Oh, one note: nasotracheal intubation. Not sure if that's the right term. What I'm thinking of is that thin tube you put up against your nose to help you breath. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Lawyers: Our client does not own Scrubs or Dead Like Me, don't sue her, she has nothing to offer.
Chapter 9
He was stable now and up on floor three in his own room. The convulsions were due to his high fever, something we were thankfully able to lower. However, he still hadn't woken up yet. Granted, we had just barely finished getting him set up on IVs, different monitors, and assisted breathing via nasotracheal intubation, still though, I was worried. So worried that I hadn't yet left to go wash all the blood off of me.
Of course, I had every right to be worried. His chest x-rays had come back positive for what looked like pneumonia, but what we really knew was the plague, and I know first hand just how horrible and deadly a plague epidemic can be. While I may not have been a reaper for an entire epidemic like so many of my colleagues, I still caught the tail end of the one that killed me off, and that's just enough experience for me, thank you very much.
God, what if I wake up one morning and get his post-it? I don't think I could handle that.
No, no that's not going to happen, and do you know why? It won't happen because not only is there a cure, but I will also do everything in my power to make sure he recovers from this. The 'reaper way' be damned! Dr. Cox is my patient now, and I'm going to make sure that he survives this.
"JD?"
I turned away from the sleeping form of my mentor to face Carla. Taking in my ragged appearance, she gave me a concerned look.
"Yeah?" I asked tiredly.
"Jordan's here and wants to know what's going on," she explained. "Do you want me to get someone else to talk to her so you can clean up?"
I shook my head and sighed, "No, I'm his doctor, I'll talk to her."
Carla frowned at my ripped and bloody clothes, apparently not agreeing with my decision, but she relented anyways and pointed me to the nearest waiting room. I entered the waiting room to the sight of Jordan sitting in a chair with her arms crossed, tapping her foot impatiently. Just like everyone else in the hospital, she too wore a face mask.
She took one look at me before jumping up from her chair and snapping, "They said he had just caught a virus!"
"What?" I asked, confused, before noticing her eyeing the blood covering me, "Oh, no, that's just me. Well, it's not mine of course. Funny story actually-"
"Just get to the point, DJ!" Jordan growled.
"Right," I said, smiling nervously, "Dr. Cox just caught the virus that's been going around."
"You mean the plague; the reason why we're all wearing these stupid masks?" she asked.
"Yes, pneumonic plague. He collapsed due to a high fever, but don't worry, he's completely stable now. We've switched him over to streptomycin, he'll be just fine," I explained.
"You better pray that he is fine, or it's your head!" she hissed with fire blazing in her eyes. "What room is he in?"
"Room three-twelve," I told her immediately, but before she left, I asked, "Are you on tetracyclines?"
"Yes, I am," she said, rolling her eyes at me, "I do work here, you know."
"I was just making sure," I said, holding up my hands defensively.
As she walked out of the waiting room, she paused for a moment by the door to turn back to me and say, "Oh, and go clean yourself up. You're scaring the children, and scaring the children is my job, understand?"
I looked down at myself as Jordan walked away, and I must admit that she had a point. There was a large bloody smear on my chest and also running down one of my arms. I'm surprised I hadn't been stopped by more people aside from Carla and Dr. Cox. Of course, as I headed down to the locker room to wash up, I was more aware of the looks people threw me as I walked by. By the time I actually reached the lockers, I had been stopped by two other doctors, a nurse, and even the Janitor.
Although he hadn't been concerned for my well-being.
"Oh yeah, that's real subtle," he had said, looking me up and down. "You better not get blood on my clean floor."
Upon reaching the lockers, I peeled off my scrubs and pulled on my shower shorts. The scrubs were ripped and bloody and, quite frankly, beyond repair. I was a little disappointed because it was one of my favorite pairs. With a sigh, I tossed the useless things into the trash. Thankfully, I had an extra pair in my locker, but first, I needed to wash up.
A quick look in a mirror showed me that not only did I have a little blood left over on my chest and arm, but I also had it splashed across my eyes and staining my mouth, making me look like a zombie who went a little crazy with his afternoon snack. That would explain the fearful looks a couple people gave me as well as the slight panic attack Castello had when he saw me in the hall.
I snickered.
He probably thinks I did eat someone.
