Chapter 50 "Wow"
A/N: (8 April 2017) Hi, with so many thank yous. You are such invested readers, and it's so kind of you to let me know. I love writing for you.
The kind of mix-up that happened in the previous chapter is explained in this one. The problem is, this happens more frequently than one would think. I've had it happen to me, and once a pharmacist mixed up a prescription for ibuprofen with a mislabeled bottle of Xanax. I had gone to pick up the prescription for a friend of mine, and when I realized the mistake, I hit the roof. I've seen news stories about drugs that have names so similar, it's amazing this doesn't happen a LOT. So, in no way did I make this up. People have in fact died from these mishaps.
It's scary!
CBS owns Hawaii Five-0. (And I was strangely disappointed with the episode featuring Chicago and Lou & Son on the one hand (liked that part) and the return of Shioma. That part didn't work for me at all. But I'm glad Jerry finally got his badge.)
Chapter 50 "Wow"
(Monday, 26 December 2016, 12:30 p.m.)
Steve kept his arm around Kono, who was crying harder than he had ever seen her. He knew she had suffered a great shock – and that word in Steve's mind made him wince so hard he felt literally dizzy. "He's gonna be okay, he is. You know Danno is strong."
"Steve, you didn't see it! I can't even think about it! I feel like I watched him die! He woke up and sat up, disoriented, looked me right in the eyes, said, 'Kono, I feel funny,' and his coloring was all wrong, like putty. Then his eyes rolled back, he flopped in slow motion onto his side and vomited horribly, then stopped breathing, his heart stopped! Machines were screaming! I think I was screaming! Steve, I can't unsee it!"
Steve swallowed around the baseball in his throat. He had to comfort Kono. That was his job, and pray for Danny. Pray like crazy for Danny. "He didn't die. He's not dead. They got a pulse."
"After six tries!"
Six? Steve knees felt weak. "Cornett won't let him die."
A kindly nurse, looking pale, gently guided Steve and Kono back into a room not Danny's. It was being cleaned, and scoured for the phial of medication he had been given which had sent him to the ER at warp speed. Steve sat Kono down and pulled the blanket off the bed and wrapped it around her shoulders. He was about to sit down when he shot back out into the hall and up to Danny's room. "Angel! His cat! Where is his cat?"
The saddest little meow he had ever heard sounded then from inside the closed bathroom. Steve thought he would faint with relief. "Angel," he crooned on his knees, letting her out, and she jumped up into his arms and settled in his sling, and he fetched the Santa hat and she meowed piteously, and he asked someone to bring her litterbox and food and water bowl, and carried her back to the other room, holding her by the scruff while she hunkered in his sling, just in case she panicked. If they lost Angel, it would devastate Danny. And … if they lost Danny, after all this, at least they would have his kitten.
"Steve, Angel knew something was wrong," Kono said forcefully. "She woke up and kept pawing at Danny's face, trying to wake him, meowing at him, at me. I got scared and called the nurse, and then it all happened. Angel knew! I swear she knew it was going to happen. She tried to warn us."
H50 H50 H50 H50
Two hours later they were still waiting for official word on Danny, but nurses were silent and worried. The gathered Five-0 and their friends were largely silent, but they knew how things were going in the ER, because Angel was still inconsolable. They had called everyone, and everyone had come, because they knew this was serious. Becca was there, and Hannah, and Kamekona, Jerry, Max after he finished Stan's autopsy. Grace was there, because they literally didn't know if this was it or not. Charlie was not there, because he was too young to sit vigil like this. Dr. Cornett's wife was with him, keeping him occupied and unaware.
In the third hour, Angel stopped her tense stance, and settled more easily into Steve's sling, where she remain with her Santa hat. She was more relaxed, which was not to say she was relaxed. Word came a half hour later through a nurse that they had identified the drug and administered the antidote, and Danny was holding his own. By 7 p.m. he was extubated and breathing on his own, with only an oxygen mask as an assist, and his vitals were all back in the normal range. They fluctuated on the low side, but Becca said it was to be expected until the drug was flushed from his system. Angel was now asleep, exhausted, in Steve's sling.
At 7:30, Dr. Cornett came into Danny's room, because everyone had moved back to it after it had been cleaned. With profound relief, he pronounced that Danny was out of the woods, and would recover fully. Cornett was mobbed by hugs, and everyone hugged everyone else, and Grace and Becca both burst into tears. From the Kleenex box making the rounds, they were not the only ones shedding tears.
"When can we see him, Doc?" Steve asked, stroking Angel's furry back.
"He's overnight in ICU, as a precaution, but two at a time, short visits, now. Don't worry about the wires and tubes and machines. He's going to be fine. His body has been through a lot, so he's exhausted and therefore sleeping, and I want him to get as much rest as possible. Tomorrow we hope to move him back to this room."
Steve asked, with Hannah's arm around his waist, "Is his heart, uh, okay? Any after-effects?" He had waited to ask until Becca had already led Grace out to go see Danny. Everyone knew Steve would go last and stay the longest.
