Road to Damascus

Part 3

Johnny dejectedly stared at the large white pills in the palm of his hand.  He had assumed that Dr. Grant was going to authorize something stronger, or at least prescribe another week’s supply of Tylenol #3 and Flexeril.  Instead, the doctor had called in a prescription for Motrin, which as far as Johnny was concerned, was nothing more than glorified aspirin.  If a mild narcotic analgesic and a muscle relaxant did little to alleviate the pain, how in the world was a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory supposed to help?

The whole day had been an exercise in futility.  Per Dr. Grant’s instructions, Johnny had contacted the physician’s office first thing Friday morning to let him know that not only had his symptoms not improved over the course of the past week, they seemed to be getting worse.  Unfortunately, the doctor had been called out on yet another emergency, and the receptionist didn’t know what time to expect him back in the office.  So Johnny left a brief message, as well as the name and telephone number of his pharmacy so that a prescription could be called in for him.  That had been at eight-thirty.  When no one returned his call by noon, Johnny left another message, this time with the answering service since the office was closed for lunch until one o’clock.  By four in the afternoon, he was more angry than frustrated.  It seemed that his new doctor was ridiculously inaccessible, and Johnny was having second thoughts about his decision not to follow up with one of the doctors at Rampart like he usually did.

Just when Johnny was about to abandon all hope of anyone ever calling back, the phone finally rang.  The receptionist apologized profusely for the delay, and informed him that Dr. Grant had called in something for pain relief.  His faith had almost been restored, until Boomer came back from the pharmacy with the bottle of Motrin.  Johnny wanted to scream.  He had waited all day for this?  A lousy anti-inflammatory that was a step above something he could have bought over the counter?  Johnny was furious, and planned to let the good doctor know that in no uncertain terms.

He immediately called Dr. Grant’s office so that he could voice his displeasure about the situation, but by that time, everyone had left for the weekend.  The nice lady at the answering service had offered to page the doctor, but several hours later, she had yet to hear back from him.  So as Johnny saw it, he only had a couple of choices this late on a Friday evening.  He could take the Motrin, and if it didn’t work, he could ration the remaining Tylenol #3s and Flexeril until he could schedule an appointment with another doctor on Monday.  Or he could go back to the emergency room, throw himself at the mercy of whichever doctor was on call, confess his ill conceived plan to handle his problem through a physician in private practice and hope and pray that he would be spared a humiliating lecture.

After he sulked and fumed for half an hour, Johnny decided to take the stupid pills for now.  He’d worry about finding another GP later.  If he was lucky, he’d make a miraculous recovery over the weekend and render his dilemma about changing doctors moot.

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Roy had scarcely drained his glass when he signaled the bartender to pour him another drink.  He hadn’t intended to spend the night seeking refuge in the quaint little country western bar across town, but then again, nothing seemed to be going according to plan anymore.  He couldn’t keep his wife and kids from leaving, and he couldn’t wave a magic wand and make them come back home.

The trip to Sacramento had been a complete waste of time.  Not only had Joanne and the kids moved out of her parents’ house, his in-laws didn’t even have the decency to tell them where they had gone.  Mrs. Hamilton, who had never liked him anyway, subjected Roy to a vicious diatribe about his shortcomings as a son-in-law.  Then as if to punctuate her point, she whacked him over the head with a vase from the front hallway as he turned around and started to walk back to his car.  By the time he regained consciousness, two uniformed policemen had arrived on the scene.  Mrs. Hamilton had demanded that Roy be arrested for disturbing the peace or trespassing or something, but the officers seemed more concerned about the blood gushing from the back of his head.

Before he knew it, a couple of paramedics were busy poking and prodding at him.  He reluctantly agreed to let them staunch the flow of blood and perform a cursory exam, but Roy drew the line at being transported to the hospital.  He wanted nothing more than to make a hasty retreat.  Besides, he thought that if he left his car in the Hamilton’s driveway, there was no telling what shape his beloved Porsche convertible would be in when he could come back to reclaim it.  The senior police officer had pleaded with Roy to reconsider the paramedics’ recommendation that he go to the hospital, and had suggested that he file charges against his mother-in-law for assault and battery.  However, no matter how hurt and angry he felt, Roy couldn’t bring himself to do it.  If by some miracle he could patch things up with Joanne, he didn’t want to create any further feelings of animosity between him and his in-laws.

Roy had done nothing but brood about the entire situation ever since he returned home.  He finally decided that given Joanne’s frugal nature, she had probably gone to stay with her sister in San Francisco rather than incur the expense of a motel or other accommodations.  Roy thought about making the six-hour drive to Eileen’s house earlier in the day, but his fear of rejection ultimately outweighed his desire to see his family.  What if this trip was another unmitigated disaster?  What if his in-laws had brainwashed his children and had already turned them against him?  Or what if Joanne refused to talk to him, or threatened to have the police arrest him on some flimsy pretext?  What if she was more successful than her parents had been in having his sorry butt thrown into jail?  Did he really want to take that risk?  How could he ever hope to reconcile with his family if he was rotting in some jail cell?

Unable to vanquish his fears and insecurities, Roy decided that getting drunk was the only logical solution to his problems.  Then he wouldn’t feel afraid, or even ashamed of his cowardice.  Instead, he would be comfortably numb.  He knew it wasn’t prudent to drink himself into oblivion, especially when he had a probable concussion, but he didn’t care.  He just needed to escape from reality for a while, and if he lapsed into a coma and never woke up, so be it.  However, despite his frame of mind, Roy’s judgment wasn’t completely impaired.  Knowing that he planned to get totally wasted, he had the good sense not to drive.  Roy took a taxi instead, and asked the driver to take him to someplace on the other side of town where he’d be less likely to run into someone he knew.  If he was going to humiliate himself in public, he might at least do so in relative anonymity.

Three hours had now passed since Roy first sought sanctuary from his troubles at the Dew Drop Inn.  He sat by himself at the end of the bar, sipping his whiskey to the strains of an old Hank Williams song playing on the jukebox.  “Did you ever see a robin weep when leaves begin to die?  Like me he's lost the will to live.  I'm so lonesome I could cry.”

Roy grimaced at the lyrics.  It seemed that every song was purposely designed to drive him further to despair.  So far he had suffered through Heartbreak Hotel, The Green, Green Grass of Home, Folsom Prison Blues, Ode to Billy Joe, A Boy Named Sue and You Picked a Fine Time to Leave Me, Lucille.  The parade of mournful tunes did little to uplift his sagging spirits.  Roy thought that if he listened to one more dirge about the loss of love, liberty or body parts, he was going to lose what was left of his mind.

While the bartender refilled the glass with a generous shot of Jack Daniel’s, Roy reached for his wallet.  He preferred to pay for his drinks as he went along rather than run up a tab.  That way, he wouldn’t have to worry about not having enough money to settle his bill at the end of the evening if he lost track of how much he had to drink.  If he was going to be irresponsible, then he was going to be responsible about it.  Roy couldn’t help but be amused by his peculiar line of reasoning.  Being plastered was okay, as long as he paid for his drinks one at a time.  It was sort of like planning to be spontaneous.

Roy slid the dollar bills across the counter and took a long swallow of whiskey as the jukebox played another depressing song.  In his thick Cajun accent, Doug Kershaw crooned his soulful ballad.  “You won’t let me love you hardly anymore.  You won’t let me kiss you hardly anymore.  You won’t let me show you just how much I care.  No, you won’t let me love you hardly anymore.  No, you won’t let me love you hardly anymore.”  Roy blinked back a tear that threatened to spill onto his cheek and took another sip of his drink.  He was startled when a sultry voice intruded upon his misery.

An attractive woman with shoulder-length platinum tresses gently tapped him on the shoulder and smiled.  “You look like you could use some company, hon.”

Flustered by her sudden appearance, Roy stammered.  “N-n-no, thanks.  I just want to be alone.”

She took a long drag on her cigarette and sat down on the stool beside him.  “Kind of a funny place to be alone, don’t ya think?”  Setting her drink on the counter, the woman hiked her bright red halter style dress further up her thigh in a flirtatious manner.

Roy flushed with embarrassment, but nonetheless chanced a cautious glance at the comely intruder.  He guessed she was probably in her mid-forties, and in his humble opinion, a bit too old to be wearing such skimpy clothing.  But it wasn’t like she didn’t have the body for it, quite the contrary.  She either worked hard at keeping her voluptuous figure, or she was blessed with good genes.  Her tanned body seemed remarkably well toned, and her ample bosom threatened to burst forth from the plunging neckline at any minute.  Although the woman had obviously intended to attract male attention by dressing in such a provocative fashion, Roy felt uncomfortable by the abundant display of female flesh.  He hastily averted his eyes and reached for his glass of whiskey.  “Um, sorry.  I’m married.”

The woman pointed toward his left hand.  “Don’t see no ring.”

“Can’t wear one.  Gets in the way at work.”  Actually, Roy was allergic to the nickel in the gold alloy and had ceased wearing his wedding band years ago.  He wasn’t sure why he lied, but it seemed like a more acceptable explanation under the circumstances.

“Uh huh,” she replied skeptically.  “Then what’s a good lookin’, happily married man like you doing here all by his lonesome on a Saturday night?”

