AN: A very merry Christmas to all jaggies, everywhere! Hope Santa brought you lots of nice presents! Here's another for the pile! Enjoy!
OOOO
Part 6
"Are you feeling up to some dinner, tonight?" Jessie asked Gina, once her sister, daughter and friend had left.
I don't know if I'll be able to hold it down," Gina shook her head, tiredly.
"Well, I'd suggest you try," the nurse encouraged, "Even if it does make you sick, you may keep some of it down and that'll only help you."
Gina eventually agreed and to her own surprise it stayed down.
"When you were at UCLA," Jessie broached, carefully, "were you asked to take part in any studies?"
"No," Gina replied, "not that I can remember…What kind of studies do you mean?"
"While I was there, I knew staff who were involved in experiments with umbilical cord blood," Jessie told her, 'I haven't heard from them, so I've been wondering how the initial tests went. I was just curious about whether you were asked to take part, considering how Penny was born there, around when the tests were going on."
"Penny was very sick when she was born," Gina shook her head, "And I was an absolute mess. I had a hard labor and I don't even remember Penny's first few days, clearly. I was probably still in shock from being told that my baby would have to under-go surgery so soon. Since she was ill, they probably wouldn't have wanted her cord-blood. Wouldn't it be a risk to take it from a baby in her condition?"
"They probably wouldn't have wanted to bother you, most likely," Jessie shook her head, "Harvesting cord-blood has no risk to the baby, but not everybody agrees with using stem-cells found in cord-blood."
"It's a shame I didn't know about it," Gina shrugged, "I'd have liked to take part, especially if it had helped someone else. I'm in the situation now that I can appreciate how valuable pioneering treatment can be. Maybe in the future, people will really be helped by that experimental work."
"Yes, I hope so," Jessie nodded in agreement, but Gina had no idea of the deeper meaning of Jessie's wish.
OOOO
Soon after her next treatment, Gina's condition worsened to the degree that Dr. Rennick decided to keep her in the hospital permanently. As the days passed, without good news from either the bone-marrow or cord-blood registries that Rennick had contacted, he could see his patient's condition getting more desperate.
One afternoon, he went to check her condition, while she had a group of friends visiting.
The JAG crew had all come to lend support, knowing that Harm and Mac were fighting to hold everything together themselves. Harriet had found Mac in the process of breaking down in one of the conference rooms, the day before. She'd offered her support, but had learnt just how grave Gina's condition was.
"I'm so worried that they aren't going to find a donor," Mac had confessed through tears, "Her doctor says to stay hopeful, but how can I, when I see Gina getting so weak and no is donor coming forward to help her?"
"No matter what," Harriet had consoled her, "don't give up hope. Miracles have a way of showing up when they're least expected…"
Harriet had roped Sturgis and Jen into the visit and all of them brought balloons to brighten up Gina's room and remind her that everyone was pulling for her, more than she probably realized, feeling as sick as she did.
"I'm sorry to disturb you all," Dr. Rennick entered, "but I'm going to need to check on my patient. I'll only be a few minutes then you can all come back in."
As everyone filed out through the door, Rennick scooped Penny from a person passing.
"This little ray of sunshine, however, has special permission to stay!"
He sat her beside her mother, in the bed, then turned his attention to his stethoscope, monitoring Gina's breathing.
"Seems that babies get special privileges, here!" Harm joked with Mac and Gina, before they too left.
"She's my best medicine," Gina called to them, laughing.
None of them, however realized just how helpful this little baby would turn out to be to her mother.
"Nurse Fernandez tells me that Penny here was born at UCLA," Rennick mentioned, as he began to take Gina's blood-pressure.
"Yes," Gina nodded, "she received much of her initial medical care there and I made sure that she wasn't likely to have any pressing health problems, before I made the move here."
"You moved to be closer to your sister?"
"Partly. I'd heard so much about the Lombardi center and with all of the treatment I was facing, I knew I would need some help. Learning about my sister was a blessing in disguise."
"You didn't grow up together?"
"No, I was adopted soon after birth. I only learned who my biological parents were after Penny was born and I was diagnosed."
"So is McKenzie your birth name or your adoptive name?"
"My birth name; I changed it, after I found my sister, but I kept my given name. Mac encouraged me to do what I thought best, but in terms of medical care, it was easier for her to gain my medical power-of-attorney if we had the same surname."
