Page 126 of Before You Can Blink
Tripp looped his arm around Penny’s waist. “We’ll come back in the morning, okay?”
“Mm-hmm.”
Finally, they shuffled out of the room, and I was left alone with the love of my life.
Rising from my seat, I pressed a kiss to her forehead, whispering, “You and me against the world, Daze.”
But in the back of my mind, I feared this might be the battle where we finally lost.
January
“Thank you both for coming in.” Dr. Pierce, the kidney specialist Daisy had been seeing for the past few months, folded both hands over his desk. With a warm smile, he asked my wife, “How are you feeling, Daisy?”
Slumped in the chair beside me, she replied, “Tired.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, but it’s to be expected with your condition.”
“And what exactlyisher condition?” I pressed.
It had been two months since Daisy’s hospitalization, and during that time, we’d driven an hour to Enid three times a week for her to receive dialysis with no end in sight.
Sensing my need to get right down to business, Dr. Pierce opened a file—Daisy’s file. “Through our extensive testing, we were unable to determine an underlying cause for the sudden kidney failure.”
“So, what, we just keep doing dialysis forever, then?” The lack of answers had frustration leaking into my tone.
He dipped his chin. “That’s one option. On average, patients can survive five to ten years, sometimes longer, going that route.”
“Five to ten years,” I scoffed. He made that sound like a positive outlook, but my wife was only sixty-six. She deserved more than a decade. Hell, my ma was still kicking at eighty-five.
“Jett.” Daisy placed her hand on my arm, her touch an attempt to calm the swirling storm inside me. There was nothing I hated more than feeling helpless.
Dr. Pierce cleared his throat. “The best treatment option for a case such as Daisy’s would be a kidney transplant. The upside of needing this particular organ is that it can be received from a living donor since humans only need one to survive.”
Without a beat of hesitation, I declared, “Give her one of mine.”
The doctor’s lips pressed together. “While I can appreciate your enthusiasm, it’s a bit more complicated than that. The first step in determining a match is that the donor and recipient have the same blood type.” His finger trailed over the paperwork set before him. “Daisy’s O-positive. Do you happen to know what type you are, Mr. Sullivan?”
“A-negative,” Daisy said from beside me.
Her answer crushed any hope that I might be the one to save my wife. We weren’t a match.
“The best chance of a living donor match is generally a sibling,” Dr. Pierce explained.
“She ain’t got any of those.” My voice grew rough, the walls closing in around me as the reality began to sink in that I might very well outlive my wife—something I had never considered before two months ago. I’d always assumed I would go first.
“All right. Next closest would be your children.”
“No.” The amount of strength in that word from the woman at my side was so shocking it had my head whipping around so I could gawk at her.
“No,” she said again, this time with even more conviction, which I hadn’t thought possible. “They’re both under forty with little ones still underfoot. I won’t have them sacrificing their health for mine.”
“Daze . . .” My windpipe began to close up as she slammed the door shut on the possibility of a life-saving operation.
“Daisy,” Dr. Pierce’s tone grew placating. “I can understand your concern for your children, but let me assure you that there is no impact on the life expectancy for a living kidney donor.”
Her gaze sharpened on him. “Can you sit there and tell me there would be no risk to them?”
A heavy sigh sounded. “Well, there are risks with any surgical procedure.”
