"Godzilla and The Smog Monster"
Chapter Twenty-Five
Roy was in the process of forcing another life-giving breath of air into his completely rigid friend's non-functioning lungs.
His non-breathing buddy suddenly inhaled sharply and sat bolt upright in his hospital bed, knocking DeSoto aside.
Roy regained his balance and immediately stepped back up to stand beside the bed. He gripped John Gage's trembling shoulders and promptly placed his smiling face in his feverish friend's line of sight. "Hey…I-It's okay. You're gonna be all right."
It took a moment or two for Johnny's terror-filled eyes to focus. A look of recognition, closely followed by tremendous relief, replaced the fear and delirium—right before his plummeting blood pressure caused him to pass out.
Roy pulled his collapsing partner into his arms. His blurring blue eyes closed. "You're gonna be all right," he repeated in a somewhat shaky whisper. "I've never lied to you, Johnny," the paramedic quickly continued. "And I'd appreciate it, if you could do your part…to keep it that way." That said—er, whispered, he reluctantly ended his reassuring hug and gently began easing his now peacefully breathing buddy back down onto his hospital bed.
The cop guarding the door to ICU's Room 604 was caught completely 'off-guard' by the crowd of people coming down the corridor towards him.
They seemed to be on a rather urgent mission…of some sort.
So he stepped aside and allowed them—and their rolling medical equipment—to pass, un-impinged.
Roy had no sooner got his partner's heavily bandaged head re-situated on his pillow, and his O2 mask back in place, when an onslaught of hospital personnel came spilling into the room. "I was going through some range of motion exercises with him," he informed the two physicians in charge of the rescue party. "All of a sudden, he stiffened right up—and then stopped breathing. Following a dozen, or so, breaths, he came two for a few seconds. When he sat up in the bed, his BP must've bottomed out. Respirations are still spontaneous," he relievedly added, and reluctantly stepped out of the way.
The medical team went to work.
DeSoto listened, as the doctors discussed probable causes for the patient's sudden respiratory arrest. 'Anaphylactic shock isn't the only shock someone can suffer from,' he silently pointed out. 'Besides, I had an excellent air exchange, while administering AR.'
The doctors continued their debate.
Kurtz suspected a delayed reaction to the new antibiotics.
Brackett was leaning more towards a combination of wet lungs and too many sedatives.
Roy recalled the terrified look in his friend's feverish eyes. Dare he mention his 'traumatic shock' theory? Dare he not! "I think something scared him," he bravely blurted out, "…to death," he solemnly tacked on, and tried to hide.
The two doctors traded thoughtful glances, and then turned to the vertical—and suddenly very vocal—fireman.
"What makes you think that, Roy?" Brackett wondered.
"Because there was no indication of any respiratory distress. His whole body just suddenly went completely rigid," Roy replied. "A-and…because his eyes had the same look in them that they had a few days ago…when we suddenly realized the room we were searching was about to 'flashover' on us."
The physicians exchanged thoughtful glances again.
The signs certainly did point to the paramedic being right about a psychological, rather than physiological cause for the patient's sudden respiratory arrest.
Paul Kurtz exhaled an exasperated sigh. Any one—or all three—could've been the probable cause!
Ideally, the surgeon would have liked to keep this particular patient in a drug-induced coma for another four or five days—at the very least. The pneumonia, and resultant depressed respiration rate, had already forced him to cut waaaaay back on the barbiturates. Now, just to be on the safe side, it appeared he would have to cut them out—entirely.
One of John's nurses read the new order and frowned. "What are we supposed to do if the patient becomes agitated?
Kurtz smiled down at his patient's 'brother'. "We'll just have to rely on Fireman DeSoto, here, to keep him sedated. His presence seems to have a soothing effect on him."
Fireman DeSoto flashed both doctors a bashful smile. Then his grin gradually vanished and his concerned gaze returned to Fireman Gage's impassive face. "He's always had just the opposite effect on me."
His audience couldn't help but grin.
Roy swallowed hard and glanced up from the book in his lap. There was a Styrofoam cup filled with ice water setting on the medicine stand beside him. He took a sip, and then gave one of the mystery novel's many pages another flip. "Colonel Buford dropped the bloody knife and stepped back from Lawry's bod—" The reader heard a feeble groan and immediately set his book aside. He then sprang to his feet and pressed the room's call button.
