

"D@mn! He's in withdrawal." Gage swore. "Hold him ! Hold him!"
"No,, I gott....a...out of
...WHy do I hURT so bad??! $##**!"Agony from being Narcan yanked out of a high surged far beyond
what was normal and the man reacted violently by knocking all of the firm hands on him away as
if they hadn't been there at all.
He was instantly on his feet and running and the EKG leads
ripped away from the connector on the monitor when it thunked into a rock as it dragged where
he ran.
Eight firemen shot to their feet after him.
"Hey!" and Gage's grab for his victim
missed. "Sh*t!"
Three other firemen's tackles missed too.
Their hideously withdrawing
patient, with his split jeans legs fluttering in the wind, easily outdistanced them into the thick
tree stand of the enclosure.
The paramedics heard an impact as his arm splint disintegrated
when it smacked into a tree trunk as they chased after him.
"Over there!" Cap shouted from
a rise. "He's heading back to the exhibit's gate!" Hank could just see him from where he was.
He got on the HT. "Engine 51 to Truck 127. Our victim's fleeing to the north. Intercept him immediately.
He's a blown Narcan."
Cap winced as the man's pinwheeling broken arm drove him into greater
speed despite his bare feet pelting awkwardly over the rock strewn ground.
The fresh
pain robbed the addict of his voice and instantly, his pursuers lost track of him in the desperate
silence that followed.
Hank saw his men follow where he indicated, but an instinct made himself
angle into a new direction as he ran, back towards the main exhibit zoo gate. ::Damn, he's got
keys. He better not l--::
Cap arrived just ahead of his men just in time to see the lurching,
crazed man slam the heavy iron gate shut behind him.
All the firemen were instantly locked
inside the pig cage..... with no way out.
|

 |
 |

"No, you're not going to stop me..." he choked. Then he whirled as if at an unseen presence on staggering
bleeding feet. "I'm-m coming! Just give me m-- more stuff, please!!! I can pay..." he gasped. " Slick,
I can get you wild animals for hunting trophys.. I'm surrounded by them!! Just don't cut me off...Please..
I can't take it any morRRReeeee..!" and his voice cracked in pain and insane giggles.
Cap's
face fell into sympathy and frustration when the very sick man took off running, not down the asphalt
trail winding around the cages, but into the scrubland bordering it. ::The responding engine
crew I called from the parking lot will never spot him now.:: he thought.
The men of station
10 and 51 all lined up along the bars of the peccary cage and watched the junkie disappear into the
distance along a ridge of thick scrub that led off the zoo property.
Chet was puzzled by all
the men's stunned, numb faces and he said. "Hey, don't worry, guys. The cops'll get him. They got
bloodhounds that can track him.. Should be easy with all those cuts of his bleeding out."
Gage
swiped an angry hand over his dripping face and he kicked the solid fence between him and his
victim in defeated frustration.
Chet somehow knew that Johnny's anger wasn't directed at him.
"Why the long face, Johnny?"
"You just don't get it, do you?" Gage snapped.
"Get what?"
Kelly asked distractedly, testing the fence for a weak spot that wasn't there.
Roy's pale face
sobered all present as he answered Chet's innocent question. "Narcan only works for a few minutes,
only long enough to restore an OD's ability to breathe again. The effects of heroin or cocaine
can last for hours, Chet."
"I still don't get it.."
Johnny set his hands on his hips and
studied the ground quietly. He spoke up softly. "Our guy's gonna re-overdose when the Narcan wears
off and he's gonna go right back into another catastrophic downer long before we can ever hope
to relocate him. And no one's gonna be around this time to catch him when he stops breathing
again."
Chet Kelly's face filled with an exquisite pain of realization and he was rendered
mute when he put two and two together. The fact of the fleeing addict, being actually a walking
dead man, filled his mouth with rising bile. Kelly threw a hand to his face in sudden reaction
and he gasped.
Roy set a comforting grip on Kelly's shoulder. "Yeah,.. I know. A tough break.
Come on. Maybe there's another way outta here back the way we came. Prepare yourself. We're gonna
have to go find him later for recovery to the coroner's office."
|


