Sizzling Nights with Dr. Off-Limits

With that she stepped out of his arms and made her way back to where Richard waited. Richard, who clearly had a hundred questions waiting to spring from his mouth.

She didn’t want to explain why she was upset about a shared dance with a man she worked with.

She bypassed the table and headed to the little girls’ room.

Oh, yeah, she was happy.

CHAPTER THREE

“HI, CASSIE. I’M DR. CAIN,” Lucas introduced himself to the little girl he’d be doing surgery on soon if all went as expected. He’d spent a lot of time reviewing her medical records. She’d been diagnosed with a noncancerous brain tumor that had been increasing in size despite treatments to shrink the mass.

His true love within his field was traumatic brain injury, but he dealt with a lot of brain tumors and other brain maladies, too.

“Hi,” the six-year-old answered, staring at him with big brown eyes that filled with uncertainty and a lack of trust.

No doubt over the past few months she’d been poked and prodded, tested and treated repeatedly to where she felt on constant guard long before his being asked to consult on her case by Dr. Edwards.

“What’re you doing there?” He gestured to the puzzle she worked on.

She resumed scanning the puzzle pieces. “My mom says I need to do more puzzles. That it will keep my brain sharp.”

“Your mom is a smart lady.” He sat down at the table next to her. “Can I help?”

She shrugged. “If you want to. I’m not sure all the pieces are here. It’s just a puzzle I found here, but it wasn’t put together when I started.”

Here being in the hospital playroom. A large room equipped with kid-sized tables, video game stations, toy centers and table activity centers.

He sat at the table, seeming to search for a place to fit the puzzle piece he’d picked up. In reality, he studied Cassie, watching her movements, her facial expressions, how she moved her hands, her body. How she grimaced repeatedly when she tried to focus on what she was doing, how she squinted her eyes and had a slight tremor to her movements.

“Does your head hurt, Cassie?” The answer seemed obvious, but sometimes asking a child an obvious question, even one he already knew the answer to, could help break the ice. He wanted Cassie to trust him.

“Yes, but sometimes not too bad.”

Her headaches were the first symptom that had clued her parents in to the fact that something wasn’t right with their little girl. Never had they imagined they’d be told she had a brain tumor the size of a golf ball. Fortunately, Cassie’s tumor wasn’t cancerous, but, due to the size and the fact it was growing, she’d begun to have more and more problems. Visual changes, hearing changes, speech changes, motor-skill changes. She’d started falling for no reason other than poor balance. Because the mass was taking over vital brain tissue and causing increased pressure in her head.

Although it would be tricky due to where it was located within the brain and the amount of tissue it encompassed, Cassie needed surgical excision of the mass.

Lucas was the doctor who was going to perform the surgery.

“Are you going to take my blood?”

At the child’s suspicious question, he shook his head. “No, I’m not here to take your blood, Cassie.”

“I don’t kick and scream,” she told him, not looking u

p from her puzzle. “I used to, but I don’t anymore.”

“That’s good to know, but I’m not going to take blood.”

She cast him a dubious glance. “What are you going to do?”

“Right now? Help you put this puzzle together and talk about your headaches.”

She shrugged. “Sometimes it feels like my head wants to blow up.”

No doubt.

“I’m a pediatric neurosurgeon. My job is to make your head stop hurting.”