Extreme Medical Services: Medical Care On The Fringes Of Humanity (6 page)

   
“Oh, right,” he said. “I need to get an IV started then administer 25 mg IV diphenhydramine.” He glanced at the patient. “I should also consider albuterol/ipratropium inhaler via nebulizer for breathing difficulty, uh if there is any breathing difficulty.”
 

   
He turned again and began to get out an IV solution bag and tubing. Pulling the tab on the bottom of the 1,000-milliliter bag of saline, he then pushed the hollow plastic spike on the end of the tubing into the exposed tube in the bottom of the bag. He pinched the drip chamber to fill it from the bag as he held it up. Brynne took the bag from him and slipped the hole in the top of the bag’s flap over the metal hook in the ceiling. She stood up and offered him the other seat so he could get better access to start the IV line. Dean shifted to the offered seat, reached over and tied an elastic tourniquet just above Gibbie’s elbow.
 

   
Brynne spoke up, “His veins are flatter than you’re probably used to. Think ‘dehydrated 80-year-old woman’ and you’ll get the right idea. You’ve got this Dean.”

   
Dean started looking for a vein on the back of Gibbie’s hand then worked his way up to the forearm using his eyes and gloved fingertips to palpate for a vessel. He thought he found one he could both see and feel as he lightly pressed down, sensing the spongy feeling of the vein. Wiping the area off with another alcohol prep, he reached over and, looking at the IV box, thought to himself, ‘dehydrated 80-year-old woman,’ huh?
 

   
Selecting the thinner 22 gauge IV needle he slid the cover off, hovering the tip briefly over the forearm then, at a slight angle, slid the needle with the IV catheter into the arm. He watched the chamber at the base of the needle watching for the flash of blood that signified success and was surprised to see dark red blood fill the small chamber. He hadn’t been sure if vampires had blood in their veins or not. Now he knew. He pressed down on the arm just above the insertion point to stop blood from flowing out of the tubing as he withdrew the needle leaving the hollow plastic catheter in place inside the vein.
 

   
Brynne handed him the end of the IV tubing she had primed and he attached it to the end of the plastic catheter. He got the clear IV dressing that Brynne handed him and laid it down over the site where the IV catheter entered Gibbie’s arm. Lastly, he assured the IV was running properly into the vein and not into surrounding tissue.
 

   
Satisfied, he looked up at Brynne. “Twenty-five milligrams IV diphenhydramine next, right?”

   
“Right, but what else do we need to do?” She asked. “I’ll get the med drawn up for you. What else haven’t we done yet? Think basics.”

   
Dean thought for a moment before he came up with the answer, “Consider oxygen, IV’s done, now monitor.” Brynne nodded and he began to gather the electrode leads and sticky patch electrodes, attaching four of them to Gibbie’s upper arms and ankles. Turning on the heart monitor, his own heart rate spiked when he saw the rhythm. Ventricular fibrillation, a lethal heart arrhythmia. Damn, he needed to shock this guy, except he was awake and talking to them. One of his instructor’s famous phrases rolled through his mind. ‘Treat the patient, not the monitor.’ He looked over to see Brynne smiling at him.

   
“Vampires don’t have pulses,” she said. “That’s why you see V-fib. Sure, in a normal human, it’s a sign of cardiac arrest and one of two shockable rhythms. In a vampire, it’s completely normal. I’m still not sure how their circulatory system works or how the blood moves around, but you should be able to run the diphenhydramine in and it will get where it needs to go.”

   
Brynne finished drawing up twenty-five milligrams of diphenhydramine and handed the syringe to Dean. “That’s twenty-five milligrams of diphenhydramine from a concentration of fifty milligrams per milliliter so you should have …” she paused for him to finish.

   
He looked up from the monitor and the alarming heart rhythm. “Uh, right, so twenty-five milligrams of the drug is half an mL, right?”
 

   
“That’s right,” she nodded in agreement. “Remember, this is a slow IV push so take it easy.”