************************************* From : "Roxy Dee" <laterrapincabesa@hotmail.com> Subject
:Shattered Serenity.. Date :Wed, 07 May 2003 20:32:54 +0000
Johnny Gage was eating
his sandwich with exactly zero percent concentration. Roy only remarked about it when his partner's
teeth began devouring most of the paper wrapping with his Chicago style Italian beef sandwich with
each bite. "Hey...Johnny.." Roy nudged with an elbow. "Pay attention.."
"What? Can't you see
I'm busy here?" the younger chipmunked cheeked paramedic mumbled loudly. His eyes never left their
particular subject matter, who was seated like B*ddha on Cap's usually Cap claimed recliner in
a serene yoga stance. "I'm trying to figure out just what's gotten into him.." he said waving
a few broth dripping fingers towards the meditating Chet he could see in plain sight.
"Yeah?
Well try to focus on what's landing in your stomach a bit there, too." DeSoto warned. "Didn't know
your ancestory included being part termite..." Roy quipped.
"Just what do you mean by that?"
Johnny said, his chewing halting abruptly as he looked at his senior pal for the first time during
the whole conversation.
Roy decided to play it out a little more, choosing another direction
with which to break news. "Never mind." he said, his quiet smile growing just a little bit bigger
as a rare joking opportunity presented itself to his exclusive territory. "Tell me something. Exactly
how much each were these sandwiches we got from Louis's stand after we stopped by at Rampart to
resupply?"
Gage's eyes fell into another focus and he resumed chewing. "I don't know. Didn't
memorize it. If you need that for the food budget I think the price tags are still on the wrapp--"
and he broke off, finally realizing the whole portent of what Roy was angling into. He made a
face when he realized that 3/4's of his consumed sandwich included 3/4's of the paper sheeting that
had wrapped it securely inside its own juices. "Oh,,.. why didn't you tell me I was doing this, Roy..?"
he complained indignantly.
DeSoto's face cracked a grin. "I tried, only you were so focused
at staring holes through Kelly over there that I guess you didn't hear me."
"That's wonderful..
Now I'm gonna get an "A" number one gut ache on top of my willies, too."
Roy's eyebrows rose
in amusement and he cupped his mug into his hands thoughtfully. "Somehow, I doubt that very much.
My kids have eaten pounds of newspaper, crayon wrappers, caramel apple cups and sausage coats,
among other things, to fill a small wagon. They never seemed to have any problems with their
digestion afterwards."
"Yeah? Well, I'm not a kid.." Johnny said, depositing his oozing onion
laden Italian beef sandwich onto a plate where he gingerly began dissecting it with a forceps from
his hip holster and a fork from the broth soaked paper that he had been eating unknowingly. He finally
gave up when he honestly couldn't tell meat from wrapper. He threw his "surgical" tools down in disgust.
"I'll be right back. Thanks alot for not warning me sooner, partner." he said sourly, and he got
up to head for the garage.
"Where are you going?" Roy asked.
"To the squad. I'm gonna
get an oral laxative and anti-acid before I cramp up here." he said sarcastically.
Roy just
shrugged, and let him go.
|