Roy nearly choked on his whiskey as her words struck a responsive chord.  Yeah, why was he here anyway?  If he had just bought some booze at the liquor store, he could have stripped down to his boxers, plopped down in his recliner in front of the TV set and gotten wasted in his living room.  Why had he chosen to get drunk in a public place?  Did he simply need to talk to someone and vent his frustrations, or did he have an ulterior motive?  Did he hope to find companionship for the evening as a form of petty revenge, to hurt Joanne as much as she had hurt him?  Roy desperately longed for some level of emotional intimacy, and cast another surreptitious glance at the woman sitting beside him.  She seemed friendly enough.  Surely there would be no harm in talking to her for a few minutes, right?  And if an innocent conversation led to a sexual encounter, so what?  It wasn’t like anyone was going to find out about it.

In his inebriated state, it took Roy a few seconds to realize that he was tempted to do more than just bare his soul with the attractive stranger, and he felt dirty and ashamed.  He should be trying to get back together with his wife, not seeking comfort in the arms of another woman.  And what about his promise to Johnny?  Roy had specifically sworn that he wouldn’t get drunk again, and here he was in some seedy bar, three sheets to the wind.

Roy wasn’t sure if it was loyalty to his wife, his friend or an overwhelming sense of guilt in general, but he hurriedly alit from his perch from the barstool and raced toward the front door without saying a word.  Once outside in the warm humid air, Roy slumped against one of the wooden pillars and shuddered.  He suddenly remembered that he needed to call a cab if he expected to get home, and he didn’t dare trust himself to go back into the bar to make a call, lest his tenuous resolve crumble in that den of iniquity.  Roy scanned the horizon and was relieved to spot a little shopping center with a 7-11 convenience store about half a block away.  Hopefully they’d have a pay phone out front.  As he started walking toward his destination, muted strains of jukebox music carried across the parking lot.  “Those happy hours that we once knew, tho' long ago still make me blue.  They say that time heals a broken heart, but time has stood still since we've been apart...”

On second thought, Roy decided to pick up a six-pack of beer or two or a cheap bottle of wine at the 7-11 while he waited for his taxi to arrive.  He’d even settle for a buzz from a bottle of cough syrup, anything to dull the pain that had taken residence deep within his soul.

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Johnny was nearly at his wit’s end by Sunday morning.  The Motrin that Dr. Grant had prescribed had not provided any discernable pain relief.  To make matters even worse, the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory upset his stomach, and after only a couple of doses, Johnny suffered from several unpleasant bouts of nausea and diarrhea.  He called Dr. Grant’s office to see if something else could be called in that would be easier on his stomach, but the answering service wasn’t able to contact the ever-elusive physician.  So with his supply of Flexeril and Tylenol #3 now completely exhausted, Johnny had to settle for some over-the-counter Tylenol to help manage his pain.  He might as well have taken a sugar pill for all the good it did, but at least it didn’t irritate his stomach.

After the side effects of the Motrin had abated, Johnny finally fell into a fitful slumber.  However, sharp shooting pains that radiated from his back and down his legs soon awakened him with a start, and he was almost tempted to go to the emergency room to get something stronger than regular Tylenol.  But at three-fifteen in the morning, his options were limited.  There was absolutely no way he could manage to drive to Rampart in the Land Rover.  A standard transmission might be great for navigating rugged terrain, but it had its drawbacks at a time like this.

His first impulse was to call his partner, but he quickly scratched that idea off his list.  If there was any chance that Roy and Joanne had reconciled and were home in bed together, it wouldn’t be right to disturb them.  Johnny thought about calling Boomer, but he didn’t have the heart to drag the poor guy out of bed at this hour.  Then he considered calling for a taxi, but he wasn’t sure he had enough cash on hand.  Of course, if he was truly desperate, he could always call for an ambulance.  But in good conscience, Johnny couldn’t bring himself to do that either.  He always hated it when the squad got called out in the middle of the night for something that could have easily waited until a more reasonable time.  If Johnny had already suffered from his injuries for nine days, he could surely wait a few more hours until daylight.  With a little bit of luck, he’d feel a little better by then.  There was something almost magical about the break of dawn, as if the new day automatically brought with it the promise of renewed hope.

Once Johnny abandoned the idea of going to Rampart, he reasoned that if he got up and moved around, the strange tingling sensation in his lower extremities would go away.  He felt a slight twinge of guilt for not doing his back strengthening exercises every single day, and began to have second thoughts about blaming the general practitioner for his present misery.  After all, if he had followed all of Dr. Grant’s instructions to the letter, maybe he’d be on the road to recovery by now.  Besides, if he changed doctors in midstream, Johnny felt he would be obliged to explain his reasons to Mrs. Murphy, and he really didn’t want to do that.  He thought the world of his grandmotherly landlady, and he didn’t want to hurt her feelings since she absolutely adored the handsome physician.

Resigned to suffer for at least one more day, Johnny cautiously flexed his limbs as he prepared to pry himself from the sofa.  He still felt nauseated, but at least he had a reprieve from the diarrhea.  Thank goodness Boomer had picked up a couple of six-packs of ginger ale before he went home for the evening.  Between the vomiting and the diarrhea, Johnny felt a little dehydrated.  The ginger ale would help to replenish the fluids that he had lost during his frequent frantic trips to the bathroom.  Not only was he having trouble producing enough saliva to swallow, it was becoming increasingly difficult to urinate.  Johnny figured that that once he took in some fluids, normal function would return.

Still, there was a nagging doubt in the back of his mind that this latest indignity could be a delayed reaction to the blunt trauma he had recently sustained.  But was it possible for symptoms of a kidney injury to take more than a week to develop?  Johnny tried to recall what the emergency room doctor had said.  Something about blood in the urine, nausea, vomiting, severe flank pain or difficulty urinating?  If that was the case, he didn’t quite meet the diagnostic criteria, at least not yet.

Johnny quickly chided himself for overreacting to the situation.  After all, there was no sense in making a mountain out of a molehill.  He was probably just a bit dehydrated, that’s all.  The sooner he got some fluids down him, the sooner he’d feel better.  And the sooner he got up and walked around, the sooner he could walk off that weird tingly feeling that threatened to overtake over the lower half of his body.  It was as simple as that.

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Early flinched as he made the transition from the dimly lit elevator to the brightly illuminated corridor of Rampart’s cardiac unit.  Although his headache had finally begun to abate late last night, he was still extremely photophobic.  He momentarily lowered his gaze while his eyes adjusted to the abrupt change in lighting conditions.  The sharp, stabbing pain behind his eyes finally subsided to a tolerable level after several seconds, and Early resumed his journey toward the private room at the end of the hall.  Brackett had been transferred back to the cardiac unit yesterday afternoon, but apparently the change in scenery had done little to improve his disposition.  Like Dixie, Early was concerned that Brackett’s depression was going to spiral out of control before the Elavil had an opportunity to reach a therapeutic level.

As Early approached the open doorway to Brackett’s room, he noticed that the curtains were still closed, even though it was nearly noon.  The absence of natural light only added to the already gloomy atmosphere, which was the last thing Brackett needed.  If Early weren’t nursing the last vestiges of a migraine, his first impulse would have been to open the drapes and flood the room with sunshine.  But since he was afraid that the bright light would trigger another debilitating headache, Early decided to leave the curtains alone for now.  He felt a little guilty for placing his physical comfort above his friend’s mental health, but rationalized that he’d take care of the matter before he left.

There was a faint trace of a smile as Brackett gestured for his friend to enter the room.  “Hey, how are you feeling, Joe?”

Seating himself in the tattered visitor’s chair, Early dryly replied, “I think that’s supposed to be my line.”

The corner of Brackett’s mouth twitched slightly.  “Dixie said Mike Morton subjected you to a cursory exam on Friday before he’d give you a shot for your migraine, and that your blood pressure was practically in the stratosphere.”

Early tried to make light of the situation.  “What ever happened to doctor-patient confidentiality?” he joked.

However, Brackett wasn’t in a jovial mood, and had no intentions of dropping the subject.  “Joe, you can’t mess around with stuff like this.  For crying out loud, it’s only been about four years since you had a double bypass, and your cholesterol and triglyceride levels didn’t look all that great on your last annual physical.”

The older doctor didn’t know whether or be grateful or annoyed by his friend’s concern about his health.  On the one hand, he was glad that Brackett’s melancholic preoccupation with death and guilt had been momentarily pushed aside long enough for him to develop an interest in something else for a change.  But on the other hand, Early wasn’t so sure that he wanted to be the object of Brackett’s intense diagnostic scrutiny.  He held up his hands in what he hoped was a placating gesture.  “I know, I know.  After Mike gave me something for my headache and the elevated BP, he made a call to Fred Reynolds.  It seems I have an appointment for a new cardio workup in a couple of weeks.”

“With who?  David Chan?”

“No, Joshua Goldberg.”

Brackett nodded approvingly.  “I had forgotten that Josh is in the same practice group with Fred and Tom.”

There was a twinkle in Early’s eye.  “It’s a darned shame though.  I bet David would have been willing to give us a heck of a group discount.”

Unfortunately, the attempt at humor fell flat as Brackett retreated back into a withdrawn silence.  He gently scratched at the clear tape that anchored the nasogastric tube to his face.  It was supposed to be hypoallergenic, but it still irritated his skin.  “I’ll be glad when this is gone,” Brackett grumbled.  “This damned tape is driving me nuts.”

