Tomorrow We Die by Shawn Grady

Author:Shawn Grady [Grady, Shawn]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2010-06-24T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 23

The simple fact that Eli, one of the kindest, most levelheaded men I’d ever met, had been thrown into a state of fear gnawed at me to no end. I needed time to piece things together. I asked Naomi, since we were already on hospital property anyway, if she minded following up on Mrs. Straversky, who Bones said had taken a turn for the worse.

At the work area outside Mrs. Straversky’s intensive care room Naomi thumbed through the chart.

A nurse wearing teddy bear scrubs and a Littmann stethoscope walked up. “Hey, girl.”

“Hi, Sharon.” Naomi embraced her. “Is this your patient?”

“One of them. We’ve got half as many nurses up here now as we did this time last year.”

Naomi nodded. “There’ve been big cuts.”

“Deep.” She gave me a once-over and smiled. “Who’s your friend?”

“Oh. We work together at Aprisa. This is Jonathan.”

Just, “We work together”? I shook Sharon’s hand. “Pleasure to meet you.”

Naomi tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and ran her finger down Mrs. Straversky’s chart. “What’s the story with her? Jonathan said when he brought her in, she was doing good.”

I crossed my arms. “Rapid a-fib conversion. Strong vitals.”

Sharon fingered a roll of clear tape that hung on her stethoscope. “Prolonged a-fib?”

I thought of the time it took Bones and me to haul across the city. “Yeah. Could have been going for a while.”

Sharon looked down. “That’s probably what prompted the CVA.”

“She had a stroke?” Naomi said.

“Yeah. That’s why she’s on the vent.”

I leaned around the doorway to Mrs. Straversky’s room. She lay unconscious with a tube protruding from her mouth. A ventilator humming beside her bed. Two poles with IV pumps and tubing stood beneath a flat-screen monitor that displayed vital signs.

Her rapid pulse rate could have caused her heart to pump ineffectively. Stagnant blood may have coagulated and eventually traveled through her bloodstream until it lodged in a tiny vessel in her brain.

I turned back to Sharon. “You think she threw a clot?”

“Yeah. Head CT scan shows embolic stroke.”

That was it then. If we could have fixed her heart rate before that clot formed . . .

Sharon shrugged. “But what can you do, right?” A woman behind the nurses’station called for her. She waved. “Be right there.” Then to us she said, “Got to show our new intern how to place a Foley.”

Naomi smiled. “Oh, joy.”

“Let me know if you two need anything.”

“Bye, Sharon.”

Naomi sighed and glanced at her watch. “I forgot you worked last night. You must be tired.”

“Coffee would help.”

She bit her lip. “I’ve got the perfect place to enjoy a cup.”

The rooftop breeze made Naomi’s hair dance. “Bet you never had a cappuccino on a landing pad before.”

I shrugged. “Ah, I’m sure I have at some point.”

Naomi elbowed me. “You’re full of it.”

I grinned and sipped from the cup’s plastic top.

Sky hues warped and reflected around the helicopter’s blue exterior. I ran my hand along the curved body.

She led me around the front and pointed at a short metal protrusion on the nose.

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