Making Christmas Special Again / Their One-Night Christmas Gift. Karin Baine

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      When Max reached the clearing, he could hardly believe what he was seeing.

      Fenella’s dog, Nora, was nudging herself under Fenella’s head as she came to the end of a seizure.

      ‘She was fitting, Doc.’ Euan said, breathless and a bit pale from fright. ‘I stuck my glove in her mouth so she wouldn’t bite her tongue or anything, but she spat it out. Too mucky, I guess.’

      ‘It’s all right, pal.’ Max dropped to his knees and did a quick check of Fenella’s vitals. ‘You’ve done the right thing in finding me. From the look of things, Nora here knows what she’s doing.’

      ‘Absolutely.’ Euan looked awestruck. ‘I know we saw her in the practice hall, but this was the real thing. It was like she knew it was going to happen.’ He looked up as Esme jogged into the clearing. ‘Did you know Nora makes herself into a cushion?’

      Esme gave Nora a quick pet and a treat as Fenella slowly came to. ‘Absolutely. That’s what she’s trained to do.’

      Max helped Fenella sit up. ‘You all right there, hun?’

      The post-ictal phase was always a bit tricky. The person who’d had the seizure could feel perfectly fine or often exhibit signs similar to those of a stroke. Headaches, slurred speech, nausea and fatigue. In rare cases, some epileptics could suffer from post-ictal psychosis and suffer from paranoia or extreme fear. Usually the anomaly occurred in people who weren’t taking their medication.

      ‘Yes, I…’ Fenella looked a bit confused and then, when her eyes lit on Nora, it was as if everything pinged into place. ‘I felt a bit woozy and the next thing I knew, this one was being my pillow.’ She ran her hand through the dog’s fur and automatically reached to her pocket to get her a treat. ‘Good girl. You’re a clever girlie, aren’t you?’

      ‘She was!’ Euan jumped in. ‘Out of, like, absolutely nowhere you fainted. But you weren’t fainting. You were having a seizure, I guess, and it was like Nora knew exactly what to do. She broke your fall. Then she stuck herself under your head while you were fitting. No offence, but it was really cool.’

      Max glanced across at Esme. She looked concerned for Fenella but pleased her new service dog had fallen straight into her new role. She was actively avoiding eye contact with him. Served him right. He’d been an ass. Sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. He should tell her about Gavin. It would break just about every rule in his play-your-cards-close-to-your-chest handbook, but he felt he owed it to her to even the emotional playing field. He got it. Sometimes things were personal. Luckily for his emotional armour, taking caring of Fenella took precedence.

      ‘Did you take your AEDs?’ Max asked. Anti-epileptic drugs helped but weren’t a failsafe, especially if they weren’t taken regularly or weren’t the right dosage. Having seen her in his A and E several times for sprains and cuts sustained while she’d been fitting, he knew she had struggled for years to find the right balance of medication.

      ‘Yes.’ She looked away, rubbing her elbow.

      It didn’t sound like a one hundred percent yes, but he wasn’t going to embarrass her in front of everyone if there was a story behind her not taking it. Or, as was often the case, she might need to change meds. They weren’t a one-pill-fits-all type of medicine.

      ‘Did you hurt yourself?’

      ‘No more than usual.’ She held up a lightly scraped hand then qualified her answer. ‘I probably would’ve cracked my head on a stone or something if it hadn’t been for Nora.’ She wrapped her arm round the dog and nuzzled her face into the fluffy goldendoodle’s coat. After СКАЧАТЬ