Early barely suppressed the urge to smack Brackett’s hand away from his face.  Instead, he tried to appear sympathetic.  “I’ll bet.  How much longer is Bob planning to leave the tube in?”

The slight shrug of Brackett’s shoulders was barely perceptible.  “He said he might pull it tomorrow.  Aside from seriously screwing up my potassium level, it’s irritating as hell.”  Brackett lightly fingered his tender nose.  “You know, I must have shoved tubes up other people’s noses hundreds of times, but I never really understood just how annoying a little piece of plastic could be until now.”

“Waxing philosophical, are we?” Early asked.

“Maybe.”

Early braced his elbows on the arm of the chair and leaned forward.  “What’s really bothering you?”

A ghost of a smile tugged at Brackett’s lips.  “You sound like Chris Hauser.  The next thing you know, you’ll be saying things like, ‘How do you feel about that?’ or ‘Our time is almost up.’”

“Kel, I’m asking as a friend, not as a doctor.”

After what seemed like an interminable period of time, Brackett finally answered in a quiet voice.  “Joe, do you ever have regrets about decisions you’ve made?  You know, second guess yourself to death?”

Early slumped back in his chair, resting his right foot across his left knee.  “Of course.  Anyone who doesn’t is either a liar or a damned fool.”

“What do you wish you had done differently?”

“Let’s see.”  Early held up his fingers as he prepared to tick off several examples.  “Well, every time I take the Ferrari in for repairs or maintenance, I’m sorry I succumbed to my middle-aged fantasy of trying to recapture my youth by buying a ridiculously expensive sports car.  I’m sorry that I never married or got around to buying a house.  I wish I had bought a truckload of that stock that Howard recommended a few years ago.  Every time I lose a patient, I always wonder if there was something more I could have done that would have made a difference.  I’m sorry that I didn’t see a neurologist about my headaches before that horrible car accident, and knowing what I know now, I wish I had never offered Johnny a ride back to the station that day.”  With an impish grin, he added, “Oh, and I regret eating the meatloaf at the hospital cafeteria last week.  I had a near terminal case of indigestion for the next couple of days.”

Brackett scratched at the sensitive skin near the site of the NG tube again.  “Joe, did you feel...when you found out you had a brain tumor, did you ever...”

“Did I ever feel like an idiot, a failure and a complete jackass, all at the same time?”

“Yeah.”

Early took a deep breath and exhaled loudly before he responded to his friend’s question.  “I did.  I suppose like a lot of people in our profession, I wanted to believe in the myth that we’re somehow different from other mortals, and therefore immune to the same diseases that we’re trained to diagnose and treat.  Patients get sick, not us.  You know, that kind of nonsense.  So it was easier for me to blame the chronic headaches on the ridiculously long hours we were working during the staffing crisis, rather than admit that something could be seriously wrong.  Obviously the meningioma changed all of that.  I felt like reality had smacked me in the face like a wet towel.  It was a very humbling experience, and I’m ashamed of the way I handled the whole mess.”

Early grew pensive, and his voice was tinged with sorrow as he continued.  “You know, it’s funny in a way.  My warped sense of guilt caused far more damage than that tumor ever did.  At a time when I needed my friends the most, I tried to drive them away.  I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t help myself.  Once I started sliding downward into that dark abyss, I completely lost perspective.  I don’t know what I would have done if Dixie hadn’t pressured me into getting help.  I guess I’d still be sitting in my apartment...alone, in the dark and in a perpetual narcotic haze.  I probably would have blown my brains out long before the meningioma turned me into a vegetable or did me in.”

An eerie stillness descended upon the room, interrupted only by the soft whir of the infusion unit or the intermittent sound of the nasogastric suction.  A lump formed in Early’s throat as he stood up and gently squeezed Brackett’s arm.  “Kel, it’s not exactly a big secret that you and your father didn’t always get along, especially toward the end of his life.  But you have to stop torturing yourself.  No matter how hard you try to rationalize it, you are not responsible for his death.”

Discouraged by his friend’s silence, Early reached into his shirt pocket for his sunglasses as he walked across the room and opened the curtains.  Brilliant rays of sunlight bathed the room in a resplendent glow, causing the still photophobic doctor to involuntarily flinch.  He hurriedly put on his sunglasses as his eyes started to water in response to the bright light.  At least that’s what he told himself as he wiped at the moisture on his face and quietly left the room.

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Johnny blindly fumbled for the alarm clock to silence the obnoxious noise that had so rudely intruded upon his dreams.  Even in his semi-conscious state, he remembered why he had replaced the old-style mechanical double bell timepiece with a clock/radio.  Awakening to the sound of soft rock music was definitely preferable to the piercing staccato of clanging metal.  But since the clock/radio’s electrical cord wasn’t long enough to reach the wall outlet behind the couch and he didn’t have another extension cord on hand, Johnny had resurrected the antique looking brass clock from his closet as a temporary measure.

He had felt somewhat foolish last night for asking Boomer to spend the night at his apartment, and Johnny had insisted that his guest sleep in the bedroom in order to assuage his guilt-ridden conscience.  His troublesome new symptoms had prompted Johnny to conclude that he should seek medical attention first thing Monday morning, and he was going to need a ride.  Therefore, it seemed like a good idea for Boomer to already be on hand in case he could get an appointment with someone right away.  The question remained as to whom he was going to call.  Did he want to stick with Dr. Grant out of a peculiar sense of loyalty to Mrs. Murphy and a general aversion to having to chase down copies of his records or undergo new lab work and/or x-rays, or did he want a fresh start with a different doctor?  And for the sake of argument, what if he wasn’t happy with the new guy either?  Which was the lesser of the two evils?  It was like trying to choose between the devil he knew, and the devil he didn’t.

As the alarm clock’s ear-splitting cacophony continued to assault his ears, Johnny finally located the switch and toggled it to the off position.  His heart was still pounding from the abrupt transition to consciousness, and he closed his eyes while he waited for his heart to stop pounding.  He must have fallen right back to sleep because the next thing he knew, Boomer was speaking to him in a loud, persistent voice and shaking him by the shoulder.  Johnny’s eyelids immediately snapped open and he gasped in surprise.

“Sorry about that Mr. G.,” Boomer apologized.  “Are you okay?  I know you said to make sure you didn’t fall back asleep after you turned off the alarm, but I didn’t mean to give you a heart attack.”

Johnny rubbed the gooey sleepers from the corners of his eyes and tried to focus on his surroundings.  “Yeah, I’m fine.  Thanks.”  Although his vision was still a bit blurred, his olfactory sense was functioning perfectly.  The heavenly aroma of freshly brewed coffee made Johnny’s mouth water in anticipation.

Boomer set a ceramic mug on the coffee table.  “Here, looks like you could use something to help you wake up.”

“Oooooh,” Johnny moaned appreciatively.  He started to push himself into a sitting position, but his legs didn’t quite want to cooperate with his plans.  Johnny frowned at the numb sensation in his lower extremities as he tried to command reluctant muscles to move.  Usually when one of his legs fell asleep, the numbness was limited to the area below the knee.  But this time, it extended from the middle of his back all the way down to his toes.  Johnny lifted his blanket and stared at his legs as he performed a quick assessment.  It took a great deal of concentration and effort, but eventually he could elicit some type of reaction.

His mind raced as he tried to process the implications of this troubling new development.  Exactly when did this start?  Had it been like this all night, or did it begin a few minutes before he woke up?  If it was the latter, then maybe there was no need to panic, at least not yet.  Hopefully he had just slept in a contorted position that had temporarily impeded his circulation, and normal sensation and movement would return shortly.  But what if this was a progression of the strange tingly sensation that had started yesterday morning?  The possibility was too terrifying to even consider.

Johnny tried to make light of the situation as he fought back his fears.  “Hmm.  Looks like half of me can’t wake up this morning.”

Boomer was immediately concerned.  If there was anything he had learned about the paramedic during the brief time they had been acquainted, it was that Johnny had a tendency to downplay the significance of his problems.  “What’s the matter, Mr. G.?  Do I need to call the hospital or the fire department?”

“I dunno.  My back and legs feel kind of weird.  Sort of like they’ve fallen asleep and won’t wake up.  Maybe it will get better it a minute or two.”

Boomer picked up the phone and carried it over to the coffee table, careful not to trip over the brass floor lamp as he untangled the long power cord.  “Or maybe you should call someone about this.  What about your doctor...what’s his name?  Dr. Grant?  Do you want to try him first?”

Now that his vision wasn’t as bleary as it had been when he first woke up, Johnny glanced at his watch and sighed.  He knew that unless hell had frozen over during the night, his chances of getting in touch with Dr. Grant at a quarter ‘til eight on a Monday morning were somewhere between slim and none.  Then he considered calling the station, but hated to call them just before the shift change.  Besides, he would feel really foolish if the numbness wore off before help arrived.  He’d be the laughing stock of the department, and the Phantom would never let him hear the end of it.

Johnny’s thoughts once again turned to his partner, but didn’t dare intrude upon an already delicate situation.  Roy’s first priority was to his family, not to him.  He looked at his watch again as he tried to stave off the mounting panic that threatened to overwhelm him.  Instinctively he knew what he needed to do, but he needed some sort of affirmation that he wasn’t overreacting.  He picked up the phone and dialed a number he knew better than his own.