"And what was your adoptive name?"
"Gina Moreno."
"Are your adoptive parents still with us?"
"They died in a car accident, before Penny was born."
"My sympathies…I'm sure it hit you hard."
"It was devastating, especially considering all that was to come, soon after. But Mac and all of her friends have been great. I don't know what I'd have done without them."
Rennick then left her to rest and let all of her friends back in. He was a doctor, but he knew how much help a firm support-base could be to a patient with as serious an illness as Gina had.
He went on with his rounds, making an urgent mental note to check back with the UCLA cord-blood bank registry, once his rounds were finished. If she only changed her surname after she'd come to DC, then there was still a chance she had banked her baby's cord-blood there.
He dropped by the nurse's station first, though, to find Jessie Fernandez.
"Nurse Fernandez, could you drop by my office, before you leave, tonight? I had some thoughts this afternoon about one of our patients that I'd like your opinion on…"
"Of course, Doctor." Jessie nodded, her heart picking up pace.
All through the day, Jessie wondered if he had heard some good news. She prayed that he had.
OOOO
"Did you check with UCLA, doctor?"
"I did," Rennick nodded, "But they had no record of a donor by the name of Gina MacKenzie…"
Seeing the woman deflate, he also added, "but then I learned, today, that Gina recently changed her surname to that of her sister, to expedite the process of approving her sister to become her medical power-of-attorney holder. It seems that while her sister was kept within the biological family, Gina was not. She was adopted soon after birth by a childless couple by the name of Moreno…"
As he talked, he accessed the UCLA cord-blood registry again and began to type.
"She went by the name Moreno when Penny was born?" Jessie asked, hopefully.
"Yes," Rennick nodded, "and I want to ask Gina if she remembered anyone requesting her to donate Penny's cord blood during her time at UCLA."
"She told me she didn't remember it," Jessie shook her head, "but Penny was a sickly baby and she said she didn't take a lot of information in at that time…Are you able to check back with UCLA, Doctor? I'm told their registry is one of the biggest in North America. They add many donors, every week."
Rennick's computer emitted a loud beep and Rennick smiled, as he turned the screen so that Jessie could see it.
OOOO
Jessie was smiling brightly as she made her way back into the oncology unit.
"You get good news, honey?" One of the other nurses asked her.
"The very best kind," Jessie told her, before proceeding to Gina's room.
Gina's sister was still with her, though all of the other guests had gone, including Gina's daughter.
"Dr. Rennick asked me to let you know that he'll be down to see you, soon," she told the sisters, before going to clock out and call her husband. She wouldn't go home just now and she had to let him know that she might be here for a while, yet. She didn't want to leave until Dr. Rennick gave the news to his patient. He'd intimated that this was Gina's very best hope, one with substantially better chances than waiting for a bone-marrow donor to come forward.
OOOO
Dr Rennick was whistling cheerfully, as he made his way downstairs, half-an-hour later.
"Good evening, ladies," he greeted the nurses at the nurse's station.
They all internally marveled at his unusually happy demeanor and instantly knew something wonderful was about to happen. Only Jessie knew just what that was.
He invited Jessie to come with him, to see their patient, for he knew just how much young Ms. MacKenzie had come to mean to her and he really wanted her to share in this, for it had been all because of her insight and ingenuity.
"Good evening, Ms. MacKenzie, Ms. MacKenzie…"
"Hi, Doc!" Gina responded, "How's things?"
"Well, I've had some good news, today," Rennick smiled.
"A bone-marrow donor for Gina?" Mac couldn't help but get her hopes up.
"Not exactly," Rennick shook his head, "but I did get my hands on the file of a patient who can help her. This patient has made an invaluable donation that will help Gina, but not with bone-marrow…With cord-blood…"
"Cord-blood?" Gina asked, "You mean umbilical cord blood?"
"Yes," Rennick nodded, "it seems that when her child was born, this patient donated the blood from her baby's umbilical cord, which was then frozen and stored in a cord-blood bank. This patient's name was Gina Moreno…"
"I did?" Gina looked confused.
"According to this form that UCLA faxed over to me," Rennick held up the fax with Gina's signature on it, 'You don't remember doing so?"
"No, I don't remember much of those weeks," Gina shook her head, "but I sure am glad that I did! Penny's cord-blood is a match for me?"
