Page 34 of Jade

“You will be able to sleep, sweetie, but you need more meds and some fluids. Can you let me help you sit up so the doctor can get a look at you?”

“No doctors.” She shook her head from side to side. She had to be dreaming. “No doctors,” she repeated. “Don’t wanna go.”

“You don’t have to go anywhere, sweetie. You just have to sit up, just for a few minutes.”

Before she could say that she didn’t have the energy, Ryan was pulling her up by her shoulders and sitting behind her to prop her up.

“Hey, Little one. Can you open your eyes for us?” The voice didn’t belong to her Daddy. It sounded deeper and older with a hint of an accent she didn’t recognize.

She popped her eyes open to find a handsome and distinguished looking older gentleman and a young woman with her strawberry hair pulled into a ponytail standing in front of her. “Who are you?” she asked, alarmed. Her Daddy was still behind her. She could feel his strong muscles holding her up.

“Sweetie, this is Doctor Duke and Nurse Nancy. Baze just hired them to be on-site medical staff and they just barely arrived here at Utopia. Isn’t that lucky?”

She wasn’t normally one to use doctor and lucky in the same sentence, but as awful as she felt, she couldn’t argue.

She nodded weakly and the doctor spoke again. “Would you let me take a quick look at you? See if we can figure out what we are dealing with here?”

“Sure. I guess.”

The doctor chuckled. “Not the most enthusiastic response but I’ll take it.”

Sitting on the edge of the bed, he leaned over her, stethoscope in hand. “Is it okay if I lift your shirt up and listen to your heart?”

“My Daddy might not like it but whatever,” Jade mumbled, almost inaudibly. It was too hard to get the words out. Her lips were dry and cracked and her throat still burned.

Doctor Duke laughed and then lifted her pajama shirt just enough to stick his stethoscope under it, placing the cold metal circle just above her decolletage.

“Oh good. Good girl. Now a few deep breaths, please, if you can.”

She breathed deeply. “Clear breath sounds,” he reported. “A slightly elevated heart rate, but that’s to be expected with a fever as high as I suspect hers is. We’ll take a temperature here in a minute. First I want to get a look in her mouth and check out her lymph nodes. Her neck looks swollen.”

Jade sighed, her eyes closing again. None of this sounded good and she just wanted to sleep. The doctor put his hands on either side of her neck, poking and prodding the sensitive area with his fingers. When he pushed on her swollen glands, she recoiled.

“No. That hurts.”

“Very swollen glands. I’m not set up enough to run any tests yet, so if that persists or she gets any new symptoms, I’d take her to a clinic to be on the safe side.”

Jade groaned. She really hated doctors.

“One more thing, little one. I need to take your temperature and ask you a few questions, okay?”

Nodding, Jade tried to work out in her mind the quickest way to roll onto her stomach with the least amount of effort. She was just about to try when a metal tip poked against her lips.

“Open and lift up your tongue,” the doctor instructed.

The second the instrument poked past her lips, she started to gag. Why were they insisting on torturing her this way? Babies always had their temperatures taken rectally. It was pretty much an unspoken rule. Then she remembered. She wasn’t a Baby anymore. She was a Big girl and Big girls got thermometers in their mouths, not their bottoms. She gagged three times when holding it there, and again when it finally beeped and the doctor took it out.

“One hundred and two point nine,” he announced. “I’d get her in a cool bath and try to get her fever down. Give her a dose of ibuprofen, start alternating it with the Tylenol. Lots of fluids and rest. If it gets worse, or she develops any new symptoms, call me.”

Jade listened but it all sounded like she was underwater. She could barely hear the doctor’s words. Ryan moved from his spot behind her. She flopped against the pillows. Her eyes closed again, and she heard Ryan thank them and escort them out before coming back to her.

“Come on, little one. I know you want to sleep but you can’t yet. You need to drink some Gatorade and take some meds, then we need to get you in the tub and try to get your fever down. Here.”

She opened her eyes and saw Ryan holding an open bottle of Gatorade and another handful of pills over her.

She struggled to sit, and took the offered items, again wishing for chewable Tylenol. Putting the pills on her tongue, she chased them with the drink, willing herself not to gag and make a mess. The bottle was heavy, and it took so much out of her even to tip the drink into her mouth. She wished for a baby bottle, but she’d never admit that. Not to Ryan. He’d signed on for a Middle, not a Baby. It didn’t matter that being a Baby made being sick so much easier or that her gag reflexes were already out of control, a problem only compounded by the fact that her throat was on fire. Somehow she managed and shoved the drink back at Ryan who set it on the nightstand.

“I’m gonna go run you a cool bath,” he said. “Don’t go back to sleep yet.”