Roy breathed a silent sigh of relief, as his feverish friend's eyes finally fluttered open, but then exhaled an exasperated gasp, as it seemed to be taking forever for them to actually focus.
The cobwebs gradually cleared from John Gage's feverish head and the fuzziness finally cleared from his vision. He saw his friend's familiar blue eyes smiling down at him. The paramedic didn't suppose everybody's eyes could 'smile'. But his partner's sure could. John also noted the deep lines of fatigue on his buddy's face. His fireman friend looked like he'd just finished pulling a triple shift—in a hundred-degree heatwave!
DeSoto pulled the oxygen mask down and pressed an ice chunk up to his partner's non-moving mouth.
The patient gave his thoughtful 'nurse' a look of undying gratitude, as the frozen object immediately began to melt and lubricate his parched lips. "You-ou…" he managed to croak, and made a valiant attempt to clear his hoarse throat. Gage grimaced. It was astounding the amount of pain such a pitiful little cough was capable of producing. He forced his tightly clamped eyes back open and tried again to communicate. "You look…about like how…I-I feel."
Roy's mouth joined his already 'smiling' eyes. "I'm rea-eal sorry to hear that."
A small smile played upon his partner's pursed lips. Johnny swallowed hard and winced. "Sorry…for who?" he wondered in a hoarse whisper. "Me-e?…Or you-ou?"
"Both," Roy teased, but then the smiles disappeared from his entire face. He'd caught the grimace and the wince, and he could clearly see the pain in his hurting friend's half-open eyes. He pressed another ice chunk up to his partner's parched, pursed lips and shot an anxious glance toward the room's open doorway—the room's empty open doorway. Where was that nurse?
Almost as if on cue, an RN came scurrying into 604, carrying a loaded syringe. The woman whipped the bed sheets back and emptied the hypo into Johnny's left thigh.
Gage groaned and shut is eyes—rather tightly. "Ro-oy?"
"Yeah, Johnny?"
"Could you…open a window…or somethin'?…It's really…hot…in…here."
Roy glanced around the windowless room. "Sh-Sh-Shush. Sleep now," he suggested, and slipped the O2 mask back into place. "There'll be plenty of time for talking later." His smiles returned, as his friend followed his advice and drifted off into blissful—pain-free—slumber.
Later that same evening, in ICU's Room 604…
Roy DeSoto was sleeping, slumped in a chair beside his partner's hospital bed. His blond head was resting on his folded left arm and his right hand was resting on his feverish friend's right hand—er, correction, his no-longer-feverish friend's right hand. The paramedic's eyes snapped open and he straightened stiffly up in his seat. He picked the hand beneath his up. His partner's limp appendage was now 'cool' to the touch.
A nasal canula had replaced the patient's oxygen mask.
DeSoto placed the back of his left hand against Gage's right cheek. It, too, felt considerably cooler.
One of the ICU's RNs was busy taking his partner's vital signs.
Roy waited for the woman to remove the tips of her stethoscope from her ears before speaking. "His fever's broken!"
Nurse Lindbrook recorded her latest findings. Then she glanced up from her patient's medical chart and grinned. "About a half an hour ago. He's breathing a whole lot easier, and his vitals have been steadily improving, too." She hung the metal clipboard back onto the hook on the end of the hospital bed. "Dr. Kurtz finally went home. So he must figure the worst is over. You could probably go get some proper rest yourself now…" she hinted.
"I wanna be here for him, when he finally wakes up."
"That may not be for some time ye—" the nurse's comment was interrupted by a pitiful groan.
Gage groaned again and then began to moan.
Roy glanced down and was surprised to find that Johnny's eyes were wide open. He jumped up out of his seat and gripped his groaning friend's shoulders.
"Hold him still!" the RN requested and started heading for the door. "I'll go get his pain meds!"
John Gage's bruised brain began registering information again. His nose was picking up the distinct odor of disinfectant—mingled with freshly starched linens. Suddenly, he was aware of his surroundings: he was in a hospital…Rampart General, in all likelihood. Which, as gawd-awful as he was currently feeling, probably wasn't such a bad surrounding to find himself in. His blurred vision gradually focused in on the shiny grey object that was mounted on the ceiling, directly above his bed. It was a closed-circuit television camera. He wasn't just at Rampart, he was in the hospital's Intensive Care Unit! The patient grimaced and groaned again, in both pain and frustration.