"Yes, an 80 match," Rennick nodded, "in fact this match is better than is essentially required. Now, I'm not going to pretend that cord-blood is any better than bone-marrow for getting the job done. In fact, it will probably take longer for the donor cells to graft and begin to reproduce in your body, but cord-blood cells actually have a few properties that will help in your recovery, which bone-marrow cells don't have."
"What are they?" Mac and Gina both asked, at the same time, then Gina asked, "And I thought that a donor had to be a complete match..."
"Well, when we are testing bone-marrow for compatibility, it has to match on six out of six genetic traits. With cord blood, however, only a 50 percent match is required. Penny is an 80 percent match, which is fantastic…And although much smaller amounts of donor cells are used and these will take a longer amount of time to graft, the cells coming from cord blood are essentially much purer than those from bone-marrow."
"And that's good?" Gina asked.
"It is," Rennick told her, "Do you remember how I told you, when you first came to see me, that going through a bone marrow transplant is essentially more risky than trying chemo therapy first?"
"Yes, you said that the chemo might send the leukemia into remission, without having to resort to the transplant."
"Yes and do you remember why the transplant is so risky?"
"Because it opens the body up to infection? But won't I still be open to infection, with the cord-blood transplant?"
"Yes, but you'll face fewer set-backs in your recovery, afterwards. The thing about stem cells is that they're coming from an essentially new person. A baby in the uterus has faced far fewer pathogens than a donor who is twenty, thirty, forty-plus years old. Every time our bodies are infected by germs, they generate antigens to fight these germs. These antigens then remain attached to the cells that fight off disease and when these are transplanted into a person with leukemia or other blood disorders, they can cause problems later on. Did you understand what I said about graft-versus-host disease?"
"Kind of," Gina nodded, "it's when the new donor cells have grafted, right? They can turn on the host body, thinking that it's an invader…That's why patients need to take anti-rejection drugs?"
"Yes!" Rennick exclaimed, obviously finding the specifics much more exciting than Gina or Mac thought they should be!
"This might turn out to be something as benign as skin problems, such as gout. Unfortunately, often it is severe enough to result in full-blown rejection or organ failure. Some patients are on anti-rejection drugs for the rest of their life. But the beauty of cord-blood cells is that they are so pure. Those antigens attached to the surface of bone-marrow cells, the ones that results in such post-operative problems aren't present on the surface of cord-blood stem cells. Cord-blood stem cells are essentially just out of the production factory!"
Now Gina and Mac could see why Rennick was so excited.
"So Gina won't need anti-rejection drugs?" Mac asked.
"She will," Rennick answered, "at least as a precaution, but I foresee very few problems with GVHD, if any."
Mac's head was spinning. Harriet was right. Life really could change in the blink of an eye!
"So how soon are we going to go ahead with the transplant?" she asked.
"Our cord-blood is being thawed and prepared right now then it will be on the first plane out of Los Angeles. I will travel personally to Dulles and collect it. I should be back here by…2am. While I'm on my way here, Nurse Fernandez has offered to accompany you to your last chemo and a radiation session, both of which will destroy your own bone marrow. The donor cells from your daughter will be infused into your body early tomorrow morning and after that, you'll be quarantined in a sterile room, while we leave your new cells to graft and reproduce, inside your body. After about five weeks, you should be well on the way to recovery…"
"This is amazing!" Gina exclaimed, "I didn't expect it to happen so fast! Mac, do you think you could call Harm and get him to bring Penny back? I want to see her before this happens…I think I have a lot to thank her for! After all, she is giving me back the life that I gave to her, nearly a year ago!"
Mac nodded and made her way out to the pay-phones, but intending to make more than one call.
Inside Gina's room, once doctor Rennick left to call the staff at UCLA and see just how things were progressing, Gina continued to celebrate with the nurses.
"Hi, you've reached Commander Harmon Rabb…" Harm's cellphone answer service picked up, "I can't take your call just now…"
Mac breathed a sigh of relief when Harm picked up.
"H'lo? I'm here…" his voice came over the line.
"Harm, I need you to bring Penny back down here…" Mac told him, quickly, "as soon as you can…"
"Is something wrong?" Harm sounded alarmed, but Mac quickly put him at ease.
