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| PAGE THIRTY FIVE |
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Kel didn't look up from the shot he was preparing for Johnny. "See? You're not even able to complete a whole sentence. Johnny, I'd wish you'd show a little bit more good judgement for your own benefit. So far, I've had to protect you from yourself twice. Brice here's cool under fire as usual." Johnny's face fell at the words, "show good judgement" and he almost went apoplectic. "Wait a minute, doc. I've been the perfect angel through this whole earthquake thing. I only get a little devil horned about my patients." "You mean about MY patients.." Kel said crossing his arms no nonsense. "You haven't been on duty since this time yesterday. The second you took a header into that cave-in, you turned from Paramedic to Patient.. and into my demenses with me as your doctor. Now argue the fact and this pain med's gonna be IM instead of IV..." He finished, at a firm grumble. "Ok,.. Ok.. Just.. watch him good huh? Can't sleep a wink worrying about him." Gage said, handing over his D5W bag. "And don't you go slipping a sedative into there or I'm gonna wake up later more ornery than y--" Again Gage bit his tongue. Brackett glared and Gage withered sheepishly. Johnny really tried to be obedient, but then his eyes strayed to the mast suit's dial. "Hey Brice.. It's slipped a few psi in the left leg. Here let me just--" "Ah ah ah!" Dr. Brackett held up an admonishing finger, the meperidine syringe in between his teeth as he cleaned Gage's IV tubing with an alcohol pad. "Not another peep.." Gage moused down, and sat down. Satisfied, Dr. Brackett finished his injection into Johnny's IV and then moved on to exam Marco thoroughly. "Brice, I assume the real reason you woke me is this return of the arrythmias." Craig nodded. "That among other things.." he said, shooting a look at Gage as he pushed up his glasses onto his face. Johnny hung his head down in defeat and sighed heavily in annoyance. Already he could feel relief from his hand's stabbing and he fought the med's grogginess rising up. ::If I can't help out, I'm gonna at least watch. I'll sleep next week.:: he decided. His lurid sleepies washed away. Dr. Brackett took a pinch of Marco's skin and noticed the fold he created didn't settle flat again. "He's dehydrated. And I'll just bet his hematocrit's sky high. Brice, D/C the Lactated Ringers for another of Normal Saline. His pulmonary fluid is less marked. I won't have acidosis set in from having an IV the wrong chemistry. He's now a circulation poor case.." Dr. Brackett flinched when just touching Marco's eye lids for a pupillary check, brought trails of blood from his tear ducts. He grunted in surprise. "He's bleeding from all the IV sites too. Nothing yet from his GI, and there's been no vomiting indications at all." Craig nodded. "Good. Hang in there Lopez." Brackett grinned "You're a fighter.." Then Kel asked his next question, glancing over his shoulder. "Gage. What's Marco's blood type? We're gonna need to transfuse him. Dr. MacPherson told me that this illness causes consumptive coagulopathy big time." Johnny blinked.. "Its destroying his blood platelet counts?" "Yes. " "A +. I can get a few units off Roy and Chet. They are his blood type." "Then there's something I'll actually let you do.." Dr. Brackett ordered. "Get on it." Brice was curious. "Why the free flow hemorrhaging here Dr. Brackett? I've never seen a fever syndrome do this before.." "Dr. Taylor surmises that the Marburg uses blood splattering through its victim's convulsions as a mode of host to host transmission like the common cold uses sneezing.. This surface hemorrhaging is just the first stages." he said. He drew up heparin from his drug box, a loading dose of 2,000 IU. "Craig.. Who thought of using the trousers? Good call." Brice didn't deign to reply and he tactfully let the moment slide. Kel gave the blood stabilizer into the Normal Saline IV. Then started a piggyback IV of more into the bag and secured it with a bright orange heparin label. "I want this heparin loading continued over the next twenty four hours. 10,000 IU's a day. It'll slow the platelet loss until we get the whole blood running into him from the other firemen..And I want him urinary cath'd. I want to know an exact renal output." "Right.." Craig said. |
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Meanwhile.. Johnny was the perfect vampire. He sat quietly by Chet where he was snoring on the bed and pinned down the sleeping man's arm with a long board chin strap to the bed frames. Then he got his vein presenting with a tourniquet and started up a line, running the catheter's flow into a collection bottle. "How much should I draw out, doc?" Chet was so exhausted that he didn't even wake at all at Johnny's ministrations. "To first tolerance point. Say, 750 CC. Kelly's not injured so we'll go high. Get the same from Roy.." Kel suggested. "1500 CC's isn't going to last Marco long." "By then, we'll have our new supply from the triage station outside." he said, looking towards the desk where Craig Brice was quietly ordering some from Captain Stone over his HT so he wouldn't disturb the sleepers in the room. Johnny got his half liter whole blood from Chet and withdrew the catheter. He handed it off to Dr. Brackett who immediately began giving it to Marco. Gage, patted Chet's cheek. "Thanks Kelly.. Sweet dreams.." he sniffed, leaving a bottle of 7up by his head. "You're gonna wake up thirsty but it's for a hell of a good cause." Reacting to an evil streak of humor, he scribbled on the bandaid over the cotton wad in Kelly's arm crook. "The Phantom was here.." he whispered and drew a smiley face with fangs with an IV marker. Johnny shifted over to his partner and got as far as touching him when DeSoto stirred awake. "Sorry.. I need to get some whole blood from ya for Marco. His platelet count's taking a nosedive. Hold still." he whispered. Roy grunted, still very sleepy. Then he said. "All right." and he held his arm still, blearily watching Johnny raise and stick a vein. "More blood coming on the way?" "Yeah. Chet provided the first bottle. Brice is getting additional supplies from the triage station outside.." Johnny said, taping off the collection tube and mating its business end into the vacuum bottle he had set onto the floor. "You're gonna be a 750." The crimson flow began to fill it up rapidly. "Make it 850. I'm a big boy.." "Our secret.." Gage said without smiling. "Here.. " and he tossed another 7up bottle at Roy and left him to nap while the transfusion bottle filled. Roy was fast asleep before he could set the pop onto the table next to himself. Johnny left him cradling it. ------------------------------ From the stokes Johnny had been using the night before, Bonnie began to moan. "Oh, I don't like the sound of that..." Gage said. He, Brice and Dr. Brackett barely had time to secure Marco and all his IV's when another earthquake aftershock shook the firehouse. Dust cascaded from the ceiling in white powdered trails and everyone was jerked awake by Bonnie's frantic barking as the tremor continued. It wasn't a severe one but it was long lasting and jolting enough to wake absolutely everybody past all hope of a return to napping. Even in the emotionally worn out Chet. All the HT's on the night desk erupted into frantic communications as individual fire companies checked in with damage reports and new developments in the disaster scene outside. |
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