 |
 |

Cap passed Johnny on his way out. He had to turn sideways to avoid a collision with Gage as he came
into the room. "What's with him?" he asked Roy, reaching for the platter full of beef sandwiches,
still steaming on the potholders in front of the hungrily eating rest of the gang.
Roy stretched
in his chair and yawned. "He thinks he's gonna die from a little ingested deli wrap. He's gone
to the drug box for a few gastronomical aids."
Hank smirked as he stripped his own sandwich free
of its covering before taking a huge bite of the delectable food. "If I had a dime for each time
one of the kids ate wood pulp, I'd be a rich man." he said, shrugging off the incident as trivial.
"Pass me the jalapeno peppers, would ya Marco?"
Lopez neatly slid the huge jar of them from where
he sat forward with a few knuckles, without looking up from his sports section. "Here ya go, Cap.
Bon appetite. Oh, avoid the little orange ones or you're gonna be running out to the squad in
fear of your life, too, like Gage is doing."
"I consider myself warned." Hank grinned, digging
eagerly into the chilled jar of peppers with a fork for a few chartreuse ones. "Those red things
are habaneroes, aren't they?"
"Yep." Lopez grunted, turning a page.
Cap carefully built
his sandwich and then organized the piles of onions and peppers on top of it with all the skill
of someone sculpting a banana split when he spotted Kelly, seated like a guru in the rec room recliner.
A glance informed him that Kelly's plate was still virgin clean. His eyebrows matched Roy's amused
ones, only his didn't yet see any humor in the situation. "Say, Chet." he called out. "Fooood.."
and he waved the sandwich platter in the air with a towel to waft its aroma into the air towards
him.
"Hmmmmmmm?" Kelly said dreamily from his achingly stiff yoga stance. His palms were delicately
upturned at the wrists, both symmetrically draping over his carefully folded knees. He didn't open
his eyes. "What?"
"Chow's on..." Cap repeated, a little louder.
"Thanks, Cap. I can
smell it. But a little meditation's on my menu for lunch today. I need to rebalance my karma before
I do anything else.." and his head tipped back into a trance pose and he began ohm'ing lowly under
his breath, until his moustache vibrated.
Henry was disturbed from his snoozing nap on the couch
and his ears cocked forward, curiously bugged at the new sound. He struggled off his fat and
out of the sinkhole of cushions his weight had made to his haunches and his usually droopy eyes
widened in surprise. The rotund basset considered his predicament for about ten seconds. Then he
began to doggy howl in masking fashion over Chet's soothing "ohm's" in contrary canine agony.
The gang erupted into laughter.
Chet just cracked an eye and shot them all an irritated look.
He went back to his meditation and fell mute to hush them and their station mascot, up.
Cap
said. "That's fine with me, Kelly. Only come dinner time, I'm ordering you to eat twice. I'm not gonna
have anyone getting surprise hypoglycemia tonight in the middle of a bizarre fire run later on."
"What makes you so sure we're gonna have one, Cap?" Stoker piped up.
Hank's hands twitched
as he tried to find the best angle with which to pick up his messy sandwich. "You mean our last
run didn't clue you in? It's freaky Friday today, or haven't you noticed..A fire call's the only thing
we haven't gone on yet."
Gage came trudging back into the kitchen. He was grimacing and sucking
down a dose or two of hospital strength pepto bismo straight from the bottle like a carton of milk.
His eyes immediately refell warily on Chet as he fumbled back into his chair to pick once
more at his dissected sandwich.
He noticed that Roy had already separated the broth stained
paper from the meat for him with his tools. "Thanks.." he said as he began to fork in lunch. All
the while, the tense edge Johnny was harboring and the unbroken stare he was using to regard Kelly,
remained full force.
Roy's and Cap's and Henry's eyes shifted back and forth from the oblivious
meditating Chet to the very quiet and jumpy Gage. The three of them fell to eyeing them like spectators
on a tennis match. Finally, Hank leaned over and asked Roy in a confidential whisper. "What's
with him? Did I miss something here?"
DeSoto shrugged, taking a bite of his neatly arranged
sandwich from its carefully folded down deli wrap. "Your guess is as good as mine, Cap.."
Johnny's
ears didn't miss a thing and he pegged Roy and Hank with an irritated glare. "I'll tell you what's
eating me.."
Marco piped up. "No, no, no..You mean what you're eating.." he quipped about Johnny's
recent paper meal.
"Oh, ha ha.. Very funny." Gage shot at Lopez, shifting his chair closer
to his plate so he could pick at his sandwich with a butter knife some more. "I'll tell you what's
bugging me.." and his eyes narrowed in fine focus. "Do any of you know what day it is today?" he
said, keeping his voice and profile low over his plate.
Hank coughed, wiped his mouth with
a napkin, and replied. "You mean beyond the freaky runs we've been getting all day today since
midnight?" he intoned with a straight face.
"Yeah, that's exactly what I mean.." Gage said,
throwing a look at Marco, when his newspaper began to shake with his barely suppressed chortle.
"I have absolutely no idea.." Cap said calmly lacing his fingers together thoughtfully over his plate.
He immediately fell back to inhaling his sandwich.
Johnny cleared his throat and took
another swig of anti-acid from his bottle. Then he set it down and leaned in confidentially to
Roy and Cap. "It's our anniversary today.." he said, throwing a few fingers between Chet and himself,
through a cracked side of his mouth..
"Anniversary for what?" Roy asked at a normal volume.
Johnny's fingers flew to his lips in animated quick warning and he hissed. "Shssstt.. He'll hear
you.."
Hank's eyebrows crawled into his hairline in frank surprise at his most junior medic's
off behavior. He, chewed more slowly while he waited for Roy to fathom him out.
Roy promptly
did so. "Oh.." Roy said, throwing down his napkin onto his empty plate. "That anniversary.." he
said in immediate sympathy.
"Yeah.. That one.." Johnny agreed animatedly, and he pegged alert,
wary eyes right back on the B*ddha like countenance on Chet's meditating face.
Cap chewed once
more and ordered. "Enlighten me, gentlemen, if you wouldn't mind."
Gage pantomimed an arching
catapulting gesture from about his shoulder level down to the table top. He pretended that whatever
had been "flung" landed on his own face in a disgusting liquid form, all without making a sound.
"Charades, huh?" Marco asked, finally peering over his paper, just catching on to the gist of
what was going on across the table. He thoughtfully chewed on a wonderfully orange habanero pepper.
"I get it.. I'm good at this stuff. " Stoker piped up eagerly, before his superior could. "Cap,
he must mean it's the anniversary of their Phantom water can war."
Gage's face flew open in
shock at Stoker verbalizing his worry loud enough for Kelly to hear it and he froze in his seat
as he checked Chet out for any sign of reaction.
None was forthcoming.
|