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Dixie reveled in a rare quiet moment in the emergency room from her usual perch behind the desk.  There wasn’t a single patient waiting to be treated, Brackett’s condition was progressing as well as could be expected under the circumstances, Early was due back from his appointment with his neurosurgeon at any minute and she was enjoying a cup of coffee laden with several spoons of sugar and half & half milk.  The coffee tasted deliciously decadent, but she didn’t feel one iota of guilt.  After the past ten days, she figured she was due for a self-indulgent reward.

The shrill ringing of the telephone interrupted her contemplative respite, and Dixie reluctantly picked up the receiver.  Disappointed that a gloriously serene moment had been spoiled, she forced a smile as she answered the phone, hoping it would somehow help to conceal her mild annoyance.  “Rampart Emergency Room, Nurse McCall speaking.  How may I help you?”

An almost timid, but familiar voice answered.  “Um, Dix?  This is Johnny...Johnny Gage.  Do you have a minute?”

This time Dixie’s smile was relaxed and genuine.  “For you, I have all the time in the world.  What can I do for you hot shot?”

“For starters, I’m hoping you’ll tell me I’m crazy.”

“Okay, you’re crazy.  Anything else I can do for you?” she teased.

There was an uncomfortable silence for several seconds.  Finally, Johnny blurted out the reason for his call.  “I fell down some stairs over a week ago...”

Dixie’s mouth gaped open.  “You what?!  What happened?”

“Oh, I was helping my landlady’s granddaughter move, and fell down some stairs after one of the steps disintegrated under my foot.  I got banged up a little, but I didn’t see anyone right away.  I mean, I already had this appointment with my GP, and you guys were so busy and all...”

“GP?” she repeated.  “Since when did you start seeing a general practitioner?  And why on earth would you think we were too busy to see you?  Why, Johnny Gage, I ought to wring your neck.”

Johnny groaned.  “Oh, please don’t do that.  I have enough problems already.  Which is the whole reason why I’m calling, that is, if you’ll let me finish my story.”

“Sorry.  Go ahead.”  Dixie took another sip of her heavily sugared coffee and took a deep breath while she patiently waited for his saga to unfold.  Johnny wasn’t one to ask for help unless he was desperate, and she certainly didn’t want to discourage him by giving him the third degree.

“It’s like this,” Johnny continued.  “I had a sore throat the last time I was there.  You know, the day of Mr. Grabby Fingers?  Well, I made an appointment to see this doctor that my landlady goes to, but I fell down some stairs before I could get in to see him.  Roy dragged me over to Rampart the next day.  Dr. Dunn, the ER doc that I saw, said I didn’t do any serious damage.  I basically just got banged up a little bit.  I busted a few ribs, sprained an ankle and broke some toes.  He also said I had a trace amount of blood in my urine, but he didn’t seem too concerned about that.  Dr. Dunn gave me a prescription for some Tylenol #3 for the pain, Flexeril for the back spasms and penicillin for the upper respiratory infection.  Except I wound up not needing the antibiotic after all.  I followed up with the GP, and he said the throat culture showed that I had a viral infection, so he told me to stop taking the penicillin.”

A momentary lull in the conversation ensued, and Dixie felt compelled to encourage Johnny to resume his narrative.  “That’s understandable,” she commented in a cautious, non-judgmental tone.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought too.  Anyway, I don’t seem to be getting any better.  If anything, I’m getting worse.  The muscle spasms and back pain have been killing me ever since the accident, and a few days ago, I ran out of the meds that the ER doc prescribed for me.  My GP called in a prescription for Motrin, but that hasn’t helped at all.”

There was another awkward pause before Johnny continued.  “This weekend a couple of new problems cropped up.  I, um...uh...I’ve been having some difficulty urinating and I started getting this funny tingling, pins and needles sensation in my legs off and on yesterday.  But it would always get better after a few minutes, so I tried not to worry about it.  I figured I’d just add that to the list of things I needed to ask my doctor about when his office opened up on Monday.  Then a few minutes ago when I woke up, I noticed that everything feels kind of numb from about the middle of my back on down.  I have some limited movement and sensation in my legs, but it feels really weird, sort of like how your leg feels when it falls asleep.  I’m not sure how long this has been going on though.  I just woke up about five or ten minutes ago, so I guess it’s possible that this will all go away if I wait it out a little bit longer...”

Dixie intuitively sensed that Johnny wouldn’t object if she interrupted this time.  “So that’s why you wanted me to tell you you’re crazy, huh?  That this is all a product of your overactive imagination?”

Johnny laughed nervously.  “Yeah, something like that.  I’m not sure if I need to call for a squad, or send for the guys in the little white coats and the butterfly nets.”

The ER’s head nurse sadly shook her head.  Johnny’s symptoms did not bode well at all, and perhaps more troubling, it almost seemed as if he was seeking permission to come to the emergency room.  What in the heck was that all about?  Had they done something to give him the impression that he was no longer welcome as a patient?  Is that why he had felt compelled to seek medical care elsewhere?

Dixie glanced up to see Morton saunter over to the desk, holding his glasses up to the light while he wiped a smudge off one the lenses.  She covered the mouthpiece and whispered a stern admonishment to the young doctor not to wander off.  Convinced he was going to stay put, Dixie got back on the line.  “Sorry about that Johnny.  Can you hang on for a sec?”

“No problem.  I’m not going anywhere.”

“Thanks.  I’ll be right back.”

After pressing the red hold button, Dixie rested the receiver against her shoulder.  “Mike, I need your help.

Morton placed the now spotless glasses back on his face.  “Sure.  What’s up?”

His countenance grew serious as Dixie recounted the conversation, especially when she got to the part about the numbness in Johnny’s back and legs.  He anxiously motioned for her to hand him the phone.  Once he had the phone cradled against his ear, he signaled for her to reactivate the line.  “Johnny?  It’s Dr. Morton.  Dixie was just giving me a quick summary of your symptoms, but I want to hear the whole story directly from you...from the beginning.”

Morton listened intently while the paramedic recounted his medical history for the past couple of weeks, starting with the sore throat.  He was surprised by Johnny’s admission that he had sought medical attention from a certain physician in private practice, but tactfully chose not to pursue the subject at this juncture.  There would be plenty of time for that later.  Instead, he concentrated on Johnny’s chronology of complaints leading up to this morning’s latest development, occasionally interrupting the paramedic to clarify a particular point or to ask a question.  Morton sincerely hoped he was wrong, but Johnny’s progression of symptoms seemed to indicate a condition he had only seen once before in actual practice, and the prognosis had not been good at all.

His expression grew serious as he outlined his plans to the injured paramedic.  “John, you need to come in as soon as possible.  I’ll put Dixie back on the line to get some information, and we’ll arrange for a squad and an ambulance.”

“That’s not necessary.  I have a ride.”

“I’m afraid that won’t work,” Morton chided in a stern tone.  “Until we know exactly what we’re dealing with, I don’t want to take any unnecessary chances.  That’s why I want you transported here with full spinal precautions.”

“Spinal precautions?” Johnny repeated uneasily.

“John, it’s procedure in cases like this.  You know that.”

“Yeah, but I guess I was kind of hoping that you were going to tell me I was overreacting or just plain crazy.”

Considering what tentative diagnosis Morton had in mind, he was beginning to question his own sanity.  He was therefore relieved when he spotted a certain neurosurgeon walking down the corridor toward the desk.  “Look, John.  I need to run.  I’m going to hand the phone back to Dixie so she can get some info, okay?”

There was a pronounced pause before the paramedic responded.  “Yeah.  Okay.”

“All right.  We’ll see you in a few minutes.”

Morton handed the phone back to Dixie and met up with Early in the hallway.  With a little bit of luck, the older physician would tell him that he was the one who was crazy.

+ + + + + + + + + + + +

Seated at one of the round tables in the doctor’s lounge, Morton conferred with Early about Johnny’s myriad of symptoms.  He was almost disappointed when the neurosurgeon agreed with his assessment.

Early’s demeanor was grim.  “I hate to say this Mike, but I think you’re probably right.  The precipitating upper respiratory infection, fever, chills, malaise, anorexia, localized back pain with subsequent intermittent radicular pain and paresthesia, muscle weakness and sensory impairment in the lower extremities, bladder dysfunction...it all fits.  The only thing that doesn’t make sense is the etiology of the URI.  Are you sure Johnny said it was viral?”

“I’m positive.  But I want to see the actual lab report.  Dixie called Medical Records to have the chart sent over here stat.  Considering who disclosed the results to Johnny...let’s just say that I have some serious doubts.  I’ve seen way too many of Nathan Grant’s patients lately not to be suspicious.”

The silver-haired physician snorted in disgust.  “I can’t believe some administrative idiot gave him privileges here.  Don’t they do background checks on people anymore?  I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts that Nathan Grant lost his medical license in another state or two before he showed up on our doorstep.  That drug addict needs to be locked up in a rehab facility or somewhere before he kills someone.  How on earth did Johnny find this menace to society anyway?”

“Apparently his landlady spoke very highly of him, but I didn’t press for details,” Morton admitted.  “I figured that it was the least of our concerns at the moment, and I’m hesitant to even discuss it with him.  If I know Johnny, and I think I do, he’s going to feel that all of this is his fault.  Know what I mean?”

Early rested his elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands.  He knew all too well.

