the war at sacred heart
TRANSCRIPT
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The War at Sacred Heart
Jeff Sharon
Short Story #2
March 19, 2009
The War at Sacred Heart
A small drip ran down the inside of Abbey Berlins cheek, and into the
back of her mouth. Choking, her breath and saliva sprayed in a fine mist that
condensed in the corners of her glacial blue lips. The painful examination
light hanged overhead and lit under her eyelids, giving a hot red tinge to her
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already hellish sedative-induced dreams. Abbey had arrived at Sacred Heart
Hospital just days before her 18th birthday, and along with her age and
admission, the clip board hanging at the end of her bed noted her symptoms
as: Severe abdominal pains difficulty breathing - possible complications
with advanced pregnancy including Eclampsia, but now her condition had
unexpectedly and drastically deteriorated. Her skin was sickly and yellow,
and her once lush black hair resembled wooden ash. Her throat had swelled
and red and raw sores filled the inside of her mouth. She had been slated for
a medical induced delivery before her rapid decline, though now neither
mother nor child were fit for the operation. Because she had been unable to
eat, today, Abbey was being fitted with a nasogastric feeding tube in hopes
she could regain enough strength to save them both.
As the nurse held Abbeys head in place, the head physician began to
slide the thick plastic into the swelled tightoral cavity of his patient. His
massive hands shook as he worked the tube into the esophagus and
towardthe stomach. As the passage opened inside of her, Abbey gagged,
pushing bile through and around the plastic working itself past her throat,
and into her mouth. In an inescapable gasp for air she breathed the digestive
fluid, where it settled and burned like battery acid deep in the pit of her
lungs. Tears streamed from her still closed eyes, and pooled below, soaking
her pillow. Her limbs began to escape the sedative and she jolted
uncontrollably under the grip of the nurse. The physician pushed the tube
further, his hands shaking now not from nervousness, but from anger. He had
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lost patients before, too many, but not this one, not these ones. The
physician tried harder to get the tube in place as Abbey thrashed both
unaware and uncontrollably. She choked and gagged once more, this time
causing raw red blood to ooze into her airway.
Doctor, youre hurting her. You have to take it out! The nurse said,
turning Abbeys head away from the tube that the physician still clamped in
his hands and held halfway down Abbeys esophagus.
The staccato beeps monitoring Abbeys pulse staggered and dropped,
replaced by the piercing shrill of a flat-line. The physician shrunk at the
noise, and pulled the plastic out of the patient. He threw aside Abbeys gown,
exposing her bare chest and pregnant belly. He placed the icy end of his
stethoscope first above her heart, double checking the machines reading.
Hearing only the gurgle of the fluid trapped inside of her lungs, he moved the
instrument onto her stomach confirming what he could not admit. In a
moment he placed his hands on the breastbone of his patient and pounded
two furious shotgun compressions that forced the liquid inside of Abbeys
lungs to project from her mouth and onto the soiled scrubs of his nurse. For a
brief second he thought that this would be enough to jump start the patients
breathing; however the flat line buzz played in his ears like a secret that
everyone knew. He pressed his mouth to hers, forcing the hot air from his
lungs into her own. For four minutes, the physician went back and forth from
Abbeys mouth to her chest, each time his compressions getting a little
weaker, his breath blowing a little less full. He stepped away from the
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patient, glancing at the wrist watch he had laid on the end table before the
procedure. His nurse stood silent beside Abbeys head, running her fingers
through the patients hair, unable to look up from the ghostly woman. Again
the physician placed the stethoscope on Abbeys chest. This time he heard
nothing but his own trembling hand relayed through the instrument. Abbeys
baby made no sound at the stethoscope, and the silence cried in the doctors
ear.
Call it. The nurse whispered.
The doctor gazed helplessly and guiltily at his patient, and placed his
hands again on Abbeys chest, prepared to try CPR again, before letting out a
groan and stepping back.
Doctor
Damn it - just give it a minute he said, picking up his wristwatch
and placing it over his hand. As he clasped it around his wrist he glanced at
the time. Through his teeth he hissed April 24, 1998- 6:37P.M.-Abbey Berlin-
Dead, and with a quick turn, stepped through the door leaving his nurse
alone with his two dead patients.
Doctor Woodridge, called a small voice from an opened door across
the hall. Doctor Woodridge, you need to take a look at this.
The voice was that of Darlene Adorno, a stocky, middle aged woman
whose graying hair and worried eyes made her look closer to sixty than forty-
four.
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Nurse, I Doctor Woodridge paused and breathed deep, exhausted
from the ordeal that began to set like mortar in his mind. Darlene, I need a
moment by myself.
Abbeys case was officially one of a pregnancy complication, but to
Doctor Woodridge there was something more. Why would Eclampsia, a
disease of the liver and kidneys, have such an effect on her eating? Or for
that matter, why had her mouth and throat swelled so much? There was
something unusual about these symptoms that burned in the Doctors mind.
