Frank Scanlon pulled up in front of the main entrance of Port Charles General Hospital and shifted into park. "Door to door service," he joked.
Dr. Eve Lambert offered him a wry smile. "You really are in a good mood. You and Julie must have had fun last night," she said.
Frank grimaced. "Julie was on call last night and I might as well have been," he said.
"Julie was on call Tuesday night," she said.
"Are you sure?" Frank asked. He felt his heart sink down to the pit of his stomach. Was Eve suggesting that she hadn't seen Julie all night?
"I'm positive. Chris Ramsey was on call last night," Eve said. Then Frank heard her caught gasp as she made the connection that terrified him. "So, are you also saying you haven't seen Julie since Tuesday morning?" she asked.
Frank nodded because he couldn't quite get the words out.
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Dr. Monica Quartermaine took a deep breath as she navigated into the right main stem bronchus and applied some suction and then lavage and then more suction to the thick purulent secretions that greeted her.
"That doesn't look good," Melissa McKee-Murdoch R.N. said with a glance at the suction canister.
"It isn't, but I just removed a significant mucous plug along with all of that debris so I am cautiously optimistic that things will only get better from here," Monica said without taking her eye away from the bronchoscope.
"Hopefully," Melissa said.
Monica heard a mixture of concern and ambivalence in Melissa's voice. That fit more than it might seem to. Melissa had always been a strong patient advocate, and Carly was her patient. Unfortunately, she likely also saw Carly as the catalyst behind Bobbie and Tony's divorce which had led to Bobbie's departure from Port Charles. Monica wasn't sure that was completely fair, but she understood why Melissa might process it all that way.
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Marla Mears Quartermaine frowned at her reflection in the mirror as she started in on her make up. Apparently, Hugh Lars had arranged for her to have breakfast with Lila Quartermaine and Carly Ashton while he and his Uncle Quentin met with their respective husbands, Edward Quartermaine, the current ELQ Enterprises CEO; and Ned Ashton ELQ Enterprises Pro-Counsel. Marla was sure that Lila meant well but breakfast at Café Mattina at nine o'clock was hardly a treat when that meant that Marla would have to get up by three AM to take her pre-breakfast pills and fix her hair and make up in time. To make matters even worse, since New York was two hours ahead of Utah, it was essentially the same as getting up at one AM. Something she hadn't done since her pageant days. At least then there had been a purpose. She missed that.
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Elizabeth Webber groaned as she pulled her closet sized bedroom door open. School would definitely be less of a drag if it didn't start at 8:30. Unfortunately, it did, and she had already been late twice in the first semester, so she needed to get a move on. As she passed by Sarah's room on her way downstairs, she saw her sister standing in her bedroom doorway looking pitiful.
"Grams! I don't feel well," Sarah moaned.
Liz rolled her eyes. She wasn't a tattletale or disillusioned enough to think their Grandmother would ever believe her; but the main reason Sarah likely looked exhausted was because she had snuck out with Ali Barrington.
Sarah glared at her younger sister but then quickly clutched at her stomach and started to whimper when she heard their grandmother's steps on the stairs.
Liz just shook her head and rolled her eyes again as their grandmother reached the top of the stairs and went to Sarah without even acknowledging her existence. Some things just would never change.
"Is your stomach still bothering you, dear?" Audrey Hardy asked as she wrapped an arm around her favorite grandchild.
"Yes…I was up all night with the cramps. I don't think I can go to school," Sarah whined.
"No, of course not, why don't you lie down again, and I will bring you a hot water bottle," Audrey suggested. She wrapped an arm around Sarah's shoulders and started to lead her back into her room.
"Ohhh owww, it really hurts," Sarah moaned.
Elizabeth just rolled her eyes at her sister's performance. She might believe that Sarah had been up all night, but she doubted it had anything to do with stomach cramps. She shook her head again and was just about to head downstairs when her Grandmother came back out of Sarah's room.
"Elizabeth, your sister is ill, so she won't be able to give you a ride to school. You need to make sure you allow enough time to walk and not be tardy," Audrey Hardy said as she pulled the door to Sarah's room shut.
It wasn't like Sarah deigned to give her a ride any other morning unless their grandmother was actively watching so that was hardly a change. But, once again tattling wasn't her style, so she just took a deep breath and started down the stairs.
"Elizabeth! Did you hear me?" Audrey Hardy shrieked.
"Yes, Gram, Sarah is sick again! I have to walk, got it!" Elizabeth called back over her shoulder from the bottom of the stairs.
"You really need to think of others besides yourself more, Elizabeth," Audrey Hardy chastised.