 |
 |

Slowly, Gage's face began to regain its color when Chet didn't move a millimeter where he was.
Henry didn't move either. He was still rivetted like a pointer, standing upright on the couch, still
staring at Kelly's face, waiting for any further repeating of the funny noise from his human companion,
that had awakened him earlier.
"Oh,, so that's why you're twitchy as a venter inside a gas
leaking house." Cap grinned.
Gage sighed, and glanced at him in offended sheepishness.
Cap
looked at Kelly once again where the Irishman was sitting easily in his calming pose and said. "I
still don't see any problem here, Johnny. He doesn't seem to be doing anything odd, pal." he said
in puzzlement.
"That's just it, Cap." Gage said, dropping his voice low into another secret
whisper. "That's why I'm so nervous. And all the rest of you should get that way, too. Listen
to this next bit closely. Just hear me out.." he insisted animatedly. "Have you ever known Chet
to act straight laced and normal longer than two hours before?"
"Uhh...." Cap considered.
Gage cut him off. "See? You agree with me.." he interrupted hastily, casting watchful eyes back
onto the immobile Chet across the room. "I know he's up to something.."
Roy got up and scooped
up his plate and the one he now knew Johnny wasn't going to eat from anymore. "Maybe he just doesn't
feel like joking around with ya right now. I mean, finding that OD's body like we did can throw
anybody off their feed."
Johnny pegged Roy with a glower. "We see bodies all the time, and
in worse shape than that one. Bogus point Roy. Chet's never skipped lunch because of a fatality
retrieval, none of us have either, for that matter, now that I think about it. He's doing it because
today is TODAY..." he insisted meaningfully.
Roy considered for several beats before he shook
his head in dismissal as he began to fill the kitchen sink up gingerly with dish water and soap.
"Suit yourself if ya want to worry. I can't help you there."
"Yes, you can! You can watch
my back, Pal." Gage fired back.
"Can't, Junior. I already do that. It's in my job description."
DeSoto replied, dead pan.
The rest of the gang chortled, all except the still composed Chet
and the intensely worried, mesmerized Henry.
Finally, Henry had had enough and uncharacteristically,
he abandoned the couch's folds and trucked, strangely, for the garage.
His reaction caught
the whispering gang's attention and they stopped what they were doing, to watch him in amazement..
Roy shrugged. "Whatever's bothering you and Chet," he commented to Johnny, "It must be catchy.."
he summed up.
"Very funny.." Gage mumbled as he picked up a towel to help Roy dry the plates.
"Henry's not even acting like Henry. I tell ya, this whole day's gone completely nuts and it's
dragging us all down with it."
|