"No, but something amazing has happened! Doctor Rennick has found a match for Gina and it's better than we could ever have hoped for. Gina's going to go into her last chemo and radiotherapy session tonight to kill off her bone marrow, while Rennick goes to collect the stem cells…"
"Stem cells?" Harm asked, 'I thought it was bone marrow she needed?"
"Stem cells are exactly what we need and it's going to help Gina without the need to wait for a bone-marrow match at all…Just get back down here…"
"I'm with Bud and Harriet, just now. We went out for coffee. Can they come, too?"
"Harm, you can bring Bud, Harriet, the rest of JAG, the guards on duty downstairs and all of the LA Dodgers, if you really want to…I don't think Gina's going to be any happier than she is at the moment. The most important visitor is Penny…"
"Shoot, I knew I had left something behind in the car…"
"HARM!"
"Kidding…Okay, I'm signing the check as we speak. We'll be right there…"
Harm hung up and Mac made a call to General Cresswell, who was indeed very happy to know that a match had been found and that Gina's transplant was going ahead, at last. He turned up twenty minutes later, along with his wife and the rest of the JAG staff.
The celebration went on until 0100, when the nurses announced that it was late and that Gina needed to be prepped for the chemo. They would be allowed to stay for a while, even though visiting hours were over, as long as they stayed in the waiting room. Mac would be allowed to stay with Gina, but she'd have to scrub in and don a gown and mask after Gina went in for the chemo, which would take place once Dr. Rennick called to say that he was on the chopper back to the hospital with the donor cord-blood.
OOOO
"You okay?" Mac asked her little sister, as the nurses pushed her bed along the hallway towards the elevator.
Dr. Rennick had called to say he had received the cord-blood and was about to board the helo that would bring him back to the hospital.
So Gina had now undergone her last session of chemo and was on her way to receive radiotherapy, which would complete the job of killing off her own bone marrow. Not only would this kill the defective leukemic cells, but also her healthy cells, too. This was important, because they didn't want Gina's cells still around when they began infusing Penny's cord blood cells into her. They could kill off any donor cells that made their way into Gina's system, if they were still around.
"I'm fine," Gina nodded, still a little numb about what had happened over the past few hours, "It all seems just a little anti-climactic…This all happened so quickly and was a big shock and all…but now, it seems just…so…"
"Simple?" Mac anticipated. She'd been thinking the same thing.
"Yeah, kinda!" Gina snorted, "I know that sounds awful but…"
"But it does seem that way, doesn't it?" Mac laughed, too.
"After all that's happened since my initial diagnosis," Gina agreed, "All of those blood tests, all of those medications I've been on, all of the complementary therapies, all of the chemotherapy sessions…Now, once I've finished with one last session of radiotherapy, I'm going to get an IV inserted, receive some cord blood and then just sit and wait it out…This time yesterday, I felt like death warmed up and the prospect of finding a match for me after months of fruitless searching seemed too unlikely to even consider."
"Miracles can happen, in a blink of an eye," Mac smiled, silently adding a thankful prayer.
"You're not kidding!"
Mac had to wait outside while Gina went in for the radiotherapy, but afterwards was able to join Gina in her new room in the isolation unit. Once her own bone marrow died Gina would be susceptible to infection and to give the new cells the best chance to graft, Gina had to be kept away from other patients. Her room was sparse, but the most notable item present was the special filtration system. The nurses also informed Gina that they'd be pumping her with antibiotics and transfusing her with donor blood cells and platelets, since the risk of infection and internal bleeding was a potentially serious one that they intended to prevent.
"Don't you worry about a thing, Honey," Jessie gave her a warm smile, "The doctor has everything well in hand. He arrived back a short time ago and is now overseeing the final preparation of the donor cord blood."
OOOO
"This will only take a few hours to infuse into you," Doctor Rennick told them, as the bag of cord blood was connected up to Gina's IV.
Gina watched the dark liquid slowly move down the tube and into the catheter that was inserted into her neck.
"And how long will it be before we know if it has grafted?" Gina asked.
"We'll keep a close eye on your cell counts and once your neutrophil counts go up, we'll know that it has taken hold. Every case is individual, but most of the time engraftment takes between one and three weeks."
"And can my sister still stay with me all that time?"