Benedict Woodridge had seen death. If pressed hard enough, he would
even say he has caused it, or at the very least, allowed it to happen. Three
decades ago, he had been stationed as a medic on the Tan Son Nhut Air Base
in the Republic of Vietnam. Here he had cared for his injured and dying
American friends and Vietnamese allies. The airport was known to those
stationed there as Hells Layover, because it was the main entrance to an
American servicemans tour and the last stop a KIA would make before being
boxed and shipped home. Doctor Woodridge himself garnered many
nicknames. Some called him Saint Benedict when he was able to save a
soldier. Others called him Charon when he leniently administered morphine
to the mortally wounded. He himself preferred to be called only by his official
title of Air Force Base Surgeon General. He felt that he should be able to
maintain a level of professionalism, even in the midst of a war. The less
personal he got with his patients, he thought, the easier it would be to forget
their faces after they passed, or were thrown back into duty.
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Stainless guarantee, he noticed small rust spots where the ancient blood of
his friends had dried and eaten away the steele plating.
Doctor Woodridge walked into room 441 and through a cloud of sweet
rancid air; the unusual yet familiar stink of the sick and dying mixed with a
canned floral air freshener, with a hint of uric acid from a filled catheter bag
for flavor. Room 441 was a double suite with two of everything. In two rolling
beds isolated with two sterile plastic curtains, lay side by side two near
identical patients. Neither of the women in the beds had come to the hospital
through the ER, yet here they lay under the care of Sacred Hearts ICU, and
nobody was really sure why.
The one on the right, Bev, she came in about a week ago with viral
bronchitis, Darlene explained, pulling back the curtain that surrounded the
patient. It wasnt even that bad, really. We gave her an acetaminophen for
the fever and put her on an IV for fluids. We asked her to stay for only a
night, just standardprocedure, but by the next morning her throat had nearly
swelled shut with abscesses and her lungs have needed drained twice.
Doctor Woodridge stepped past the patient to the sink at the opposite
end of the room. As he did before seeing any patient, he rinsed his hands,
running his watch under the water as well. The doctor was not interested in
seeing this patient, though. The shock of losing his earlier patients was only
amplified by the non-chalant, business as usual attitude he was expected to
portray. Just like the war, he thought. Friends, patients, humans, dead and
discarded like bad milk. Maybe treating a bronchitis case wasnt so bad, he
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thought. Maybe he should just retire at a family practice where bronchitis
would be considered an emergency. While his mind coiled round itself,
Doctor Woodridge used his fingernails to scrape a small flake of rust from his
watch and down the drain. He often found himself cleaning his timepiece in
times of stress, which was always in abundance. With a decisive snap the
doctor replaced his latex gloves and stepped to his patient.
Alright, lets take a look at you, he said with a sigh and placed his
watch on top of a personal humidifier used to help the patients bronchitis.
Bev lay with disheveled, sweat soaked hair and deep, plum colored
depressions under her eyes. As she opened her mouth Doctor Woodridge
inserted a flat wooden tongue depressor in order to view the back of her
throat.
Now say- he cut off before the sound came out. Breathing in and
coughing on the putrid wheezing breath of his patient, through his bio-mask
even, was enough to tell him that the infection was far more severe than
bronchitis. He stepped back to regain his composure, while Darlene held a
glass with tap water to fill the humidifier.
Like I said, Darlene interjected. And she is only getting worse.
Okay, lets try this again, the Doctor said, stepping beside the
patients head.
As Bev opened her mouth, the Doctor was able to hold his breath and
look inside his patient. Inside he say a pool of thick yellow mucus, behind
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which a dozen large and small puss filled abscesses lined the back of her
throat.
Ive never seen bronchitis so severe. He said to Darlene.
Do you think she is suffering pneumonia? Darlene said speculatively.
Its possible, but even that wouldnt explain this. You said she has only
been here a week?
Yes, Doctor, but it only stayed routine for a moment. She declined so
sharply.
This, along with his previous patients rapid decline gave Doctor
Woodridge a sinister, dreadful feeling in his very guts. He had seen this
before. These symptoms . . . this timeframe . . .
Darlene, get me swab, we are going to need a culture test the Doctor
said as he shined a small light into his patients mouth. He noticed the
abscesses were not only located in her throat proper, but were located
mostly on her saliva gland, while smaller sores lined the inside of her cheeks.
Your swab, Doctor. Darlene said, handing him the oversized cotton Q-
tip which he removed from the sterile package.
Doctor Woodridge gently rubbed the largest sore, which immediately
burst, draining white fluffy puss into the mouth of his patient. He removed
the swab and handed it to Darlene, who ran it over a plastic Petri dish which
she sealed in a sterile bag. The Doctor stood moments before Bev
succumbed to a coughing fit, spraying the smelly ooze all over and causing
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the other sores to open, leaving her choking and unable to breathe through
her painful throat.