 |
 |

Henry was full of purpose. He panted heavily as he slowly jogged across the quiet vehicle bay to
the far side wall where the tool locker was situated.
He spotted what he was looking for. The
cord the gang had strung down for him from the rear garage opener switch so he'd have a means to
go outside to the yard to relieve himself whenever they weren't there to do it for him.
His
teeth yanked on the cord and he wormed his way underneath the door as it noisily climbed up its tracks
and he paced determinedly to exactly the middle of the yard. He sat down on his haunches in the dust
and he pointed his nose up to the sky and began to howl.
In the kitchen, the gang noticed him
immediately. They all, minus Chet, crowded around the kitchen window to eye the spot mirror pointed
into the back yard to see what Henry was doing. "What the heck?" Cap said. "Henry's acting like
a wolf now, howling at the moon. Has the world gone mad? "
"Perhaps it's just you guys.."
Chet declared in irritation at the noise interrupting his meditation. He unfolded his legs from
the recliner's depths and clamoured to his feet long enough to pull his lace loosened shoes back on.
"I'll be in the bunkroom, continuing where I left off. I don't wanna hear nothing except an arriving
tones call in there while I'm busy doing it." he said quietly civil and he barrelled past them
all on his way out.
Gage spun around a full ninety to avoid turning a vulnerable back
towards Kelly as he departed. Only then did Johnny begin to relax.. "See what I mean? He's the
height of oddness personified.."
No one else got the gist of what had Gage so up in arms. They
were too busy concentrating on the strange sight of Henry caterwauling to the heavens out in the yard.
The basset hound's loud, anxiety tinged cries were only just heard over the sounds of the afternoon
time rush hour traffic from the boulevard but they were loud enough to attract a little attention
from the office workers in the building next door. Cap saw a few fingers peeking through the blinds
exactly like they were doing.
Roy had a thought that came unbidden. ::If I didn't know any
better, I'd swear Henry was sending out a message to the neighborhood network like the sheep dog did
in One Hundred One Dalmations.::
Sure enough, an answering bark erupted from the Arco refinery
watchdog from across the street. Henry fell into an intense listening pose in that direction.
So did the rest of the gang.
|


-------------------------------------------------------------- Rampart was a mad house.
::Nothing
dire. Mind you. Just a whole slew of irritating, putzy gomer cases littering my emergency department.::
Dixie McCall sighed in deep thought.
Her mouth was still dry in sympathic memory of the coffee
she still couldn't track down anywhere, hospital wide.
She sighed and rubbed her forehead in
fatigue until a grip on her shoulder made her shoot to her feet from her desk stool.
"Ahh!"
she startled.
Kel Brackett froze, his left hand still grasping the air where her shoulder had
been, his right, loaded with the newest non critical patient chart. "Easy, Dix... Don't hurt yourself.
We've enough weird cases as it is today without handling any more from the staff."
"That's
not very d*mned funny, Kel." Dix said with some genuine heat and no trace of a smile.
Kel smiled
broadly. "Caffeine withdrawal going full swing? Sorry about not being able to procure any coffee
from dietary for you. How was I to know that the supply truck from the city would hit the only pothole
in Los Angeles and throw an axle?"
Dixie's eyes got back into focus from her fright. "So that's
the reason why there isn't any coffee anywhere. It's driving me crazy seeing full cups in everyone
else's hands but mine.." she said, plunking wearily back onto her seat and taking Kel's chart to
file it away into her priority arranged turnstyle. "How'd you learn that latest tidbit? Can't say
that news is making me feel any better."
"Sorry, Dix." Brackett grimaced. "The driver of the
coffee truck's the man getting lip stitches in Treatment Three. He hit a hydrant after his axle
cracked. 36 brought him in an hour ago and he told me so himself who he was."
Dixie began
to groan, just thinking about it. "I thought I smelled coffee on his clothes taking his vital signs..
I thought I was hallucinating."
Dr. Brackett laughed before he could stop himself.
"D*mmit!
This whole day is torture, Kel..." McCall moaned. "I honestly don't think I can take much more
of it.."
Dr. Brackett slipped around her chair and gave Dix a hug, setting his chin on her
head in a supportive bearhug from behind until a cat call whistle from a passing orderly broke
them apart.
Dixie sighed at their being caught acting non nurse and doctor. "Thanks for the
moral support, Kel." she said without luster. "I wish the rest of my staff would do more of the
same for me."
"Been getting a little snarly through all this?" he said, indicating the barely
controlled chaos of all the minor medical visitors waiting in the waiting room before them.
Dixie's long eye lashes blinked in barely suppressed guilt. "Just a little.."
"More like a
LOT.." Carol the candy striper said as she bustled by with fifty charts Dixie had ordered her to
take down to medical records. She staggered by. The heavily laden girl finally was rescued by a
thoughtful Joe Early as they both got into the elevator headed to another floor.
Dixie winced
as the metal elevator doors closed. "I deserved that."
"Never in a million years.." Kel denied,
his face kind and warm. "Tell you what? I've got Dr. Bender covering for me for a half hour. How
about I take a trip to Manny's down the road and order up a take out just for you. I can get the
Cappucino Delight. Triple Order. To go."
|