Roy saw his friend frowning up at the ceiling and realized that he must've finally figured out that he was in ICU—or, as his partner preferred to call it: I See You.
Johnny had renamed the hospital ward 'I See You', on account a' all the cameras and the constant video surveillance.
DeSoto promptly placed another chunk of ice upon his pained partner's parched lips.
"Guess…Guess I…must a' come…pretty close…ta…buyin' it…huh."
'You have no idea,' Roy silently replied.
"Fire?" Johnny inquired, and gazed up at his partner through pain-filled eyes.
DeSoto determined that he wouldn't dodge his friend's questions—entirely. He would merely answer them in his own 'indirect' way. "My ass is sore—from sitting for so long. What's paining you?"
Johnny closed his eyes, and then lay there, reluctantly taking inventory. "Hurts ta think…hurts ta swallow…hurts ta breathe."
DeSoto nodded understandably. "It hurts to think, because you have a depressed skull fracture and a mild concussion. It hurts to swallow, because you've had a trach' tube rammed down your throat, for the better part of a week now. And it hurts to breathe, because you still have a touch of aspiration pneumonia."
Johnny was willing to accept all but the explanation for why it hurt him to breathe. He started to shake his hurting head, but then thought better of it. "Not…my lungs," he announced. "My ribs." He grimaced again and started reaching for his aching right side. "Feels like…someone's been…doin'…chest compressions…on me—" he stopped abruptly, as something suddenly occurred to him. His brown eyes flew back open and immediately filled with dread. "Has someone…been doin'…chest compressions…on me?"
Roy's non-reply told him plenty.
At some point, his heart had stopped beating! 'Da-amn!' He may not have 'bought' the farm, but he'd apparently managed to make a pretty sizeable down payment on it! "Fi-ire?" he re-inquired, curious to hear what had...'killed' him.
"You could say that…"
Gage gave up on his partner's cryptic comment and tried to wrap his bruised brain around something else—something a little less alarming, or confusing. "I been here…almost a week?"
DeSoto nodded.
Johnny suddenly recalled his friend's 'sore ass' comment. "You been sittin' here…the entire time?"
"Pretty much."
"You can't afford…to miss…that much…work."
"Actually, I haven't missed any work—at all. I'm on 'special' assignment."
Curious as to what Roy's 'special' assignment could possibly be, Johnny lifted his head a little and had a brief look around. He spotted the police officer standing beside the room's open doorway. "What's he doing there?"
"Him? He's on 'special' assignment, too."
Gage gazed up at his evasive friend and gasped in frustration. "What…the hell…happened?
Nurse Linbrook returned just then and saved DeSoto from having to be even more evasive.
John felt something prick his left leg. The pain in his head, throat and chest began to recede...and he…began to float.
"What's up?" Dr. Mike Morton anxiously inquired, as he came rushing into the room.
"His fever broke about thirty-five minutes ago," Roy replied. "He came to, about five minutes ago, complaining of head, throat and chest pains. He's still cognizant of people and his surroundings," he added with a grin.
Morton finished his exam and glanced up. "He's sleeping. And, that is what I expect you to be doing—in whatever time, from now, that it takes for you to travel from here to your home! As of this moment, this room is off limits to any—and all—visitors! And it will remain off limits for the next 24 to 48 hours! Is that understood?"
DeSoto looked tremendously disappointed. "I'm on 'special' assignment he—"
"—Is that understood?" Morton interrupted, speaking a little gruffer—and a whole lot louder.
Roy reluctantly nodded his unwilling acceptance of the determined young doctor's unfair decree.
Mike looked pleasantly surprised. The physician figured the only way John Gage was ever going to be able to get any real rest would be if there was nobody around for him to talk to. He knew how badly Roy wanted to remain in the room, so he wasn't expecting the man's unconditional surrender. "Goo-ood!" He flashed the overly fatigued fireman a sympathetic smile. "Don't worry. Someone will call you, if there's even the slightest change in his condition. And I promise to see to it—personally—that you will be first in line, when he's finally allowed visitors again."
The privileged paramedic gave the good doctor an appreciative smile, which all-too-quickly faded into a worried frown. What if he went into respiratory arrest again? What if that maniac came back? What if—? Roy gave Johnny's limp right hand one last reassuring squeeze…and reluctantly followed Dr. Morton out of the room.
TBC