“He said somepin about ’fectious diarrhea,” Mrs. Williams added, her fright now gone with the coming of Dr. Newton.
“Gave him castor oil?” Dr. Newton asked, incredulously. “The blithering fool!”
Mimi and Mrs. Williams showed their dismay at his words.
“Thank goodness he’s probably vomited it all up by now.” His words were punctuated by Jean’s pathetic screams.
“ Mrs. Daquin, your baby’s got a bad case of intussusception—folding back of a part of the intestine over another part,” he added as she showed her lack of comprehension of the longer word. “Or, to make it simpler, it’s acute intestinal obstruction. The only chance of saving him is through an operation—and it’ll have to be done without an hour’s delay.”
Mimi sank her head into her hands. Had she just heard the death sentence pronounced on her, she would have felt not half as terrified as the thought of her Petit Jean going under the knife. She felt sick, disheartened, beaten. She raised a haggard face, her hair dishevelled, to the doctor.
“Isn’t there anything else than operating?” she pleaded.
“Nothing,” he told her. “And even then the chances are somewhat less than one in ten. This sounds hard and brutally frank—but it’s best you know the truth,” he added kindly, deep pity in his voice for her distress.
“Then operate,” she declared, firmly, all panic gone from her face and voice. …