PART 2
Deep, necrotic-looking purple bruises formed complete and unmistakable rings around both of his pale wrists.
“Dad, what did they do to you?” I whispered, my voice shaking despite my best efforts to stay professional.
“They tied me down, sweetheart,” my father whimpered softly, pulling his arms back in shame. “They said I wasn’t allowed to leave the guest room until I signed their legal papers.”
Seeing those horrific, symmetrical marks on Dad’s wrists, I instantly scrapped my original plan to take him home for the night.
I practically carried his weight to the passenger seat of my government-issued SUV and diverted straight to the emergency room at St. Vincent Medical Center.
The triage nurse took one look at his pale, sunken face and immediately flagged him for a private trauma bay.
An attending physician, a sharp-eyed woman named Dr. Brenda Foster, walked into the room to perform a rapid and comprehensive physical examination.
“I need to check his vital signs right now,” Dr. Brenda Foster said calmly as she attached the heart monitor leads to his chest. “His pulse is extremely irregular, and his blood pressure is dangerously low.”
I stood rigidly by the stainless-steel bedside, my arms crossed tightly over my chest to stop my hands from shaking while she worked on him.
“What is your immediate diagnosis, Doctor?” I asked, keeping my gaze locked on the digital screen displaying his erratic heart rate.
“Your father is severely and dangerously dehydrated,” Dr. Brenda Foster explained as she reviewed his initial blood panel results. “Furthermore, these lab tests confirm what you suspected, because he has been deliberately deprived of his daily cardiovascular medication for at least three consecutive days.”
