Page 18 of Hello Stranger

The point is: When Dr. Richard Montgomery, MD, FACS, FAHA, and chief of cardiothoracic surgery for UTMB, drags you down to a coffee shop in your mother’s bathrobe and tells you to go have brain surgery, you don’t argue.

You just go have brain surgery.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll do the surgery. After you tell me why Mom didn’t have hers.”

“And I’ll tell you about Mom,” my dad shot back, “after you do the surgery.”

Four

THE BEST THING—and possibly the only good thing—about the day of the surgery was meeting my new Trinidadian neuropsychologist, Dr. Nicole Thomas-Ramparsad.

When she first arrived, a nurse was beginning her third attempt at starting my IV. “The problem,” the nurse was saying, “is that you’re so tense.” She tapped my arm some more with the pads of her fingers as if to say,See? Nothing.“You’ve shrunk your blood vessels.”

I peered at my arm like I might be able to help her find one.

“You need to relax,” she told me.

“I agree,” I said, trying to slow my breathing down from hummingbird rate.

She added a second tourniquet. “When we get scared, our bodies pull all our blood into our core to protect the vital organs.”

Relax,I commanded myself.Relax.

“Look at these veins,” she called to another nurse, tapping around some more.

Nurse Two came over for a peek, giving a little headshake at the sight. “They’re like quilting threads.”

That did not sound like a compliment.

“She can’t get this over with until you relax,” Nurse Two said to me, a little scoldy.

“But I can’t relax until it’s over with,” I said, aware of the Catch-22.

“Are you always a difficult stick?” Nurse One asked.

I wasn’t loving that terminology. It made me sound uncooperative at best. But there was only one answer to that question. “Yes.”

Nurses One and Two exchanged a look.

I tried to defend myself. “This is just how needle situations usually end for me—with tears. Or dry heaving. Or fainting.” At the wordsdry heaving,I could feel my veins shrinking a little smaller.

Relax, damn it. Relax!

But that’s when my future new favorite person walked in.

And let’s just say she brought a totally different energy to the room.

Dr. Nicole Thomas-Ramparsad didn’t just walk in, shestrode—greeting me loudly as she did, her voice warm and rich. “Hello,” she practically sang. “You’re Sadie Montgomery, and I’m so delighted to be working with you today.” And with that, she put a firm, comforting, totally-in-charge-of-the-moment hand on my shoulder, and said, “Please just call me Dr. Nicole”—pronouncing her name likeNi-call.

Let’s just say her doctor voice sounded nothing like my dad’s.

Which was a very good thing.

Because her voice—warm and motherly and confident—absolutely took over the room. She was such a big presence that she eclipsed everything else. It’s important to note that she, in her light blue scrubs and surgical hat, looked pretty much like everybody else who worked in that hospital. She shouldn’t have stood out like she had her own personal spotlight.

But she did.

Maybe it was her big fearless smile. Or the warm glow of her tawny skin. Or the laugh crinkles at her eyes. Or her tall posture, like she was the number one grown-up in the room. Or the fact that she seemed about the age my mom would be now, if she had lived.

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