I let the warm water run over me as I scrubbed at my face. Stupid Steve. He's such an asshole. Of all the places he could have cut me, he had to go for my eyes. That's such a dirty trick, and damn, did it hurt. You think getting a bug in your eye stings? Try having them sliced open like two grapes.
For the record, I would like to point out that while I may have started the fight, Steve provoked me. He was just begging for a beating.
Stupid, stupid Steve.
Next time it'll be me with the knife!
I rinsed my mouth out with the shower water as best as I could, ridding myself of Steve's putrid blood.
'Yuck! Definitely not a taste I want to experience again any time soon,' I thought with a grimace.
With my face clean, I moved on to my chest and my arm. Thankfully there wasn't too much blood to wash away since most of it had been soaked up by my scrubs. I watched as the now pink water swirled down the drain before turning off the shower with a sigh. I quickly toweled myself off before changing into my spare pair of scrubs and headed off to check up on all my patients.
I decided to save my visit with Dr. Cox for last because Jordan was probably still in there and I'd rather not invoke her wrath today. As for the rest of my patients, there were no changes. That's to be expected though, considering the fact that we've just administered the correct drugs early this morning. The good news is that nobody died today, so things were progressing, just very slowly.
After checking all of my patients and answering about a dozen or so of my interns' pages (I just can't believe how little they know about the plague. I think I may just have to assign them some homework), I had some down time, so i bought a copy of today's newspaper and headed to Dr. Cox's room with a borrowed pair of scissors from the nurses' station. Upon reaching his room, I cautiously peered through the door to check for demons, and, seeing that Jordan had left for the day, I relaxed and walked over to Dr. Cox's still unconscious form.
I checked his vitals first. His heart rate was normal, and the respirator helped even out his breathing. However, he still had a bit of a fever. I wasn't worried though, that just meant his body was trying to fight off the virus. So, after writing down a few notes on his chart, I took a seat in the chair that had been pulled up next to his bed and opened up the paper to the obituary section.
"Hmm."
As my gaze traveled down the many obituaries that decorated the page, I thought, 'Not many of the families of the nineteen from yesterday got around to getting their obituaries out. Of course, I only need the nine that I took care of.'
"Wait, here's one," I mumbled, "Mr. McGarth. Oh, and here's Mrs. Baker."
Seeing no other person that was one of my reaps, I set the two newspaper clippings on the small table beside Dr. Cox's bed before grabbing the remote and turning on the TV. There really wasn't anything good on, so I had to settle for watching the news. They were once again talking about the plague. First they went over how easy it is to catch it, then they covered the different symptoms one may feel, and finally they urged anyone experiencing said symptoms, or anyone who had come in contact with another sick person, to visit their local doctor to get checked out.
I groaned out loud at the report and buried my face in my hands. Because of those morons, the entire population of California would soon be flocking to Sacred Heart.
"Please, help us!" one man screamed from the hundreds of people that surrounded the hospital.
"Look at my daughter, she coughed this morning! She must have the plague!" a woman cried as she held up her three year old.
"There are other hospitals, you know," I said, speaking into a megaphone.
"We're all gonna die!" another man shrieked.
"You're about to if you don't get out of here," Dr. Cox threatened, toting a shotgun. He then turned to me and rasped tiredly, "What happened?"
I snapped out of my daydream to see Dr. Cox conscious and staring up at me curiously. There was no fear or worry in his gaze, just curiosity. It was as if he didn't care about his own health, a fact that, quite frankly, kind of pissed me off. I mean, for God's sake, he's a doctor! With this plague going around, he should've realized that he was getting sick. Why would he just ignore it? Why didn't he go see someone about it? Was his pride so big that he just couldn't stand the thought of seeking a little medical attention?
"Newbie?"
I was just so annoyed by the whole situation. I wanted to yell at him and ask him why he was being so stupid. I knew I was being a little irrational, but you know what? It's been a long, exhausting day, and I'm all tapped out of rationality for the moment. Still though, I couldn't bring myself to yell at him. Maybe it was because of that hero-worship I had for him, maybe it was because he was right about me not being man enough, or maybe it was because of how pathetic he looked laying in that bed.
"Irritability is a symptom of a fever," I stated dryly. "Of course, that makes me wonder if you've had a fever the entire time I've known you."