Dr. Cornett folded his long frame into one of the vacated chairs, and stifled a huge yawn. He was clearly exhausted. "We did every test there is to do, including a heart catheterization to make sure there was no damage, and he's okay. We scanned his brain, his organs, and really, he is okay, for all he scared us for a couple hours there. His thumb infection is much improved. His lungs are nearly clear. If this drug mix-up had not occurred, he would have been taking walks up and down the hallway today."
"How did the mix-up happen?" asked Steve, who could not shake the sight of Danny's body heaving as the paddles that shocked his heart were applied. His nightmares had material for months from this day alone.
Dr. Cornett explained in a voice walking the knife's edge between weariness and anger. He had given instructions to the nurse concerning the antibiotic cocktail, the sedative and anti-depressant, along with a specific vitamin and mineral shot, along with medications for other patients, with their specific instructions and dosages. "I spelled them, which is my usual practice, since so many drugs have similar names but do very different things." Unfortunately, the nurse, who was on her 14th hour in her shift, had called the pharmacy, rather than sending the slips of paper down via fax, to send up the drugs in pre-dosed syringes, which were added to Danny's usual medications.
The mix-up occurred in a two-fold way. First, one of the medications was mis-heard by the pharmacy, so instead of an anti-depressant, they sent up a strong dose to quickly bring down dangerously high blood pressure. Coupled with the sedative, it was a disaster waiting to happen. But there was an additional problem. That blood pressure medication reacted very badly with certain minerals, and the reaction caused the problem with breathing. Danny's blood pressure plummeted from low-normal to unsustainably low, and was stressed further when Danny's breathing became compromised severely by the mineral reaction, very similar to an allergy that shuts down the airways.
Cornett continued tiredly. "It was touch and go for a couple hours, because we knew what Danny was experiencing, just not why. We needed to find the specific drug, and the nurse had gone off shift and was not answering her calls. The trash had been collected, so the slip of paper the pharmacist had written down what he heard had been picked up, so we had to find that, which required chasing a dump truck and digging through trash on the side of the highway, then cross referencing every medication order with every patient on this floor of the hospital, until we knew exactly what was happening. Luckily, there was an antidote. But in another thirty minutes, it wouldn't have mattered." Cornett rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. "This was way too close."
Tears were sliding down Steve's face. He had almost lost his best friend and brother today. He echoed, in a voice so devoid of expression, it fairly screamed with it, "Waaaay too close. Way to close."
H50 H50 H50 H50
(Tuesday, 27 December 2016, 3:45 a.m.)
Steve was sitting on an uncomfortable plastic chair in Danny's ICU bay, dozing while regular beeps and blips informed him that Danny's breathing and heart rate were holding steady, not setting off any alarms. Angel was asleep in Steve's sling, snuggled up on her fluffy Santa hat bed.
Steve could hardly sleep, because he was afraid the beeps and blips would stop. He glanced at Danny often. Becca, in the chair on the other side of the bed, had fallen asleep with her fingers entwined with Danny's.
Angel suddenly woke up and sat up, staring intently at Danny. Steve tensed and sat up, too, only relaxing when Angel began to purr. Beeps and blips stayed comfortingly regular, but Danny was awakening. His eyelashes fluttered until he could open his light blue, shadow-smudged eyes. He saw Steve and smiled, then realized Becca's fingers were entwined with his, and Angel was purring at him. He yawned. "Morning," and then made a startled sound. "Throat," he croaked softly. "Hurts."
Becca stirred but didn't quite awaken. Steve had already reached for the cup of ice chips. "Here, have some of these." He fed Danny a spoonful. "Does that feel good? Just nod if it does. Rest your throat." He did not tell him about the intubation earlier.
Danny smiled, and nodded. His eyelids were at half mast. "Chicken soup?" he croaked, hopefully.
"You want chicken soup?"
Danny nodded.
"I'll ask the nurse to get you some." He pressed the button, and the nurse, an extraordinarily buxom woman with hips to match, came and then left to get the soup, which was allowed.
Danny first watched the swaying of the front, and was now watching the swaying of the back of the nurse. He resumed blinking when she disappeared from sight. His voice scratched out one word. "Wow."
Steve smiled, also watching. "A definite wow. Have some more ice chips."
Becca slept through the ice chips and the soup, which Steve fed to Danny in little spoonsful. Halfway through the cup, Danny said, "Steve, need you to know something."
Steve stilled. This sounded serious. Danny was staring into his eyes, and his soul was in them.
"When I say 'I hate you,' I don't mean it. K? Maybe once. Twice. You know, right?"
Steve smiled, and his soul was in his eyes, too. He was going to ask about that once, twice, when Danny's voice was up to it. "I know, Danny."
"K. Love you. Don't hate you. Need you to know."
"I know, Danny. Here, have some more soup. You still sound awful."
"You finish it."
"You full?"
Danny's eyes, even returned to half mast, were sparkling with mischief. "No. I want to see if Wow will bring us some more."
Steve grinned, swallowed the soup, and pressed the nurse's call button.