+ + + + + + + + + + + +

Dixie continued to berate herself while they gathered at the nurse’s station to await Johnny’s arrival.  She knew it was irrational, but she couldn’t shake the twinge of guilt that gnawed at her conscience.  A few days ago, she had half-jokingly remarked that a certain paramedic hadn’t graced their department as a patient in ages.  Now he was strapped to a backboard in the back of an ambulance en route to the hospital, probably suffering from a career-ending, if not life-threatening condition.  Dixie wished she could go back in time and take back her careless words, as though that would cancel out the misfortune that had apparently befallen Johnny.

“I should have known something was wrong when Roy showed up with Gabriel Martinez in tow last week,” Dixie lamented.

Early gently admonished the despondent nurse.  “Dix, don’t torture yourself like this.  To be honest, I didn’t think much about it either.  I just assumed that Johnny had gotten someone to switch shifts with him at the last minute so he could go on that camping trip to Lake Cuyamaca with some of the guys from Station 10.”

She appeared pensive as she finished assembling a blank chart for Johnny.  “I meant to ask Roy if that’s what happened, but I didn’t get much of a chance.  Between the recent deluge of patients and Kel’s medical crises, it completely slipped my mind.  I don’t know why it never occurred to me that Johnny could have been seen in the ER on a weekend when we weren’t here.”

“That’s perfectly understandable given the circumstances.”  Early’s attempt to console her were cut short by the activity at the emergency room entrance.  There was only one patient they were expecting to be packaged on a long backboard and rigid cervical collar, so there was little doubt as to the identity of the man on the gurney.  “C’mon, Dix.  It looks like they’re playing our song.”

“Then we need to get a new one,” she complained, “because this song stinks.”  Dixie hurriedly rose to her feet and jogged the short distance to one of the treatment rooms.  “In here,” she instructed the ambulance attendants.

Flat on his back and unable to move his head because of the rigid cervical collar, Johnny’s field of vision was extremely limited.  Every once in a while he could catch a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye -- unidentified figures in white descending upon the gurney or Squad 45’s paramedic as he held the IV aloft.  But for the most part, all Johnny could see was a vast expanse of ceiling tiles that seemed to rush past as they wheeled him down the hallway.  The odd sensation exacerbated the nausea that had plagued him during the ride to the hospital, and he felt perilously close to throwing up.  Johnny closed his eyes as he fought for control of his stomach.  He had always been prone to motion sickness when he traveled in a supine position, and today was no exception.  Or was the nausea merely a physiological reaction to pure, unadulterated panic?

He was relieved when he heard Dixie direct the attendants to a room.  That meant he would soon be stationary, and hopefully the queasiness would abate.  Once the gurney came to a complete stop and he felt the brake being applied, Johnny cautiously allowed his eyelids to slowly flutter open.  His hands were still tied to the backboard, so he couldn’t shield his eyes from the exam room’s bright lights.  Fortunately, Early seemed to sense his dilemma, and adjusted the angle of one of the overhead lamps to deflect the light away from Johnny’s face.

The room erupted into a flurry of well-choreographed activity as Johnny was transferred to the exam table, making him feel like the star attraction in a three-ring circus.  He heard Squad 45’s paramedic, “Big Al” Frantangello, provide a quick update as someone wrapped a blood pressure cuff around his arm, while another person divested him of what little clothing he had on and covered him with a sheet.  Johnny supposed it was a good thing he had only been wearing a T-shirt and boxers when he went to bed last night, otherwise he would have sacrificed a perfectly good set of clothes for this ignoble cause.

Snippets of Big Al’s conversation penetrated through the fog of organized chaos.  “...he threw up about 50 cc just before we pulled into the driveway...said he had a cup of black coffee about half an hour ago for breakfast, nothing else since about ten last night...no change in neuro status...”

Early’s concerned face swam into his limited field of view.  “Johnny, do you still feel nauseated?”

Johnny was afraid to open his mouth to reply in case any remaining stomach contents tried to make a dramatic escape, but nodding in affirmation wasn’t an option as long as his neck was immobilized.  Through clenched teeth he hissed, “Yeah.”

“Okay, we’ll get you something for that.”  Early looked over at Dixie as he reached for the direct ophthalmoscope.  “What do his vital signs look like?”

Dixie wiped the glass thermometer with alcohol-soaked gauze and returned it to its holder on the counter.  “BP is 160/70, pulse 108, respirations 22 and temp is 102.2.”

Early grunted his acknowledgement while he examined Johnny’s optic nerves.  “Give him 10 mg. of Phenergan IV.  And call x-ray for a portable.  I want a full spine series stat.”  To no one in particular, he muttered, “No signs of papilledema.  Pupils are equal and reactive.”

The younger physician frowned as he palpated Johnny’s abdomen.  “His bladder’s distended.  I’ll get the Foley.”

Slipping his fingers into Johnny’s hands, Early commanded in a firm voice, “Johnny, I want you to squeeze my fingers as hard as you can.”

It wasn’t that Johnny didn’t hear the request, but with so many things happening at once, he couldn’t keep up with the frenetic activity and rapid-fire dialogue around him.  It must have taken longer to process the doctor’s words than he realized, because Early repeated his instructions in a stern tone.  “Johnny, come on.  I need for you to squeeze my fingers.  Now.”

Chagrined by his momentary lapse, Johnny quickly complied with the doctor’s directive.  He started to panic when he felt a cold sensation creep into his left arm, afraid that the same peculiar numbness that affected his legs had begun to spread to his upper extremities as well.  Then he remembered that Early had ordered some medication for his nausea, and felt embarrassed by his reaction.  Dixie probably told him about the Phenergan just before she injected it into the IV port, but he had been too preoccupied to notice.

Early moved to the end of the exam table and uncovered Johnny’s feet.  “Johnny, I want to perform a couple of quick tests.  I’m going to touch your legs with a pin, and I want you to tell me if it feels sharp or dull.”

Johnny bit his lower lip in concentration as the neurosurgeon conducted his examination.  He could feel something, but he couldn’t make the distinction between the two choices.  “Um...I can’t really tell,” he confessed.  “It just feels different.  I can’t explain it.”

“But you can tell that I’m touching you with the pin?”

“Yeah.”

Early tested several areas on each leg with the same result.  Putting the sharp object aside, he grasped Johnny’s right foot with his hands.  “All right.  I’m going to move your big toe, and I want you to tell me if it’s pointing up or down.”

Johnny was frustrated by his inability to answer the doctor’s simple question.  It seemed like his brain and his legs weren’t on speaking terms anymore, like an electrical signal had been interrupted.  “I don’t know.  Up, I think.”

“What about now?” Early asked as he tested the other foot.

“Down...maybe.”

The two doctors conferred at the foot of the examination table in quiet whispers as Early continued his exam.  Usually the senior physician’s calm demeanor comforted Johnny, but right now it only served to further fuel his anxieties.  At least Brackett had a nervous tic or two that gave him away when there was bad news -- a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth here or an involuntary scowl there.  But Early’s countenance remained unreadable, at least what he could see of it.

Johnny once again cursed the dreaded c-collar that prevented him from moving his head.  Maybe if he could see what they were doing, he wouldn’t feel so apprehensive.  He felt so damned vulnerable being trussed up like this.  And what were they discussing that required such great secrecy?  Was his condition that serious?

The hushed conversation stopped, and Early softly cleared his throat as he returned to the head of the table.  “Johnny, we’re almost done.  We’re going to logroll you onto your side so we can take a look at your back.  It will just take a minute or two.  Don’t move, okay?  Let us do all the work.”

Johnny laughed bitterly.  “I know the drill, Doc.”

After the Velcro ties that had secured him to the backboard had been removed, Johnny was turned onto his left side on the count of three.  He wasn’t sure why, but being in this position reminded him of how his grandfather used to cook meat on a spit over an open fire.  Although Johnny didn’t want to be roasted alive, he wouldn’t mind basking in the warmth of a campfire about now.  He was freezing!  If he couldn’t smooth talk his way into getting a thermal blanket from the warmer soon, he thought he was going to succumb to hypothermia or frostbite.

Early’s authoritative voice roused him from his daydream.  “Johnny?  Are you still with us?”

“Huh?  Yeah.  Sorry ‘bout that.”

The neurosurgeon probed Johnny’s back with his fingers.  “Does this hurt?”

“Not really,” he replied.  “Some pressure, but that’s all.”

Early pressed on another spot.  “What about here?”

“Maybe a little bit.”

“Okay.  You did great.  We’re going to roll you back onto the board, and then we’ll get some lab work and x-rays.”

“Just peachy,” Johnny mumbled.  “Can’t wait.”

As soon as they repositioned him on the backboard, Early issued a series of orders to the medical staff.  “All right.  Let’s get a CBC, sed rate, electrolytes, BUN, creatinine and urinalysis.”  He paused before adding, “Oh, and give him a Tylenol suppository for the fever.”

Strangely enough, Johnny didn’t have any trouble focusing on that part of the conversation.  “Um, Doc?  My stomach is settling down, so I could probably handle some pills now.”

Early shook his head.  “I don’t want you to have anything by mouth just yet.”

A chill of foreboding ran down Johnny’s spine.  “Uh oh.  That doesn’t sound good.  What do you think this is?”

“Let’s wait and see what the tests show,” Early answered evasively.

The x-ray technician’s arrival fortuitously spared Early from having to elaborate upon his statement.  He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his lab coat and moved out of the way to accommodate the portable machine.