"Am I too hot for you to handle, Sandra?" he asked with a raised eyebrow. "Now if we're done joking, do you mind telling me what happened?"
"You collapsed due to an extremely high fever," I explained.
"That much I gathered," Dr. Cox mumbled.
"Based on all of your symptoms and the chest x-rays we took, it's clear that you've caught pneumonic plague," I said. "I could get a sputum sample, but I really don't think it's necessary."
"Have you started me out on streptomycin?" he asked.
I nodded.
"And you finished filling out my chart? Everything's in order?"
"Yes," I said.
"Then go home and get some sleep," he said, looking me over. "You look like crap."
A quick glance at the clock on the wall told me that my shift ended almost half an hour ago. However, I didn't move from my chair quite yet. My eyes nervously darted from Dr. Cox to the monitors he was hooked up to.
"What?" he asked, annoyed.
"Well, it's just, do you think you'll be okay for the night?" I asked. "I could stay a little longer."
"I'm not made of glass, Newbie. I'm sure I'll survive the night without you holding my hand. Now if you're all done fretting over me like some sort of clingy, overprotective mother, I'd like to get a little me-time in before the idiot working the night shift stops by to check up on me," Dr. Cox said, waving me away from him. "Go on now. Go. That's a good girl!"
Being sure to grab the cut-out obituaries before I left, I threw Dr. Cox one last unsure look before walking away. I wish I could be as confident as him about the whole thing.
Dan lay on my bed looking quite comfortable and watched as I pulled an old shoebox out from under the afore mentioned bed. The shoebox was a medium sized, perfectly square box that may have once been used to hold a pair of boots, though I'm not exactly sure since I had gotten it so long ago. On the lid of the box written in black marker was the date of the first obituary I had ever collected, 'January 3rd, 1904.'
As I set aside the lid and placed the two new obituaries into the nearly full box, I mumbled, "I might have to get a new box if this epidemic keeps up."
"Maybe," Dan said, "But let's stay positive."
"Right, positive," I snorted while I put the lid back on the box and shoved it under the bed before sitting on the floor up against the wall directly across from Dan's line of sight.
"Look, I know that you're worried about Coxy and all of your patients, but really, you just need to relax," Dan told me. "This isn't the Dark Ages, there's a cure for the plague now. So there's no reason to be stressed out."
"I'm not stressed, I'm mildly concerned," I said indifferently.
"Yeah, enough mild concern to give someone a tumor," Dan said, nodding.
"It's a good thing I can't get a tumor then, now isn't it?" I said.
"That's not the point," Dan sighed, rolling his eyes at me.
"There's a point?" I asked, raising a eyebrow at him.
"Two of them actually," Dan said. "First of all, stop worrying. You caught the plague early on in Coxy, and you have him on the right meds, so he'll be fine. Second of all, if you are going to worry, do it in a different room, because I'm trying to sleep in here."
"Yeah, about that," I said, "That's my bed. You can go sleep out on the couch."
"But Johnny, I'm your guest!" Dan protested.
"And guests sleep on the couch," I explained.
Dan smiled down at me and hugged one of my pillows as he said, "I really don't see that happening, little brother."
I got to my feet and walked over to the side of the bed. Glaring down at Dan, I pointed to the door and said, "Get off my bed and go sleep on the couch."
"If you really want to sleep in this bed so bad, then fight me for it," he said, grinning up at me impishly.
"I'm not going to fight you," I sighed.
"You're just saying that because you know you're gonna lose," Dan taunted childishly.
There was just no reasoning with Dan. He would keep this fight going all night if he wanted, and unlike him, I actually have a paying job to get up and go to tomorrow morning. So I turned my back to him and left the room. As I stepped out of my bedroom door, I felt a pillow hit me in the back of the head. I looked back to glare at him as I reached down and picked up the pillow.
"Sleep tight, little brother," Dan said as he happily climbed under my covers of my bed.
Maybe sometime tomorrow I could get Carla to use her pregnant, hormonal powers to scare Dan into getting a hotel room somewhere.
That's the end of chapter 9. This chapter was painful to write because I found it a little boring. However, it was a necessary chapter. I'm just glad I'm done with it. The next chapter should be more eventful.
I'm glad you all liked the last chapter. The fight scene was so much fun to write, and there's more violence where that came from!
You know the drill. Review please.