Loving Her (2 page)

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?”

I shook my head. “No. I’ve never seen this in my life.”

The ambulance bumped around the road as we drove, and I held onto the handle while reaching over and placing my other hand on my daughter’s arm.

“We’ll
be at the hospital in about ten minutes. She’s in good hands, ma’am.”

I hoped that he was right. “You hear that Bella? He says you’re in good hands, honey. Just hold on.”

When she didn’t even budge I began to sob. How was I supposed to hold onto hope when I was watching her fading away? It’s unrealistic to think that in this type of circumstance anyone can sit there and be optimistic. Her body was a different color, she was burning up, and hadn’t been responsive. This wasn’t a normal action for a kid. It wasn’t normal for anyone.

I could tell we were pulling into the hospital when the ambulance mad
e a sharp turn and went over a traffic calming hump. I braced myself for the vehicle to stop and waited as the paramedic opened the rear exit doors. “Hop on out and step to the side.”

I did as he told me and watched as they made sure Bella was strapped and ready to be transported inside of the hospital.

She was still burning up
, and I couldn’t keep from losing all sense of composure. She’d been sick plenty of times in her life and never had it gotten to be this extreme. I knew in my gut that something was very wrong.

I followed close behind them, paying little attention to the slew of other patients and people that were with them. It was as if I had tunnel vision going on, blocking out everything else except for Bella. I wasn’t worried about other patients or how life threatening their prognosis was. All I cared about was getting my daughter the medical attention that she needed.

I grabbed a nurse, who was standing
around chatting with a co-worker, and forced her to look at me. “Please, help my daughter.”

She
looked over my shoulder and then back at me, as if to weigh in on how desperate I was.

I must have looked lost, because the woman put her hand on my back and we both walked into the room where they were transferring Bella to a bed. She started talking to the paramedics and getting the information that she needed while hooking her up and starting on her own batch of vitals.

Her friend came in the room and she immediately ordered her to prepare for an I.V. that would pump Bella full of Acetaminophen in order to bring down her temperature.

After the paramedics were done with their reports, the
y left the room. I sat there watching the nurse, hoping she could shed some light on what was happening. “You say she was fine before this? No fever? Not lethargic?”

I shook my head. “She was running around with her cousins all day yesterday.”

Right then Ty came in, pulling me into his arms, not taking his eyes off of Bella.

We sat there,
waiting and watching them do what they could for her. When the doctor came in, I admittedly felt better, like he could magically fix whatever was wrong. I wish that were the case and that they could provide patients with miracles. However, life doesn’t work that way.

He asked us questions, ordered tests
, and then we had to play the waiting game.

Ty held me as I cried and stared at the nurses
, who continued working on Bella. I couldn’t look him in the eyes, knowing his fears. I had to keep my eyes on her and make sure that she was going to be okay.

After tests and a diagnosis of
Lyme’s disease, which we got on our phones and looked up everything we could on it, we were hopeful. Even in the worst cases, it was manageable with antibiotics. They gave them to her intravenously. Bella seemed to be improving. Her temperature dropped and a little bit of life was showing when we tried to communicate with her.

We called the family and let them know that she was going to be fine. For a few short hours, I
believed that everything was going to be alright. We were settled on the idea of taking her home and providing her with all the attention she needed to recover.

Nothing could have prepared us for what happened next.

Chapter 3

Tyler

Once again, it is important to stress how much family means to me. Without them, in a stressful time of need, I don’t know how Miranda and I would have gotten through. All we were concerned about was our daughter. We didn’t have time to talk to everyone when they tried to call, not to mention the fact that it stresses a person out more, having to talk about it a hundred times.

Amy and Conner took care of phone calls and letting the family know what had taken place. I knew my mother-in-law and everyone else was going to be heading our way. When bad things happened we always banned together. It’s how our family worked, and at that moment we needed all of them.

Miranda
and I took turns going home and being with the boys. We were like soldiers, standing guard over Izzy. From the time she was brought into the hospital, she’d never been alone. I missed my wife and the support she offered when we were together. We both knew my mother and the rest of the family would have been happy to watch the boys, but they were a handful. I couldn’t burden them with their mischievous actions for days on end. They’d never talk to us again.

In the past six months, they’d set things on fire, broke a full
-sized tractor, took a farm truck for a joyride, and shaved their cousin’s head. No one was volunteering because they wanted to.

After the third day, I think the doctor realized that his first diagnosis
couldn’t have been right. Izzy’s symptoms were returning, as well as some new ones. Reluctantly, Miranda left the boys with Van, who had come to town for a funeral.

I was so glad to have her there, knowing she’d keep those boys in line.
If they didn’t listen, they knew she’d ship their asses to Colt and he would put them over his knee in a heartbeat.

Just the fear of that happening usually made them act
better.

It was hard, worrying about our daughter and fearing that our sons could
n’t behave while we were away. I needed to keep my mind in one place, but I found it difficult.

Bei
ng a father was the greatest gift that God had ever blessed me with. I’d do anything for my children, and so would Miranda.