Dixie brushed a stray lock of Johnny’s hair from his forehead while Early spoke to the x-ray technician.  “Hey, tiger.  Melinda’s here to take your picture, so I guess that’s our cue to step outside for a few minutes.  Do you need anything before we go?”

Johnny’s first instinct was to ask for Roy, but he didn’t dare ask Dixie to give him a call.  He hadn’t heard from his partner since Wednesday, and he didn’t know whether that was a good sign or a bad one.  Johnny would never forgive himself if Roy and Joanne had gotten back together and were on some kind of second honeymoon, and he went and messed everything up.

He swallowed almost convulsively as he tried to get rid of the huge knot that had suddenly formed in his throat.  “Yeah, you can do me a huge favor.”

“Sure.  Do you want me to call Roy at the station?”

Johnny didn’t feel it was his place to explain why his partner might not be available, so he stuck with the story that Roy had told Captain Stanley.  “He won’t be there.  Roy had a family emergency come up, and had to go out of town.  I don’t know when he’ll be back.”

The temperature of the room seemed to warm a few degrees each time Dixie smiled.  “I’ll try him at home.  If he’s not there, I’ll try back later.”

Johnny didn’t have the heart to tell her no.  Besides, technically he wouldn’t be bothering his partner in the midst of his delicate marital situation if Dixie took it upon herself to make the call.  It was a small distinction, but one he could possibly live with.

When the injured paramedic didn’t object, Dixie ruffled his hair with her fingers again.  “Okay.  I’ll give him a call.  Anything else?”

“Yeah.”  Johnny took a deep breath while he summoned his nerve.  He’d much rather have Roy at his side right now, but Boomer would do in a pinch.  The only problem was he wasn’t a family member, one of the guys from the station or on staff at Rampart, so Johnny knew they’d have to break a rule or two to comply with his request.  “Uh, Dix?  There’s this guy, a friend of mine who’s been helping me out a lot since I got hurt.  Since they wouldn’t let him ride with me in the ambulance, he had to drive over here.  Would you see if he’s here yet, and send him in when x-ray is through with me?  It would mean a lot to have him around, you know?  He should be real easy to find.  Big guy, about six foot four, two hundred forty pounds, olive complexion and short black hair...the kind of haircut only the Chief could love.  His name is Boomer...Boomer Tomjanovich.”

Morton did a double take at the name.  “Boomer Tomjanovich?  The football player?”

“Ex-football player,” Johnny clarified.  “Just graduated from UCLA.”

Early lightly rested his hand on Johnny’s shoulder.  “I’ll take care of it.  But first, we’re going to step outside for a few minutes so Melinda can do her job.  Fair enough?”

Johnny was almost tempted to plant a huge sloppy kiss on the doctor’s nose as a token of his appreciation.  Instead, he merely conveyed his gratitude as the medical staff left the room.

The door had scarcely closed behind them when a clerk from Medical Records approached the group that had congregated out in the hallway.  “Miss McCall?  I brought you the chart for John R. Gage’s ER visit on June 10th.”

Morton eagerly reached for the brown folder.  “Thanks, I’ll take that.”  He hurriedly skimmed through the archived chart for the results of Johnny’s throat culture, and was infuriated when he read the lab report.  “Um, Joe?”

“Yeah?”

“Take a look at this,” Morton said, angrily tapping the page with his finger.

Early’s brow furrowed in consternation as he noted the part of the report that listed the causative organism of Johnny’s infection.  Although he shared Morton’s visceral reaction, the neurosurgeon was more adept at masking his emotions.  There would be plenty of time later for expressing his frustration.  For now, he merely slumped against the wall and sighed.

+ + + + + + + + + + + +

Holding an ice compress to his forehead, Roy collapsed back onto the bed.  Every time he thought he couldn’t possibly have anything left to throw up, his stomach managed to surprise him.  Roy had vomited so many times that he was beginning to wonder if his teeth had any enamel left on them after constantly being bathed in hydrochloric acid.  His tongue seemed to want to stick to the back of his teeth.  Or was that just because his mouth felt so dry?

Roy had lost count of his mad dashes to the bathroom.  He wasn’t sure, but he thought that he dozed off while hugging the toilet bowl at some point.  Actually, he almost preferred to bring up something, even if it was the bitter taste of bile.  That was preferable to the prolonged bouts of dry heaves that made his head throb.  Roy thought it was a good thing that he didn’t believe in keeping a gun around the house for protection, or he probably would have blown his brains out by now.  If he managed to survive this latest exercise in stupidity, Roy swore that he would never touch another drop of alcohol as long as he lived.  In fact, as soon as he could stop barfing long enough to make it to the kitchen, he was going to pour every last drop of tequila down the drain.

He only vaguely recalled buying the bottles of Jose Cuervo on Saturday night.  After calling for a taxi, Roy stopped by the liquor store next door to the 7-11.  He wasn’t sure why, but he had developed a fixation that he was going to develop scurvy if he didn’t eat some kind of citrus fruit soon.  The paramedic part of his alcohol-addled brain told him that since he hadn’t been eating properly lately, he wasn’t getting the right mix of vitamins and other nutrients.  So when Roy spotted a small basket of limes by the cash register, inspiration struck him like a bolt of lightning.  He grabbed a couple of bottles of Jose Cuervo Gold and a dozen limes and set them on the counter.  That was the last thing he remembered until a few hours ago.  Or was that days ago?  Everything still seemed like a blur.

As he adjusted the ice pack over his eyes, Roy was glad he didn’t have to report back to work until next week.  That should give him plenty of time to get over his hangover and start to feel human again.  Johnny had been right.  Drinking hadn’t solved anything.  Roy still had the same problem he started out with, and how he had the mother of all hangovers.  At least he still had his job, even if he didn’t have his family anymore.  But even that was in jeopardy if he didn’t hurry up and pull himself together.

The excruciatingly loud trill of the telephone jarred Roy out of his semi-conscious stupor, and he reflexively reached for the other pillow to shield his ears.  In his hypersensitive state, the noise made every fiber of his body scream in pain.  Roy was disappointed when the hypoallergenic foam pillow failed to provide sufficient insulation from the vicious auditory assault.  He knew the incessant ringing would stop if he just answered the damn phone, but he couldn’t summon the energy to roll over and inch toward the nightstand.  Besides, it’s not like it was probably anyone important, like Joanne.  No, it had to be a wrong number.

Roy tightened the grip on his pillow, and for a fleeting moment, he was almost tempted to cover his face instead of his ears.  Death by suffocation was starting to seem like a reasonable solution to his problems.  Then he wouldn’t be able to hear the phone ring, or feel the pounding in his head or the pain of his broken heart.  It would all be mercifully over.  As he drifted back into an uneasy slumber, Roy lamented the sad fact that no one would even miss him if he died.  He felt like a discarded relic of a bygone era, of no use to anyone at all.

+ + + + + + + + + + + +

After reviewing all of Johnny’s x-rays and lab results in Brackett’s office, Morton slammed his fist on the desk.  “Damn it!  I’ll bet that bastard never even bothered to call the lab to get the results of the throat culture.  He probably just needed to get out of the exam room long enough for another fix, and out and out lied to Johnny when he told him the infection was viral.  I guess it’s too much trouble for him to shoot up and make a simple phone call.  I hope Johnny sues the socks off of him for this!”

Early understood the younger doctor’s frustration and passion, but nonetheless cautioned restraint.  “Mike, we don’t know that for sure.  It’s possible there was a mix-up in the lab, or maybe there’s another explanation.  Let’s not jump to conclusions.”

“Do you honestly know of anyone in the lab who’s that incompetent?” Morton challenged.

“No,” Early admitted, “but we have to be careful about making accusations like that without proof.  Don’t misunderstand, Mike.  I’m not taking Grant’s side by any stretch of the imagination.  But it’s one thing to suspect he’s guilty of malpractice, and another to actually prove it.

Morton wasn’t easily dissuaded.  “But you know how he is, Joe.  Grant’s so stoned most of the time that he either makes bad decisions or disappears into thin air so he doesn’t have to make any decisions at all.  I can’t remember the last time I was able to get in touch with him when one of his patients showed up here in the emergency room.  I don’t know why he even bothers to wear a beeper.  His answering service can never find him.  I mean, what’s the point?  And when Grant finally does get around to seeing his patients, he does more harm than good.  Remember that elderly lady we saw last week?  She readily admitted to a history of alcoholism, and Grant had her on an anticoagulant and a NSAID.  No wonder she felt like crap.  It’s a miracle she didn’t bleed to death!  And you want to know what really frosted my buns?  She came here during normal business hours because he was supposedly out of the office on an emergency and the receptionist didn’t know when to expect him back.  Riiiiight.  Everyone here knows that’s what his staff has been trained to say to cover his ass when he’s off on another drug binge.  Then to top it all off, that poor deluded woman kept praising Grant to the skies and rationalizing his negligence, as though everything was really all her fault in the first place.  How does he do that?  Does he have some mystical hypnotic power over people that blinds them to his incompetence?”

Dixie sadly shook her head.  “Not quite.  Grant has a real knack for telling people exactly what they want to hear.  It’s hard not to trust people like that.”

Morton scoffed at her answer.  “I guess since I almost never see him, I’ve never had the opportunity to experience his charming personality first hand.  And look where that trust got Johnny!  He may never walk again because of that jerk’s negligence.  If he hadn’t told Johnny to stop taking the antibiotics...”

