X-ray vignette 4 - Blowfish

GLOSSARY

Down at the Gantry the ambulance bay was full, so Frank parked by
the station's diesel pump. He and Ian draped a blanket over Mrs.
Leonardowitz and hurried her through the downpour to the
hospital.

Inside, patients were backed up into the hallway. Ian
watched a full code unfold in one of the Trauma rooms, and a
housekeeping worker clean the last of a pool of vomit from below
a stretcher in the hallway. Maintenance personal struggled with
the innards of a pneumatic tube station. Nurses, techs, doctors
circulated in a chaotic ballet, while patients and family
wandered like lost sheep. The portable X-ray machine drifted
through, a blind, lumbering beast.

The worst, however, was the patient in curtain twelve.
"Doctor!" he called, "Doctor," he paused, "Doctor!" again and
again, over and over. "Doctor! Doctor! Doctor!"

Ian peeked in the curtain. Patient Twelve stared straight
out into space, "Doctor! Doctor! Doctor!" He was dressed in a
hospital gown, and a thin plastic IV line snaked down from a half
empty bag, curling around and into his left A/C. "Doctor!
Doctor! Doctor!"

Ian considered for a moment. The man's face was entirely
neutral, and he took no notice of Ian's entrance. His skin was
normal, and he was in no distress, but "Doctor! Doctor!
Doctor!" at somewhere between a drone and a yell.

"Blowfish!" Ian suddenly said to the patient, and waited to
see if he had any effect.

"Blowfish!" Patient Twelve said, "Blowfish! Blowfish!
Blowfish!"

Ian stepped back from behind the curtain and traded a covert
glance with Frank. "I guess that's an improvement," Frank said.

Four patients were still in front of them at the triage
desk, and two more had been brought in by EMS while Ian was in
with Patient Twelve. Another patient had walked in alone. Nurse
Dunbar caught Ian's eye as she whisked by with an IV kit. "Have
you been playing with my patient on Table Twelve?" she asked.

"No, Ma'am," said Frank. Ian just smiled blankly.
"Blowfish! Blowfish! Blowfish!" said Patient Twelve. Nurse
Dunbar disappeared into curtain ten.

"You're busy for a Sunday morning," Ian said to Kathy when
she finally had two seconds to take his report.

"Is it Sunday?" Kathy asked.

"Blowfish! Blowfish! Blowfish!"

"Mrs. Leonardowitz is an eighty-seven-"

"I know Mrs. Leonardowitz," Kathy looked up. "Gloria, what
happened? Did you forget your medications again?" Mrs.
Leonardowitz blushed and Kathy continued, "You gave her a neb?"

"Two," Ian confirmed, "Plus Solu-Medrol."

"Mag?"

"There was some reason we didn't give it last time," Frank
broke in, "I don't remember what, but we decided to hold off.
She's doing better without it."

"Blowfish! Blowfish! Blowfish!"

Kathy nodded and leaned over the desk to sign their report.
"Put her in the bed over by the sink," she said.\par
\tab "No room at the inn." Frank remarked dryly as they slid Mrs.
Leonardowitz over and stripped their cot. "That guy doesn't shut
up. Kathy, what's with the patient on table twelve?"

Kathy rolled her eyes but said nothing as she took a quick
set of vitals on Mrs. Leonardowitz. Ian tore off the hospital
portion of their report and left it on the desk. "Blowfish!
Blowfish! Blowfish!"

Frank sprayed down the stretcher while Ian found new sheets,
once the cot was made they rolled out toward the ambulance bay.
"Ihh," Frank shivered, "that guy's driving me crazy.

Ian stopped just outside the curtain for a moment. "I'm
headin' out to the bus," Frank told him, continuing with the
stretcher out toward the bay. Ian nodded and stepped back behind
Patient Twelve's curtain.

"Blowfish! Blowfish! Blowfish!" said Patient Twelve, as
oblivious to Ian's enterance as before. "Blowfish! Blowfish!
Blowfish!"

Ian stepped over to the patient's right ear and softly spoke
into it. "Sssschhhhwwwuff," he said, pausing to hear the result.
Good, but not perfect, he decided. He had to make a few minor
modifications to Patient Twelve's new soundtrack before he was
satisfied with the result.

He caught Amy in the middle of a smirk when he walked out
from the curtain. "Having fun?" she asked.

When he and Frank returned to the Gantry a few hours later
the pace had slowed, but Patient Twelve was still there, and no
one had yet improved on Ian's handiwork. "Sssschhhhwwwwfff,"
Patient Twelve said, "Sssschhhhwwwwfff. Sssschhhhwwwwfff." Mrs.
Leonardowitz, on the other hand, was no longer parked near the
sink. Checking the dry erase board, Ian saw that she was no
longer listed in the department.

"What happened to Mrs. Leonardowitz?" he asked Amy after he
gave his report.

"Gloria? Was she here? Kathy M. must have had her, she's
at lunch."

Anne and a medic Ian didn't know walked in with a patient
and rolled up to the desk. "What, your noise machine is still
here?" she nodded toward curtain twelve.

"Yeah," Amy said, "psyche's running slow today. Somebody
set him on ocean waves, though, so it's kind of relaxing."

Ian nodded a greeting to Anne and remade his stretcher.
"You stopping in at Flanagan's today?" he asked.

Anne nodded at Ian as she gave her report, and Ian rolled
his stretcher out to the bus.

GLOSSARY