 |
 |

Dixie's eyes lit up for the first time of the day. She was rendered mute in gratitude and her eyes
misted. "ooHhhhhh.."
Kel gripped her hand and said, "Shh. No crying. You'll ruin your makeup
job. I'm on my way now." and he peeled his labcoat off and laid it over the desktop followed
by his steel stethoscope. "See you in twenty.." he said, making sure his pager was set to receive.
"You're an absolute saint, Kel."
"Call me that only when that hot little coffee's in your
greedy little hand. Who knows with the luck we're having."
Dixie actually laughed. Once. Then
her white uniformed back disappeared once more into the depths of a treatment room.
Dr. Brackett headed out into the bright daylight outside through the main emergency doors around
the flood of bizarre minor emergency cases coming to the department by wheelchair, on foot or gurney.
He shook his head in wonderment. ::What a crazy day.:: he thought as he fingered his car keys he
had drawn from his pocket.
He headed towards his tan Buick in its reserved spot in the auxillary
parking lot next to the helicopter landing pad.
|

 |
 |

--------------------------------------------------------- Joe Early was remarkably unphased by the
bustling weird day buzzing around him. He was his usual calm quiet self as he headed up to one
particular patient room on the fifth floor after he helped a harried Carol to medical records
with her tottering chart stack.
He eyeballed the correct room down the hall, grabbed the
patient's chart from the nurse's desk from its turnstyle and shouldered into the well lit room after
hearing a reply to his gentle knock on the door.
-----------------------------------------------------------
|