Although Morton was mirroring his own thoughts, Early interrupted to reiterate his appeal not to be hasty in their conclusions.  “Yes, I’ll admit that discontinuing the penicillin certainly contributed to the spread of the infection, but we have no way of knowing whether or not Johnny would have developed the SEA anyway.  And it’s not exactly a common diagnosis, so it’s not surprising that the symptoms are often attributed to other causes, especially during the early stages.”

“Okay, I’ll give you that,” Morton conceded.  “But if he had ever bothered to see Johnny again or actually talk to him on the phone instead of relaying an occasional message through his receptionist or the answering service, Grant should have realized the gravity of the situation.  If he didn’t want to honor his responsibility to his patients, then he should have made arrangements with another doctor to provide coverage in his absence.  Let’s face it, Joe.  Grant abandoned Johnny, and that’s completely inexcusable.”

Early couldn’t counter with a reasonable explanation.  But at this point, it really didn’t matter how or why Johnny’s condition had deteriorated as it had.  The sad fact remained that he needed to perform emergency surgery to resolve the problem and minimize the long-term effects, assuming Johnny survived at all.

+ + + + + + + + + + + +

Finally freed from the constraints of the backboard and cervical collar, Johnny turned his head toward the door for what must have been the hundredth time over the past half-hour.  The longer he waited, the more anxious he became.  As a paramedic, Johnny knew there could be any number of reasons for the delay.  Early could still be waiting for the results of a lab test, or they could have gotten swamped with trauma victims from a multi-car collision or something.  Even so, he felt like climbing the walls, if only his legs would cooperate.

Boomer gently nudged him on the shoulder to get his attention.  “The waiting is really getting to you, isn’t it Mr. G.?”

Johnny turned his head back toward the strapping former linebacker and sheepishly grinned.  “Yeah.  Guess it is.”

Rocking back and forth on his heels, Boomer felt compelled to apologize for his role in Johnny’s predicament.  “I’m so sorry about all of this Mr. G.  If I hadn’t dropped that damned couch...”

“No, it’s not your fault,” Johnny interrupted.  “I fell and hit my back when that stupid stair step fell apart.  By the time the sofa fell on me, most of the damage had already been done.”

“But still...”

Johnny adamantly shook his head, deriving an almost perverse sense of satisfaction in the fact that he could now do so.  “Boomer, cut it out.  You didn’t cause this, whatever ‘this’ is.  It was just plain bad luck, and trust me, I know bad luck when I see it.”

Boomer thought back to the day when Johnny had listed his past medical history on one of the forms at Dr. Grant’s office.  “I suppose you have had your share,” he grudgingly admitted.

“Besides, you’ve been a big help since I got hurt,” Johnny added.  “I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

Their conversation was cut short when the treatment room door opened to admit Early, Morton and Dixie.  The older physician’s face was neutral as usual, but there was something scarily disconcerting about Morton’s visage.  His suspicions were confirmed when Dixie forced a tight smile and held his hand.  Johnny didn’t know which was worse, being restrained in a rigid c-collar and backboard and not able to see what was transpiring around him, or having to witness their woeful expressions.

All of a sudden, Johnny’s mouth seemed totally devoid of moisture, and he instinctively licked his lips so that they wouldn’t stick together when he spoke.  “Uh oh.  That bad, huh?”

Early exhaled softly as he prepared to deliver the bad news.  “I’m afraid so.”

“So what is it?” Johnny asked nervously.

After exchanging a knowing glance with Morton and Dixie, Early stepped closer to the examination table, as though the mere proximity would somehow mitigate the effect of what he was about to say.  “Johnny, you have a spinal epidural abscess, extending from about T5 to T10.  That’s why you’re experiencing the motor weakness and paresthesia in your lower extremities.”

“Abscess,” Johnny repeated distractedly.  Okay, he could wrap his brain around that concept.  He had an abscessed tooth when he had to have a root canal done about six months ago.  That hadn’t been all that serious.  But he had a feeling this was a whole lot more complicated.  “How did I get this?”

Early’s mouth formed a tight line as he explained the etiology.  “We’re not quite sure why, but sometimes when there’s an active infection in the body, it gravitates to a weakened area and seeds itself.  In this case, the infection seeded in the epidural space in the vicinity of the soft tissue injury you recently sustained to your back.”

“So how do you treat it?  I mean, since it’s a viral infection, does it just have to run its course?”

Early briefly locked eyes with Morton before he answered the paramedic’s question.  “The lab work we did today indicates that you have a bacterial infection, although we won’t know the exact strain for a few more days until we get the results of the culture.”

Johnny frowned as he tried to force the pieces of the puzzle to fit.  “I don’t understand.  Dr. Grant said that I had a viral infection, and told me to stop taking my antibiotics.  What happened?  Did I misunderstand and screw up?”

The neurosurgeon silently muttered about half a dozen expletives.  He had barely delivered the diagnosis, and already Johnny was starting to second-guess himself.  Early addressed his confused patient in the most reassuring tone he could muster.  “Johnny, we’re not sure what happened.  I promise you we’ll get to the bottom of it.  In the meantime, we need to get you taken care of.”

“How?”

Early clutched Johnny’s chart against his chest as he outlined the appropriate treatment protocol.  “First, we’ll need to surgically decompress the spinal cord and drain and culture the abscess.  Then you’ll require an aggressive course of intravenous antibiotics for about six to eight weeks.  Until we know for sure what bug we’re dealing with, we’ll start you off on a broad-spectrum antibiotic like Nafcillin.  We’ll also prescribe a corticosteroid to help with the swelling and inflammation during the immediate post-operative period.”

Surgery.  The very thought made Johnny shudder.  Surely there had to be a less invasive treatment.  “You mentioned antibiotics.  Why can’t we try that first instead of surgery?”

“I’m afraid medication alone would be inadequate,” Early replied.  “We have to go in surgically to relieve pressure on the spinal cord and clean out the infection.”

Johnny ran his fingers through his hair as he struggled with the implications of the proposed surgery.  “I don’t know, Doc.”

Early knew that Johnny wasn’t trying to be obstinate.  His reluctance was borne of fear.  Having undergone surgery to remove a brain tumor fairly recently, Early understood this.  The very nature of certain diagnoses tended to invoke an almost primal sense of fear in patients -- like cancer or anything involving the central nervous system.  No one wanted to be forced to face his own mortality or the terrifying prospect of a debilitating disability.

Although Early hadn’t considered himself particularly fortunate when he was diagnosed with an occipital lobe meningioma, at least he could afford to wait a couple of months until he was emotionally prepared to undergo surgery.  Johnny didn’t have that luxury of time.  His neurological function was already significantly compromised.  The longer they waited to initiate treatment, the greater the chance that the damage could become permanent, or that the infection could spread to the spinal cord and/or brain and kill him.

Early empathized with his frightened charge.  “Johnny, I know you’re scared, but a spinal epidural abscess is very serious business.  There really isn’t another option.  You need surgery, now.”

Johnny remained eerily quiet for a moment while he waged war with his emotions.  Finally, he asked in a near whisper, “Am I going to be paralyzed when I wake up?”

“There’s no way to know that,” Early answered honestly.  “We’ll do everything we can to prevent that from happening, but I can’t make any guarantees.”

A tear collected in the corner of Johnny’s eye, and he quickly brushed it away with the back of his hand.  “All right.  I trust you.  Let’s do it.”

Relieved that Johnny had finally given his consent, Dixie blinked back a tear of her own.  Then, as soon as she felt she could trust her voice, Dixie smiled sweetly at the worried young man at the foot of the exam table.  “Boomer, I’m sorry, but you’ll need to step outside while we get Johnny ready to send up to the OR.”

Morton placed his hand on Boomer’s shoulder.  “Surgery’s on the second floor.  I’ll take you up there and show you where to get a decent cup of coffee while you’re waiting.”

“Um, sure.  That would be great.”  Boomer playfully tugged on Johnny’s toes, even though he knew that the injured paramedic probably couldn’t feel it.  “Looks like they’re kicking me out, Mr. G.  I guess the party’s over.  You hang in there, and I’ll see you later, okay?”

A hint of a smile danced about Johnny’s lips as he recalled a similar exchange with Roy several years ago.  “I will,” he promised.  “With both hands.”

+ + + + + + + + + + + +

Resting his foot on the engine’s running board, a very exasperated Hank Stanley waited impatiently for a certain firefighter to emerge from Rampart’s emergency room entrance.  Oh, good grief!  What in the heck was the hold up?  How long could it possibly take for Chet to hand off the squad’s keys to one of the station’s two temporary paramedics?  If the little twit didn’t hurry, they were going to get called out again before they had a chance to grab some seriously overdue chow.  Was he going to have to dispatch a rescue team to the hospital to search for his missing firefighter?  Cap didn’t relish the thought of having to explain that one to Chief McConnike.

He pushed the sleeve of his turnout coat back a little so he could get an unobstructed view of his watch.  As he noted the time, Cap wasn’t sure if the audible groan that followed came from his lips or from his gut.  It was way past lunchtime, and like everyone else, his stomach was loudly complaining about the tragic neglect it had endured while they battled a particularly fierce refinery fire.  He was almost tempted to start eating his hat to stave off the gnawing hunger pangs that were making him more irritable by the second.  Captain Stanley made a mental note to himself to revise the duty roster as soon as they got back to the station.  Perhaps six months of scrubbing the latrine with a toothbrush would impress a sense of urgency upon the errant firefighter the next time he was ordered to drive the squad in.