"Well, it depends on your condition at any given time, but yes, as long as she stays healthy and scrubs in beforehand. Of course, we'll have to keep an eye on her condition, too, because we don't want her bringing any pathogens in to you. In order for her to stay healthy, it's important that she take care of herself, which means getting plenty of sleep and eating well."
"Consider it done, Doctor," Mac smiled, squeezing her sister's hand.
While Mac wanted to spend as much time with her sister during this daunting period, she knew that in order to best safe-guard her sister's health, she had to safe-guard her own, now more than ever.
"I'm going to check on my other patients, but once I'm done, I'll be back to see how the infusion went and then tell you more about what will be happening inside your body over the next few weeks. Then, you can ask any questions you may have. Is that okay?"
"Yes, Doctor, that sounds fine…"
"Good…Why don't you try to get some sleep, in the meantime?"
Indeed, now that the initial rush of adrenaline was wearing off, Gina really did feel kind of sleepy. With Mac's assistance, she got settled down in bed.
Over the next few hours, nurses were in and out periodically, but always wearing protective masks and gowns. It was just the beginning of what would be four long weeks of waiting.
OOOO
Because Gina slept much of the morning and afternoon of her transplant, it was the evening before she was awake, when her doctor came to check on her.
"How are you feeling, Ms. MacKenzie?" he asked, from behind his mask.
"Okay," Gina didn't have the strength to give a full nod, "Just quite tired."
"That's perfectly normal," Doctor Rennick told her, "I suspect it's only partly because of the transplant. That initial high soon drops, after preparation for the transplant begins."
"How long have I slept?" Gina asked Mac, who was still settled in the same position as when Gina went to sleep.
"About eleven hours, now," Mac told her, smoothing a hand over her little sister's head.
"I feel as if I only closed my eyes a few minutes ago," Gina shook her head, gently.
With Mac's assistance, she sat up in bed, ready to hear what Doctor Rennick had to say.
"From what the nurses have told me, your transplant went very well. It seems that a good amount of cord-blood was harvested when your daughter's umbilical cord and placenta were sent to the bank. Because of that, the infusion lasted nearly five hours and larger amounts of donor cells have been linked to faster grafting times, in preliminary studies of patient cases. The cord-blood cells went right into the artery in your neck and from there they will make their way into the bone marrow space, where they will graft. At first, we will be checking for success by looking for levels of neutrophils in your blood, then for all the other types of blood cells that are produced by the bone marrow."
"What exactly are neutrophils, Doctor?" Mac asked and Gina was glad that she had thought to do so, for she didn't feel like she could muster the energy, just now.
"They are a type of white blood cell," Rennick told them, "one that is the most abundant and is therefore an essential part of the immune system. They are one of the white cells that respond to infection and when we see that your neutrophil counts are rising, we know that your immune system is beginning to repair itself."
"Okay," Gina nodded for Rennick to continue.
"We will also keep a close eye on your other cell counts, because when they begin to rise, we will know that your new bone marrow is in place and working effectively. When all of these counts are back to normal, we will breathe a big sigh of relief, because that will mean that the chances of infection and internal bleeding will have gone down. Red blood cells carry oxygen to supply the body tissues, platelets allow clotting and thus prevent internal bleeding and as we have already discussed, white blood cells prevent and combat infection. We will work hard to make sure that your road to full recovery will be a smooth one. Keeping a positive attitude will also do wonders for your recovery, but it may take some time for us to see results.
Until then, we will be transfusing some donor blood into you, so that your body remains as healthy as possible, until the donor cells graft and begin to do their thing."
"Is there any risk with giving the Gina the donor blood?" Mac asked, concerned.
"Any donor blood we use will be treated," Doctor Rennick assured them, "to make sure we don't put anything into Gina other than what will help her. Donor white blood cells will certainly help her broken-down immune system, just until her own has recovered. At this point, we're not sure how often she will need these transfusions; it is very dependent on the individual concerned."
"And what about other complications?" Mac asked again, briefly, now that she had noticed how tired Gina was beginning to look, "How many are we looking at and what can we do to prevent them?"