   
Dean checked that there was half a milliliter in the syringe then screwed the syringe hub on to the port on the IV tubing and began to slowly depress the plunger. It seemed to take forever.

   
Brynne finished up wiping what glitter sunscreen she could from Gibbie’s arms and torso. “I have to say, Gibbie, you have outdone yourself this time. This is a first even for you,” she said with a smile. “Where’d you pick up this stuff?”

   
Dean perceived that vampires didn’t blush, but Gibbie still looked embarrassed. “I found it in the back of a magazine for Cosplay folks. You know the folks who dress up like cartoon and manga characters?” He shifted as he tried to scratch an area on his shoulder he couldn’t quite reach. “Brenda’s such a fan of Twilight and was so excited that she found a real Vamp to date. I thought I’d treat her to her own sparkly hero boyfriend. I figured I’d be able to take the early sunshine and not get burned with the sunscreen on. Then I could sparkle for her just like Edward.” He shook his head. “This is embarrassing, Brynne. I can’t wait for the Twilight thing to blow over. Every century it’s something new. This Twilight phase is almost as bad as the 40’s and 50's were when everyone was expecting us to have Bela Lugosi’s Romanian accent. I got so tired of the whole ‘I vant to suck your blood’ thing, I thought I was going to scream.”

   
“Well you should feel better soon but you're probably going to want to go into the hospital and get some steroids on board just in case that reaction is worse than it looks,” Brynne said.

   
“No, I’ll be alright,” Gibbie said. “The itching’s starting to feel better already. You know vampire constitution. I just need to get home and get some rest. I spent all night coming up with the perfect romantic touch and now it’s all ruined. I just want to forget the whole thing.”

   
There was a tap on the doors to the back of the ambulance. Dean looked at Brynne and his patient. The younger paramedic got up and opened one of the doors partway. A woman’s voice from outside was heard.

   
“Is everything okay?” A woman’s voice asked.
 
“I just got off work and saw you here with your lights on next to my boyfriend’s van.”

   
“Brenda,” Gibbie cried. “Don’t come in, I don’t want you to see me like this.”
 

   
“Gibson, is that you?” Brenda stuck her head into the doorway, looking past Dean. “My dearest, what happened?” She pushed the door open and climbed in, rushing over to sit on the cot next to Gibbie. She looked from Dean to Brynne with raised eyebrows. “Is he alright?”

   
“It’s nothing my love, just an allergic reaction to something,” the vampire told her as he reached out to hold her hand. “I was being foolish.”

   
She looked around at the glitter, coating everything in the back of the ambulance, and what little remained on her boyfriend. “Did you do this for me?”

   
Gibbie nodded sheepishly.

   
“How romantic,” she said throwing her arms around him and showering him with kisses, oblivious to the awkwardness of the situation and the two onlookers. “You don’t have to dress up to be my man, Gibson Proctor. I love you just the way you are.” She looked at Brynne. “Is he okay now, can I take him home?”

   
“I think he’ll survive,” Brynne said. “There’s some paperwork to fill out, but I think he’s on the mend.” She winked at Dean as the two lovebirds embraced.

———

   
Dean and Brynne watched the minivan drive away followed by Brenda, in her little hatchback. Brynne playfully punched Dean in the arm. “Well, that’s part of your initiation done with at least,” she said with a grin. “You’ve now met Gibbie.”

   
“I take it we see him a lot?” Dean asked.

   
“Often enough,” she answered turning to climb back in the unit and put things away. “Put us back in service and then come back here and help me get the rig back in order. We’ve got to get this glitter cleaned up.”

   
They returned to the station and signed off the shift. Dean headed home to his apartment, musing about his first week on the new job. He was surprised as he thought back about the week, that he was smiling with a sense of accomplishment. The new paramedic was sure he wasn’t going to like the new assignment out of school.
 

   
Dean spent his three days off refreshing his knowledge base. Mike had always impressed on their paramedic class the need to continue learning after they graduated. He sure hadn’t thought he’d need the refresher so quickly, though.
   

