“I’ll do you one better,” she said, maneuvering Declan over the gurney that someone had magically produced. “I’m your doctor.”
“Lucky me.”
Her face pinched at the reply. But things got a little blurry then, quick movements and clipped voices, and his confusion was quickly forgotten. The woman let him go—damn shame, that—yanking a pair of nitrile gloves out of the pocket of her white coat and snapping them into place as she doled out directives like Halloween candy.
“Let’s go from the top. My name is Dr. Michaelson,” she said as soon as they stopped moving a few seconds later. “Can you tell me yours?”
This one, he knew, despite the fog in his brain. “Declan…Riley.”
“Okay, Mr. Riley. I’m going to help you out. Are you feeling any pain?”
He knew the answer to this one, too, but she was moving her hands over him, taking his pulse and cradling his face to look at his eyes, and damn it, he couldn’t make his mouth form the words to tell her…what was he supposed to tell her?
“Mr. Riley?” she repeated. Her voice was so calm. Strong, but not mean. “Are you feeling any pain?”
Pain. Right. “No.”
Her hands skated over his arms, her fingers closing over his wrist for a quick flip. “Well, that explains a lot.”
Declan heard her say something about Exam Four and a tube of glucose gel. He wanted to protest—the gel was some nasty shite, the over-sweet chemical taste lingering on his tongue for days—but then it was in his mouth, polluting everything and kicking his gag reflex directly in the junk. The woman, whose name he’d forgotten but whose touch he hadn’t, was clipping out orders, all monitors and IVs—fucking hell, he hated needles even more than the glucose gel clinging to his teeth right now—and Declan had no choice but to let his thoughts drift for a few minutes until they found dry land.
He returned to the room with a series of slow blinks. The doctor was still there (bonus) and his body felt like it belonged to a drunk on day three of a week-long tequila bender (no bonus), but at least his brain was mostly back online.
“Welcome back,” the doctor said, taking the no-horseshite route right to Declan’s unhappy place. “Type 2 diabetes is no joke.” Her eyes zeroed in on his medic alert bracelet, and for once, he didn’t hate wearing the thing.
“No. It’s not.”
“I know you’re probably feeling really tired, but I need to ask you some questions. Think you’re up for that?”
His body begged him to say no, and his brain tag-teamed in on the idea. Although more alert than he’d been—not that it took much—he still felt like his limbs were moving through wet cement and his mind wasn’t much better. But the questions might help ground him, and since that would get him a step closer to not being stuck on this gurney, he nodded.
“Okay, great. Are you feeling any nausea or dizziness?” the doc asked.
She ran through a gamut of questions, all of which made Declan feel weak as hell, even though most of them were a negative. Fuck, he knew better than to lose track of how long it had been since he’d eaten. The jet lag must’ve knocked him and his body for a loop he hadn’t been expecting.
Dr. Michaelson—whose first name was Tess, according to the loopy script on the doctor’s coat she wore over her dark green scrubs—finally asked, “Can you tell me what meds you’re taking and when your last dose was?”
It required far more mental effort than he could easily spin up, but Declan managed to relay the information. “I’m not an idiot. I don’t skip my meds.” He dragged in a breath, feeling as if he was at the tail end of a marathon. “I just had a long flight and the time change must have thrown me off. I’ll be fine.”
Funny, she didn’t look convinced. At all. “Let’s see where your blood sugar is, now that you’ve got that glucose on board.”
Leaving a check of his vitals to the nurse who had accompanied her into the exam room, the doctor scooped up his hand, rolling the tip of his ring finger between her index finger and thumb.
“Little pinch,” she warned, placing the glucose meter on the side of his fingertip. Declan barely felt the finger stick. Dr. Michaelson’s frown at the reading? That he felt everywhere.
“That good, eh?”
“Let’s just say I hope you don’t have plans for this afternoon that don’t involve hanging out on this gurney. Ah!” To the scrubs-clad woman who entered the exam room, the doctor said, “Dr. Young, this is Declan Riley. Type 2 diabetic, exhibiting signs of hypoglycemia. Which are?”
The other doctor—a resident, if Declan had to guess—didn’t hesitate. “Confusion, dizziness, excessive thirst, profuse sweating, and possible loss of consciousness.”
Dr. Michaelson nodded. “Brief LOC outside a few minutes ago.” She tacked on his vitals, which weren’t great, and his blood sugar levels, which downright sucked, making Declan officially feel as weak as his body wanted him to. “Glucose gel was administered and his vitals are improving. So, how do we treat him now?”
Dr. Young barely blinked. “IV dextrose to stabilize his blood sugar levels, place him on oxygen, and perform cardiac monitoring, plus labs.”
“You get a gold star. And, Young? Go find Connor and tell him I need him in here, please.”
“Oh.” Now the woman hesitated. “Dr. Sheridan pulled him in on a code red that came in on the medivac a few minutes ago. I can go see—”
“Not necessary,” Dr. Michaelson interrupted, though not rudely. “Just page him and tell him to find me as soon as he’s done, then check in on Mr. Kirk’s sutures while I treat Mr. Riley, here.”
The younger woman nodded. “You got it, Dr. Michaelson.”
Damn, his doc was so confident and in control, Declan couldn’t help but be impressed. And, okay, yeah, maybe a little turned on. For fuck’s sake, he might be hypoglycemic, but he wasn’t dead.
Yet.
Shoving the voice inside his head away, he said, “I should warn you. Connor’s going to be ragin’ mad.”
The guy might not be the sort to get bent out of shape, but there were the not-so-small matters of Declan’s health condition, his resulting early dismissal from the Air Force, and the current dilemma of his meds no longer doing their job—none of which he’d told his friend.
But to Declan’s surprise, Dr. Michaelson laughed. “Let me deal with Connor. I’m going to put you on some oxygen and get that dextrose on board, which should make you feel better. But you’ll need tests and monitoring. I’m going to let Marcus, here, help you change, then we can get moving on your workup.”
She nodded at the male nurse who’d been in charge of Declan’s gurney, and held up a standard-issue hospital gown in a plastic bag, and hell. Just because he’d known this moment was coming didn’t mean he had to like it. “I don’t need help.”
Dr. Michaelson’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, you do.”
Biting down on his frustration and tilling up what little was left of his pride, he said, “I think I can manage dressing myself.”
“And I think I know how to do my job.” A hand planted against her hip, and ah hell. With fire like that in her eyes, he should’ve known she’d dig in. “You’re a fall risk, Mr. Riley, and you’re under my care. Until your glucose levels stabilize and you’ve been treated to my satisfaction—”