Get her to ER! Doctor Woodridge shouted. He did not have any of his
operating equipment and could do nothing more for the patient. Darlene
kicked the locks from under the bed and rushed the patient down the hall
while the Doctor paged to the first floor unit and told them to ready an anti-
inflammatory and a low pressure vacuum tube.
Through all of this, the other patient in the room, who remained hidden
behind the separating curtain, remained quiet and still. Doctor Woodridge,
too aware of the stillness, the Doctor pushed aside the curtain to see a blue
and bloated figure lying with a leg awkwardly off of the bed. Already knowing
her fate, the doctor paged for the liftman to remove the body. Doctor
Woodridge examined the deceased patient, the body only hours removed
from life. He examined her board, which stated she was initially admitted for
a surgery to remove a blood clot, and had been recovering in room 441 the
day that Bev had joined her. She had had no previous infection, yet she
showed the same symptoms as Bev, only a day before. Doctor Woodridge
replaced his gloves and picked up another wooden depressor. He used this to
pry his patients clenched jaws and examine her throat. Like Bev and Abbey
she had suffered lesions in her mouth and a thick yellow slime covered the
entirety. There was no evidence of her choking, however as the sores
remained intact and began to harden now that the patient had died. Instead,
Doctor Woodridge suspected, she had died of an acute loss of oxygen. As her
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throat swelled and her breathing shallowed, she received less and less
oxygen to her brain. She had effectively drowned. Before she was removed,
the Doctor obtained another throat culture and paged Darlene in ER.
The removed the fluid from Bevs throat but the swelling is persistent,
even with medication. Darlene updated the Doctor. Im not sure, but she
may not make it if we are unable to fit her with a respirator.
Doctor Woodridge remained silent for a moment before telling Darlene
of the other patients fate.
Doctor, these werent the only patients with these symptoms,
Darlene said apprehensively. The Admissions office is stating that they have
transferred 31 previously admitted patients with what they are calling
various stages of Bronchitis or Pneumonia to isolated rooms. None of these
patients were initially admitted with symptoms of either disease. Doctor,
what is going on? This hospital is not equipped to cure a plague.
Doctor Woodridge felt the strange heaviness in his guts that he had felt
earlier at the first signs of the symptoms in his patients.
We will have the culture results tomorrow, until then keep the patients
hydrated Doctor Woodridge trailed off as he glanced at his watch which
sat atop the still running humidifier. Suddenly he knew the cause.
With IV fluids only, no water. I dont care how much the patients
throat hurts, do not give any of them water! With a hurried click, the Doctor
hung up the page phone and ran to unplug the humidifier. At this point,
however, the disease was here. Their only hope was containment.
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Doctor, I dont think we are dealing with a normal virus, are we
Darlene said, reappearing in room 441 beside Doctor Woodridge.
I know. But I think I know what we are dealing with, The Doctor said,
placing his watch over his wrist and glancing at its pale metal face, the
specks of rust polka dotting the band. and I think its my fault.
What do you mean, Doctor? How could this be your fault? Darlene
asked, knowing Doctor Woodridge always did everything he could to save a
patient. Never the opposite.
Ive had this watch since the war, he said, never taking his eyes off
the two hands which pointed at the nine and the seven. It has seen the
time of war, the time of death. It has seen blood and bile and bullets and I
brought them all here.
You brought what with you? Doctor? What were dealing with is a
virus, not a war! Darlene felt exasperated that the Doctor was seemingly
slipping away into memory at a time of such a crisis.
I brought that too. In the blood, in the rust. It survived, it must have.
Doctor, please, we have to focus. You need to tell me whats going
on.
I know these symptoms. Its not Pneumonia or Bronchitis, the culture
swab will prove that. Doctor Woodridge began to explain to Darlene. No, I
have seen this disease and it is much worse.
It had been over two decades since the doctor had treated a faceless
soldier who had come back from duty with an unnamable disease. He had
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complained of the same swelling and suffered the same rapid decline that
the Doctors patients faced today. Without any real knowledge of the disease
(the Doctor assumed it was an odd strain of Vietnamese Pneumonia) and
little equipment, he gave the patient some penicillin and isolated him for
observation. Before dusk, the patient lay dead in the ward, his lips and
mouth blue from an apparent lack of oxygen. Doctor Woodridge had seen so
many bodies by then, however, that he was not surprised to see his patient
in this condition. It wasnt until he was back at home that the Doctor began
to read reports of veterans suffering from Melioidosis, an Asian water borne
virus with the strange capability of either an incredibly long incubation
period or a rapid and fatal onset.
The disease is from the War, he continued and now its come home
with me to continue the fight.
But, how? Darlene stood dumbfounded.
My watch, the Doctor said It must have been carried in the rust.
Darlene had seen the Doctor wash his watch in the hospital sinks
before, he did it before every procedure.
If it got into the water . . . Darlene stumbled.
Then Im afraid our time is running out. Doctor Woodridge said,
finally looking up from his watch with tears in his eyes and a tightening in his
throat.