"As I mentioned earlier, with bone marrow transplants, the biggest risk after grafting is rejection, then Graft-versus-Host disease. But the risks of these are much smaller with cord-blood transplants, because the cells involved are essentially so new and pure. There is also a risk of pneumonia in the first 100 days after the transplant, so patients are routinely put on a long course of strong antibiotics, to safe-guard their health while their own immune system is still being rebuilt. And as leukemia patients have often undergone many treatments prior to their transplant, there is always the risk to the health of their liver. But considering what your sister has been through over the past few months and as her chemotherapy was kept at a lower intensity, I'm happy to say that her liver is functioning very well. Of course, not quite at normal levels, but very well considering. The liver is also one of the most resilient organs of the body, so it should recover full functioning within half a year…"
Mac looked over and saw that her sister was now asleep, but looking back at her doctor, he didn't appear to take it personally.
"I'll be back at many points to check on your sister, so don't worry about taking all of these details in," he smiled in understanding, "I'm sure she's going to have more questions for me over the next week and very few people with a non-medical profession ever really learn the jargon that comes with such matters. I can explain this all at any time needed. But I do need to inform you of the risks of the most potentially dangerous complication; rejection. There is the risk of rejection with any transplant, but cord blood transplantation has one of the best success records, despite its comparative infancy. As I said earlier, only a fifty-percent match is needed for a cord-blood transplant, but the fact that your niece is more than an eighty percent match is very good indeed. Also, being donor cells from a relative and a young one at that also bodes more positively than if they were from an older stranger. Your sister's case was one of the most aggressive, yet as hopeful as I have ever seen. I can only promise that my staff and I will be there every step of the way, helping in your sister's recovery to the best of our ability."
Mac now felt quite tearful, as she shook the man's hand. She was well aware that just ten to fifteen years ago, bone marrow research was in its infancy. Those undergoing a bone-marrow transplantation had much bleaker prospects of recovery and cord-blood transplants at this time hadn't even been thought of.
OOOO
It was a full twenty-four hours later that Mac finally collapsed into her bed. Gina's doctor had said that she had pushed herself enough and that she wasn't to show her face at the hospital for at least another ten hours or if she'd had at least eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. She had been surprised to find Penny sleeping soundly in her crib and Harm fast asleep in her bed. If she hadn't been so tired, she'd have permitted a naughty thought or two at this finding, but as it was, she quickly changed and crawled in beside him. Though he didn't awaken fully, he automatically moved to make more room for her, wrapping an affectionate arm around her as she joined him in the land of nod.
OOOO
When Harm awoke, six hours later, he moved carefully out of bed, so as to not disturb Mac. He knew she should get as much sleep as her body let her, so decided to get Penny up and changed. Once that was accomplished, the two of them left the apartment to do a bit of grocery shopping, so that breakfast was waiting for Mac when she woke up.
"That smells good…" Mac sniffed, appreciatively, "Have you really cooked me dead pig, squid?!"
"Penny seems to have quite a liking for the smell of it too," Harm played it down, "So I figured two marines would outnumber one lone sailor. I've also got eggs, scrambled or sunny-side up and French toast."
Mac sat down and began to tuck into her meal heartily. Harm put off the news of the phone call he had received at the grocery store until she had finished.
"Martha called me, while I was out grocery shopping…"
Mac looked at him, his signal to continue.
"Her sister fell and broke a hip, yesterday. She'll need somebody to help care for her once she's out of the hospital, but Martha would like to be there while she's recovering from the surgery too."
Of course it was a shame for Martha's poor sister, but it couldn't have come at a worse time. Harm was nearly as swamped with work as before the extra attorney had been brought into JAG, Mac was spending most of her time either with Gina, Penny or sleeping and Bud and Harriet had kids of their own to take care of. Without Martha, things were likely to fall apart.
"I told her the most important thing is to take care of her sister; that we'd manage somehow…"
"Not that I don't agree that she should take care of her sister, but how are we going to manage, Harm?"
"Straight after I finished talking to Martha," Harm continued, "I called General Cresswell and he's given me two days off, to help you with Penny, so you don't have to worry about keeping two other people and yourself healthy…"
Mac was about to interrupt and point out two days weren't enough for Gina to recover, to stop needing help nor for them to find a new nanny to watch Penny, when Harm forged ahead.
"After I procured two days off work, I called my Mom, who's been calling to check in on Gina ever since I mentioned to her that you'd discovered your long-lost sister. She's always said that she'd be happy to help out and she was planning a trip to DC sometime soon anyway."
"I couldn't ask your Mom to take on all this…" Mac began to shake her head, when the phone rang.