Elizabeth decided that it was better if she just didn't respond. It usually was.
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Celia Anne Quartermaine fastened the clasp on the simple string of pearls. They had been a gift from her Grandfather, Herbert Quartermaine, for her twelfth birthday. Although her grandfather had died almost five years before she completed her Master's in Engineering and joined her father at ELQ West she brought him along in her heart and wore that same string of pearls as an outward reminder. Some days that helped. Other days it just left her with more unanswered questions.
As she reached for a tube of lipstick, she decided it was one of the latter but then she glanced at the clock and pushed that thought aside. It was almost 7:30 and she was supposed to meet Brian Bodine at ELQ Enterprises at eight o'clock so they could travel together to Pine Valley for her meeting with Ross Chandler.
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As he held his wife's hand in the Surgical ICU at PCGH, Ned Ashton felt a bit spineless. He was about to abandon his pregnant wife to go to the office. Ironically his second wife would have probably preferred that he left rather than hover. She had told him as much a few times. Carly wasn't able to speak to him due to the breathing tube and the sedation. She had also sent him off to do ELQ Business several times. He just wasn't sure if that was because she was trying to be supportive or if she also felt smothered by his concern at times.
Then there was the issue that his spineless sensation stemmed less from being able to stand up to his grandfather and demand time for his family than from his inability to communicate with his mother. The truth was that Edward had always supported Ned doing whatever he had needed where his family was concerned. Sometimes he had even demanded that. If he even admitted to his Grandfather that Carly was back in the hospital it would be understood that his presence at ELQ was not needed. But he couldn't admit that to his grandfather because that would require him to admit the same thing to his mother and he just couldn't go there. Of course, keeping things from his mother never ended well either.
February 19, 1984
Ned Ashton shivered and then groaned as another wave of chills wracked his aching muscles. It was the fourth day since he had been stricken with fever, chills, disabling cramps and profuse diarrhea as a result of the Salmonella Outbreak at Ethan Allen Academy. Serendipitously, Jack Kensington Jr. was a senior at the school so when his father arranged to have him transferred back home to Port Charles General Hospital his Uncle Alan had become aware of the outbreak. Somehow, Alan hadn't trusted the infirmary nurse's assessment that Ned had a mild case which was probably fortuitous since Ned had been delirious due to hypovolemic shock when his uncle arrived on day three.
Or at least that was what he had heard his uncle explain. Ned had very little memory of much between being taken to the infirmary Thursday afternoon after collapsing in class and waking up in the Pediatric ICU on Sunday morning. He had been told that his uncle had actually inserted an IV himself and given him several bags of fluid before allowing the paramedics to transport him first to a local hospital for additional tests and IV antibiotics and then arranged for further ambulance transport back to Port Charles. He supposed he was grateful to his uncle for saving his life but that left him to deal with the wrath of his mother who was furious that he hadn't called him when he had originally gotten sick Wednesday night. Unfortunately, this led her to perseverate on her concern that he rarely called her in general. He couldn't very effectively dispute that with a 104.2 fever. Or maybe he just couldn't dispute the truth. That was his mother's stance.
Ned winced as his intestines twisted into another new spasmodic ball of pain. According to the doctors he wasn't actually dying, it just might feel like he was. Somehow that was a bit less than reassuring as his head began throbbing and his mind felt fuzzy and knew the fever was spiking again.
He hadn't died. He had spent another week in the hospital getting antibiotics and IV fluids and then returned to Ethan Allen Academy at the beginning of March. His mother had offered him the option of finishing his sophomore year courses from home with a tutor, but he had insisted he wanted to go back and so he could play lacrosse. On some level he had cared about his lacrosse season, however, he also just hadn't wanted to deal with his mother's attempts at restoring their connection. Despite what he was sure she believed that wasn't the same thing as not wanting a connection it was really more that he hadn't wanted to watch her struggle with undeserved guilt. In retrospect he should have handled it better. But in present day he still wasn't sure how to.
Ned gave Carly's hand another squeeze. "Aunt Monica says she really cleaned things up with the bronchoscopy so hopefully they will be able to continue weaning the oxygen and get you off of this machine. You're going to be ok, honey, and Dr. Meadows says the baby is hanging in there. I have to go meet with my Grandfather because right now that is easier than talking to my mother. I think you actually understand that and maybe that is another reason we really are meant to do this all together. So, you just keep doing what you're doing, and I'll be back soon. Ok?" he said. Then he leaned down and brushed his lips gently across her forehead before he stepped away from her bed.