 |
 |

************************************* From: "rampartbase" <doc51@att.net> Date: Thu May 8,
2003 10:02 pm Subject: "Slippery When Wet!"
There should been a sign by the nurses
desk that said "Slippery When Wet." Kel thought as he slipped on a piece of ice that had been
dropped by the nurses desk, crashing into it. Luckily, no bones were broken. Somehow, with the
nutty day that they'd been having, it had gone unseen.
They had a number of strange and unusual
cases. They had people come in because they thought they were about to get sick, then did. There
was a man who broke his toe after kicking a car tire at a car dealer. It was just a generally weird
day all around. ************************** From :"Cassidy Meyers" <killashandrarey@hotmail.com>
Subject : The Overhaul Incident.. Date :Mon, 12 May 2003 03:35:45 +0400 "Come
in..." came a New York accent through the door.
Dr. Early went into the room with the chart at
his side. "Hello there. I'm Dr. Early. Dr. Brackett asked me to stop on by to review your post
angioplasty film that you had done this morning."
The dark haired man of sixty sat up a little
higher in the bed with an air of making himself presentable.
"No, don't sit up. You still have
a fresh puncture site to worry about."
"Oh, yeah. Right , doc." said the man.
Joe extended
a hand out to the patient he was sent to consult with in a gesture of welcome.
"Glad to make
your acquaintance. I'm Charlie. How ya doin?"
"Fine. Fine. Downstairs is a little like a madhouse
but nothing out of the ordinary." Joe thought a bit about that remark and amended. "No, that's not
quite right. Everything today is out of the ordinary but who's complaining?" chuckled Dr. Early.
"Not me, doc." said the man. "They've been treatin me real fine. I was nervous there for a while
when they told me I wasn't gonna be asleep for that angio...angio picture thing with that balloon
thingy in my chest. But it's over. Heh. And I'm feeling real good now. I lived through it."
"That was the intent." laughed Joe.
"Don't I know it?" said Charlie.
Charlie let Joe check
over the area where he had had the angio catheter inserted and let the doctor lift up the gauze
dressing taped there to check for signs of seepage.
Joe's face fell a little bit and he
opened the chart one more time to look at the diagnosis that both he and Kel Brackett had agreed
was the inevitable one.
Charlie's rugged stubbled face took on a hint of dread as he realized
that his news may not be the happy ones that he had anticipated. "Say, doc? Uh,.. what's da matter?
If ya have ta give it to me straight, I can take it. I haven't been a fire department mechanic
working in the busiest district in the state for nothin, you know.. Don't sugar coat it. Just
tell me whatever it is."
"Charlie. Your initial prognosis is excellent. The two coronary arteries
we found that were narrowed have successfully been cleared with the angioplastic procedure. You'll
have no more trouble with that angina and we can discontinue your regular course of nitro glycerin.
You won't be needing it anymore from this point forward. "
"That doesn't sound too scary, doc.
So, uh, why the long face here?" Charlie frowned.
"Well, your heart's now fixed with those
two partially blocked off arteries being fully repaired, but we found that your arteriosclerosis
is fairly well advanced in other areas of your body. Your shortness of breath you get while exerting
yourself at work is due to narrowing of other arteries in your lungs. That, we can't fix. The
underlying structures there don't favor the usual angioplastic routes."
A sick dread began
to grip Charlie and his post surgical EKG sped up a bit as he fretted. "What?" he joked. "Does
that mean I'm gonna die tomorrow?"
Joe tried to chuckle lightly with a smile to reassure his
worried patient. "No, you can look forward to decades more of good cardiovascular functioning. But
I'm afraid you're going to have to come up with a means to reduce your stress levels. Immediately.
We barely have your hypertension under control with your usual medications and already they are at
the top end of what's safe to utilize."
Charlie knew right away what the doctor was angling
at. He had figured it out in one mind numbing realization. "Doc.. are you saying that I'm gonna
haveta give up the one thing that makes my world complete? That uh, I have to ... retire from
the workplace?" Joe looked down and rubbed the rings on his hands thoughtfully in regret and
he sighed while he put together the right words to say. "I'm afraid so, Charlie. There isn't a
miracle cure for your stage of hypertension. In fact, it may not take much in your future to really
raise your chances of having a cerebral vascular accident."
"A what?" Charlie asked, rubbing
his dry lips. Then he reached over to his cup of ice cubes and took some in to wet his mouth to
moisten it.
"A CVA. In layman's terms, a stroke."
Charlie laughed nervously and loud
and he readjusted the blanket back over himself following Joe's cursory exam of his catheter puncture
site. "You've got to be kidding. I thought that those blood thinners and that aspirin a day my
regular doctor prescribed, solved all that."
"They helped. But that course of treatment unfortunately
doesn't cure the underlying cause. You're getting older now. And your particular case will only advance.
Even though it's very slowly. It's time to start kicking down into lower gear as you mechanics like
to say."
Charlie sobered and fell still, struggling to fight his emotions over finding out
that his life long career was now suddenly, quietly, over. Then he looked up with a vulnerable
smile. "What uh, just what can I tell the wife, doc? She's gonna flip over this. It's not like
we need the income. It's just that I won't know.. what to do with myself, ya know?" Joe
nipped that line of thinking in the bud. "It's not the end of the world. There are a lot of people
who've been in your shoes. And I'm not afraid to tell you that I'm one of them."
"Really, doc?
Not you.. heh. You look as healthy as an ox and you're still workin.." he exclaimed.
"Yes,
I'm working but my occupation is not the kind of job that exacerbates my history with arteriosclerosis.
I can still work. But only in moderation. I gave up my position as head ER doc a few years ago.
Kel Brackett took over for me while I was recovering and he's still serving in that position. Your
life isn't over, Charlie. Not by a long shot. You're just going to have to make a few adjustments,
that all, that will take some getting used to. But you'll work it all out before you know it."
Joe encouraged.
"Yeah, doc.. But retirin? Sheesh." Charlie scoffed. "That's for old folks.
Or really sick ones." he said in a soft sigh.
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