Despite her initial fears, it wasn't the hospital, but Harm's mother; Trish, who immediately passed along good wishes to Mac for her sister; that she would recovery quickly and then she launched into her proposed plans for the next few weeks. While not being pushy, Trish was adamant that it was not any problem for her to come to DC, that she'd planned on visiting Harm anyway and she would love to spend some time with Mac's little niece.
"She can be a handful sometimes," Mac warned, "not in a naughty sense, but she has rather specialist needs. She was born very ill and underweight…"
"It's been a while, but I'm sure I still have the touch and I'm sure I can learn everything needed to care for her," Trish insisted, "I'm more worried about keeping you healthy, my dear, because I know how much you must have on your plate, just now. You leave the care of your niece to me and just focus your attention on keeping yourself well and providing your sister with support. Everything will work itself out, I promise."
Mac didn't doubt that Trish was capable of taking very good care of Penny, it was just that with being a marine and having had the childhood that she had, Mac always felt a real need to have control over the situations around her. She didn't feel at all comfortable when things were out of her control and the last six months and more had pushed her to what felt like the very brink of sanity. But after her accident and the discovery of her endometriosis, she had promised herself that she would stop trying to keep such a tight reign on events in her life and just enjoy the life she was blessed to still be living.
"Thank you so much, Trish," Mac smiled as she spoke into the phone, "This will help me more than you could imagine…"
OOOO
Harm collected his Mother from the airport, two days later, with Penny in-tow. Mac was at the hospital with Gina, but would be home later on in the day. After introducing Trish to Penny (a meeting he thought went very well indeed,) Harm took them back to Mac's place, which is where they spent most of their time these days. Gina's apartment had more stairs than Mac's and no elevator, so most of Penny's supplies now resided at Mac's, practical issues over-ruling Gina's initial decision. Harm's place wasn't as child-friendly as Mac's, (though now more so than it had been before Penny and Gina's arrival.) Harm would stay in Mac's guest bedroom, while his mother took his apartment, with Harm running Trish back and forth as needed. She agreed that it was best for her to come to Penny, not the other way around, because a child needed routine and predictability, especially one with special needs such as Penny.
Once Trish had learnt Penny's routine, she decided to take a short nap, while Harm watched Penny. Her flight had been a turbulent one, with a long stop-over in the Chicago.
OOOO
"Hey, Squid. Where's your Mom?" Mac asked when she let herself in and found Harm and Penny playing on the carpeted floor in the living room.
"She went to take a nap, a little while ago," Harm told her, explaining, "Her flight wasn't so good, they had turbulence almost from the minute they took off. If you'd like to take this little bundle of joy, here, I'll go and call for some take-away…What do you fancy, tonight?"
"Anything that used to moo, bleat or cluck," Mac told him, groaning as she dropped her weary bones down onto the carpet, "Rabbit-food just ain't going to cut it, tonight…Other than that, why don't you surprise me?"
Harm raised his eyebrows, but said nothing, then decided to check on his mother before he went to phone in an order to Benzinger's. If necessary, if she wasn't awake, he'd just order something for her, but he found her already on her feet and running a brush through her hair.
"I didn't mean to sleep this long," she commented, "it's just about dinnertime and poor Mac has come home to an empty fridge."
"I was just about to order something in…Mac wants meat, so I was thinking about a steak dinner for her…What can I get for you, Mom?"
Trish ordered the butterfly chicken and once Harm went off to phone the orders in, Trish changed into suitable lounging attire. A pair of loose-fitting slacks and a blouse was nice enough for eating dinner at home with friends, yet comfortable at the same time.
"Mac, darling, how's Gina doing, today?" she pulled Mac into a warm hug, once she made her way back into the living room.
"She's still very tired, but her doctor said that's normal," Mac hugged Trish back, a calm smile on her face.
The few times that Mac had met Trish, she'd always enjoyed the occasion, because Trish was always so warm towards her. Here Mac was, essentially a near-stranger and yet Trish hugged her like a member of the family…Well, she should probably not go there!
When Harm came back from calling for take-out, they all sat down and Mac told them what had been going on at the hospital that day. Very little had actually physically occurred, at least as far as testing was concerned. But Gina had had many more questions, so on top of Mac's queries they had spent much of the day talking to nurses and the doctor.
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