   
This wasn’t actually a refresher since learning about the quirks and lore surrounding the populations of Unusuals was kind of new to him. Sure, he knew the big stuff that everyone knew like how vampires can’t be out in the daytime and werewolves shift on the full moon, which wasn’t true. Brynne, though, had told him to focus on the little details in the books that weren’t such common knowledge. It was that little-known information that might be the clue to figuring out a medical issue or how to treat a specific kind of Unusual in the field.

   
Dean sat with his laptop and began to search the net to see what classic horror films there were. Brynne had told him to concentrate on them since the newer versions of monsters, vampires and werewolves took too many liberties with tradition. The new producers and scriptwriters tried to make up new legends for the stories. The older ones seemed to stick to the most common, and therefore probably truer legends of monster stories.
 
Dean stopped and thought about it for a moment and made a mental note. They weren’t monsters, they were Unusuals and, based on his limited experience so far, people just like him.

   
He typed classic horror into the search box and started adding some movies to his list. He found the Mummy with Boris Karloff, Bram Stoker’s Dracula by director Francis Ford Coppola and the 1929 silent vampire classic, Nosferatu. He also listed the ones he could check the local library for if he couldn’t find them on Netflix or Amazon. There was An American Werewolf in London, the zombie classic Dawn of the Dead, Bride of Frankenstein and the Spielberg classic, Poltergeist. He checked the list and seemed satisfied. That should get him started.

   
He changed into some shorts and his Streetlight Manifesto t-shirt and headed back to his bedroom to get some sleep. He would start digging into his movie research list after he took a nap. Working midnights seemed to sap him more than working days did. Maybe there was something to that medical research he had seen on the effects of shift work on the physiology of humans. As he lay down in bed, he found himself wondering if it affected Unusuals the same way? He fell asleep pondering that question.

   
Dean spent the next three days in the routine of sleep, gym, library, and research. It had been fun watching some of the old black and white classic monster movies. The library had quite a collection for loan and he’d taken as many as they’d allow. He also got himself back on a day schedule - sort of - in time to return to day shift.

   
He showed up at work about five minutes early, ready to start his day and watched a fancy, silver sports car with dark tinted windows pull up. After a moment or two, Brynne hopped out of the passenger side. She was wearing a turtleneck under her uniform shirt and looked a little flushed. She looked at him and said, “What are you staring at Newbie?”
 

   
“Aren’t you going to be hot in that?” he asked. “It’s supposed to be in the 80’s today.”

   
“I’m always cold and we usually have the AC blasting,” she answered. “Don’t worry about me, worry about the job.”

   
“Yes, ma’am!” Dean said holding the door and trying to peer into the darkened windshield of the sports car. “Bye, James,” he waved and then went inside. The sports car revved the engine once and then pulled away.
 

   
“I’d advise you to leave James alone,” she said as they went inside. “He’s a nice enough guy most of the time, but he can be the jealous type.”

   
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Dean responded.
 

   
Bill and Lynne were grabbing their stuff as the two entered the squad room. “Did I hear ‘lover boy’ speeding off in his fancy car?” Bill asked. “Brynne, I don’t know what you see in that guy.”

   
“Leave her alone, Bill. She’s a big girl.” Lynne countered.

   
“I know, I’m just saying the whole thing puzzles me,” Bill said. “I just don’t see it. But, to each their own, as they say. Adios, muchachos. I’ve got a bed at home calling my name.”

“Yeah, me, too,” Lynne said. “See you guys!” She left as Bill held the door for her. Dean and Brynne were alone in the squad room.

   
“Look, Brynne, I didn’t mean anything by it saying goodbye to James like that,” Dean said.

   
“Forget about it,” Brynne said with a wave of her hand. “I’m grumpy this morning. I didn’t get much sleep the last three days and I’m tired. I don’t want to say the ‘Q’ word and jinx us but I sure hope it’s a below average day shift.”