Chapter 17
When Alex and Josh entered the exam room, she was surprised to see the changes that Dara and Cooper had made. It actually looked semi-professional. Quinn was covered in a blue linen drape except for his wounded area. The rolling cart was beside the table and a row of gleaming instruments was resting on a clean towel. There were a brown bottle and an open suture kit waiting as well. On the counter were two steaming basins of water with more towels and a box of latex gloves.
Cooper was wearing scrubs and holding another set. He stepped forward and addressed her in a professional voice. “Ready to scrub in, Doctor, I’ll be assisting you for this procedure.” He handed her the clothing.
Alex took the outfit with a grateful smile to both of them for their help and slipped it on over her clothes. She went to the hot water and scrubbed her hands and arms with soap. Cooper used a cup and rinsed her arms over the sink so the rinse water would stay fresh for him. He handed her a towel and helped her put on the gloves. Alex looked at him in surprise for his no-nonsense manner.
“What? I watch TV too. If you can’t make it, fake it, right?” he said defensively.
Alex grinned at him and stepped back to give Dara room to help him with rinsing off his hands. Alex went to the bottles of drugs and quickly did the math from the dosage chart and Quinn’s weight. She filled a syringe with the amount of morphine she would need and turned to the exam table. Quinn was still awake but his face was full of pain and very pale. He was taking in all the activity in the room and smiled at Alex when he saw the needle she was holding.
“Gimmee!” he joked.
She laughed softly. The rum was spreading through her body and she was feeling stronger. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”
“Oh yeah, you can do anything you want to me after you give me the joy juice, Alex.” His face turned serious. “Really, Alex, I believe in you. You can do this. Like you said, it’s a long way from my heart, right?”
“Okay, night-night then.”
As she was about to stick Quinn in the arm with the needle, Josh interrupted.
“Wait! That’s the right amount, isn’t it? You don’t want to give him too much, right?”
Alex froze in place and closed her eyes in exasperation. She took a breath and in a flat voice replied, “I don’t know, Josh, because I’m not a doctor and he’s not a fucking DOG!” She spat the last word at him and tried to calm back down. “The book said this is the dosage for his weight so that’s the best I can do. Okay?”
Josh looked down at his feet and mumbled, “Okay, just checking. Sorry.”
Alex sighed, “No, it’s okay. I’m just nervous.”
She turned back to Quinn and quickly slid the needle into his arm and pressed the plunger. Within minutes, his eyes went hazy and started to droop. He mumbled some words that Alex thought were “That’s the ticket,” but she was unsure because they were slurred. She waited a few more minutes and then tried to wake him up.
When he didn’t respond, she grabbed the bottle of disinfectant and sprayed the wounded area, spreading it around with a sponge so his leg was covered. She turned to the cart and looked at the instruments on it. There were a couple of wicked sharp scalpels, large tweezers, a small spreader and other things she had no idea about. Cooper gave her a nod and she picked up the scalpel.
Her whole body tensed as she made a small cut on either side of the first bullet wound. Right away, she knew she would have to cut deeper to see where the bullet was. Cooper was right beside her with sponges and water. When she cut, he would pour sterilized water into the area and mop up the blood. Alex set aside the knife and grabbed the tweezers and spreader. She spread the wound open and once Cooper had mopped it up she could see the bullet. She got a grip on it and pulled it out. It wasn’t very deep and she didn’t think it had done much damage but she had no way of really knowing with no medical training. Nothing seemed to be gushing from the site so she took that as a good sign and removed the spreader and covered it with gauze. She would save the stitching for when she had both bullets out. The second bullet wasn’t as deep as the first one but when she grabbed it with the tweezers something seemed to come out with it.
“Pour water on that, Cooper. I don’t know what it is and I don’t want to pull it out until I do,” she told him.
As the water cleared away, she studied the object stuck with the bullet in the tweezers. “What is that? Hey, Josh, can you shine a flashlight on this please?” she asked him. Seconds later, it was Cooper that identified it.
“It’s a piece of his pants! The bullet must have taken in it into the hole. We need to check the other hole and make sure there isn’t any more or he’ll get infected. Go ahead and pull it out, Alex.”
She pulled it out and probed around in the wound for anything else that was loose but found nothing. Then she took out the spreader and went back to the first hole and checked it but it seemed free of any foreign objects.
“Okay, I think that’s it. Should I pour more disinfectant into the holes or just sew them up?” When no one answered her she sighed, “Damn it, where’s Google when you need it!” She stared around the room trying to decide and her glance took in the bottles of drugs on the counter.
“I’m just going to sew him up and pump him full of antibiotics.” She reached for the needle and suture thread.
It was a lot harder to sew skin than it was to sew cloth and she felt her stomach lurch every time she penetrated his skin with the needle. She put ten small stitches in one wound and eight in the other. Dara had thick bandages of gauze ready and she had smeared antibiotic ointment over them. After dressing the wounds, and cleaning the blood off Quinn as best they could, Alex consulted the drug book and gave him a shot of antibiotics.
She peeled her gloves and bloody scrubs off and dropped them in the garbage. She looked at her pale friend and could see the steady rise and fall of his chest as he slept. Her friends were all smiling at her and she had to grin back. They had done it. They had done their best and only time would tell if it was the right thing to do.
“Hey, Josh, I really need something from you.”
“Sure, Alex, what do you need? Name it and it’s yours.”
“I need that bottle of rum!”
When he pulled it out of his back pocket and held it out, she went towards him and snatched from his hand as she sailed out the door. When he went looking for her later, he found the bottle empty and her asleep.
Land A Stranded Novel Page 22
