, but Joanna thought she would be quite proud to hear that her work had gotten a nice reaction. Joanna let the butterflies in her stomach jump a little whe
n she heard him call her “Jo,” a nickname usually reserved by her father. Nathan’s familiarity with her was intoxicating.

  “Thank you,” she responded, sounding more weakly than she intended.

  That was the extent of most of their interactions, but still, Joanna would replay them in her head over and over again as she tried to fall asleep. That very night, Joanna lay in her bed, eyes closed, waiting for her painkillers to kick in and send her off into hibernation. Two nurses came into the room, making their nightly rounds. Normally Joanna would greet anyone who visited, but tonight she didn’t feel like talking, so she kept her eyes closed, pretending to sleep.

  “She looks like a freaking fairy tale princess, doesn’t she?” one of the nurses said, replacing her IV bag.

  “Um, yes, and you’d best believe her doctor’s noticed,” replied the other one, in an exasperated tone.

  “Who’s her doctor?” the first said, and Joanna could hear her reaching for the chart. “Oh. Of course, that makes sense. Can’t resist a pretty face, that one, can he?”

  Fireworks started going off in Joanna’s brain. Firstly, they thought she was pretty! Secondly, they seemed to think that Dr. Nathan agreed. Dr. Nathan thought she was pretty.

  Thirdly, and lastly, Joanna thought it was extremely unprofessional of them to be talking like this about her right over her head.

  “He really can’t. You know he hooked up with Sasha last night? Like honestly, is there a nurse here that he hasn’t blasted through?”

  “Ew, don’t say blasted! Come on, let’s hurry up. My show starts at ten, I want to be home in time,” one of the nurses said, and Joanna listened as they sauntered out, the door handle clicking shut behind them. She was alone. Her eyes popped open as she considered everything she’d just overheard.