Finally, a short figure in turnouts materialized outside the emergency room and darted across the parking lot.  “About damn time,” Cap muttered under his breath.

Chet excitedly waved his hands as he ran toward the engine.  “Cap!  Cap!  Dr. Morton needs to talk to you!”

Annoyance gave way to confusion, and Captain Stanley placed his hands on his hips.  Now why on earth would Morton need to talk to him?  Neither one of the paramedics had been injured at the fire...had they?  Surely he would have known if something had happened.  Gabriel Martinez wasn’t exactly the stoic type, and Craig Brice would have notified him in triplicate if there were any changes in his physical condition, as per some obscure regulation.  Had some terrible fate befallen them en route to Rampart?  Or had the mismatched duo finally gotten on each other’s last nerve and beaten the living snot out of each other?

“What’s the problem?” Cap demanded.

Chet was too upset to notice his superior’s menacing glare as the words tumbled out of his mouth.  “It’s Johnny!” he said almost breathlessly.  “He’s having emergency surgery right now.  Something about an abscess on his spine that’s making him paralyzed.”

Captain Stanley’s jaw dropped wide open.  “What?!”

“Yeah.  Dixie said they tried to call us this morning while we were...”

But Cap never heard the rest of Chet’s sentence.  He was too busy running toward the emergency room, with the rest of his men in hot pursuit.

+ + + + + + + + + + + +

The regular members of 51’s A-Shift rode the elevator in silence, holding their breath in nervous anticipation as they waited for the lighted numbers above the door to advance from 1 to 2.  It seemed to take forever for the cab to reach the second floor.  Finally, a high-pitched ding sounded and the doors swooshed open.  The noise startled the men out of their collective reverie, prompting them to file out of the elevator in a grim procession.

Everyone was still in a state of stunned disbelief as they walked toward the surgical waiting room.  Only moments ago, the engine crew had complained about how tired and hungry they were.  Now they were too sick with worry to even think about food.  Morton had explained how Johnny’s relatively simple injury had progressed to a potentially disabling or even life-threatening condition, but unfortunately, there were some questions the doctor simply couldn’t answer.  Like why had Johnny not wanted them to know the full extent of his injuries or how much he had suffered since his accident?  For that matter, why had Johnny allowed his symptoms to deteriorate so badly before he finally picked up the phone and called Dixie?  Even Roy had been pretty closed-mouthed about the whole situation.  Had Johnny been less than forthcoming with him as well?  Had Roy’s family emergency been weighing so heavily upon his mind that he failed to notice the seriousness of his partner’s illness?  Or had the two men conspired to keep the matter shrouded in secrecy for reasons known only to them?

Hopefully Johnny’s new friend would be able to shed some light on a few things that were bothering them.  Captain Stanley scanned the waiting room, and was relieved when he spotted the former football player sitting across from the reception desk.  He had barely taken two steps when the young man got up from his chair and walked toward the group of worried firefighters.

Boomer extended his right hand in greeting.  “Hi.  I’m Boomer Tomjanovich.  You must be Captain Stanley.”

“Yeah.  How did you know?” he asked as he numbly shook the other man’s hand.

“I recognized you from some pictures at Mr. G.’s apartment,” Boomer hastily explained.  “I’ve been spending a lot of time over there since he got hurt.  He talks about you guys all the time.”

“Oh.”

Boomer tried to recall the identity of the other men as he shook their hands.  “Let me guess.  You’re Mr. Stoker, you’re Mr. Lopez, and you must the Phantom’s alter ego, Mr. Kelly.”

Chet positively gushed over the former athlete.  “Oh, wow!  This is so cool.  It’s not everyday I get to meet a famous football player.  I feel like I ought to be asking for your autograph or something!”

Boomer bowed his head slightly, embarrassed by the enthusiastic firefighter’s remarks.  “Well, that’s ancient history.  I’m just a regular guy now.”  Eager to change the subject, Boomer lifted his empty cup and pointed toward the coffee pot.  “Can I get you guys a cup?  It’s not the greatest, but it’s hot and it has caffeine.”

Cap politely declined Boomer’s offer.  “No, thanks.  Maybe later, after we get some news about John.”

“That shouldn’t be too much longer,” Boomer said as he tossed his Styrofoam cup into the trashcan.  “You missed the OR nurse by about five minutes.  Johnny just got out of surgery, and they’ve already moved him to the recovery room.  Dr. Early will be out in a few minutes to go over everything.”

“Sounds great.”  Captain Stanley was about to sit down when he caught a splash of green in his peripheral vision.  Once upon a time he would have identified the color as sort of a jade green.  But after spending so many hours in hospital waiting rooms such as this one, his mind had indelibly associated the hue with surgical scrubs.  Captain Stanley turned his head toward the scrub-suit clad physician as he approached them.

“Sorry to keep you guys waiting,” Early apologized.  “I had to take care of something first.”  Rubbing his left temple, the neurosurgeon motioned for the men to have a seat.

Chet was unable to contain his anxiety, and immediately blurted out the question that was on everyone’s mind.  “So how did it go, Doc?  Is Johnny going to be all right?

A slight smile graced Early’s haggard features.  “The surgery went well.  We were able to successfully drain the abscess and relieve pressure on the spinal cord.”

“So does that mean that the paralysis is going to go away now?” Marco asked.

Early hesitated for a moment while he gathered his thoughts.  He hated to give them a false sense of hope, but at the same time, he didn’t want them to give up on Johnny too soon either.  “It will probably be a few more days before we know for sure,” Early replied.  “Even though we’ve removed the infected material, it’s going to take a while for the swelling around the spinal cord to go down.”

The doctor’s evasive answer failed to satisfy Boomer.  “So what are Johnny’s chances of regaining the full use of his legs again?”

When Early didn’t answer right away, Mike concluded that the prognosis wasn’t encouraging.  “Johnny’s paralysis is permanent, isn’t it?”

“Hopefully not, but yes, it’s possible.”

By now, a funereal atmosphere had descended upon the room, and Captain Stanley began to fear the worst.  “Possible or probable?”

Early silently cursed himself as he rubbed at his throbbing temple again.  If he hadn’t been trying to stave off an impending migraine for the past half hour, maybe he could have exuded a bit more confidence in Johnny’s recovery, thus sparing himself from this unpleasant line of inquiry.  Nonetheless, the question had been posed, and this group of dedicated friends deserved an honest answer.  “It’s highly probable that Johnny will suffer from some degree of neurological impairment,” he reluctantly admitted.  “Even after surgery and extensive rehabilitation.”

Chet, however, refused to accept the gloomy scenario that everyone else envisioned.  “Oh, come on, guys.  We’re talking about Johnny Gage, the comeback kid.  He’s going to bounce back from this.  Just wait and see.”

Captain Stanley wished he could share Chet’s optimism, but surely Johnny’s luck had finally run out.  Still, he was grateful for the man’s unflagging support of his favorite pigeon, and he rested his hand on Chet’s shoulder in a gesture of appreciation.

The HT in Cap’s other hand suddenly crackled to life, intruding upon the solemn occasion.  “Engine 51, what is your status?”

The tired captain reluctantly lifted the handie-talkie to his mouth.  “LA, Engine 51 available.”

“Stand by, Engine 51.”

Opening his turnout coat, Mike reached into his pockets and fumbled for his notepad and a non-sanctioned, retractable ballpoint pen.  He didn’t want to waste time trying to coax the despised extra-fine point pen to write or to dislocate his wrist from the repeated slinging motion required to make the ink flow properly.  “Boomer, looks like we’re about to get a call.  Are you going to stick around for a while?”

“Yeah.  I figure even if Mr. G.’s really out of it, somebody should be with him, especially with his partner being out of town and all.”

Mike hastily scribbled something in a little spiral notebook, then ripped out the page and handed it to Boomer.  “Here are a couple of numbers where you can get in touch with us if something comes up.  The first one is our number at the station.  If we’re not there and it’s an emergency, then call the dispatch number, and they’ll relay a message to Cap.  Of course, it may be a while before we can get back to you, depending on where we are and what kind of call we’re responding to.”

Boomer gratefully accepted the proffered item.  “Cool.  Thanks.”

The other men from Station 51 stared at their shift-mate in amazement.  They were all worried about Johnny, but they hadn’t realized how deeply Johnny’s latest medical crisis had upset the usually reticent engineer.  Mike was never that talkative.

+ + + + + + + + + + + +

Dressed in real pajamas and a blue velour housecoat, Brackett sat beside the window of his private hospital room.  The view left a lot to be desired, but after being tethered to the bed for the past several days with various monitoring wires and the dreaded NG tube stuck up his nose to suction the post-operative drainage from his stomach, even a glimpse of the employee parking lot was a welcome change of pace.  Thank goodness he had been able to persuade Dixie to pick up a few personal items from his apartment over the weekend.  It was such a small thing, but just being able to wear his own clothes or shave with his electric razor helped to restore a fragile sense of normalcy.

Brackett felt a strange sense of loss as he watched several staff members park their cars and walk toward the hospital’s rear entrance.  A few days ago, he would have unquestionably considered himself part of the Rampart family.  Today, he felt like a mere interloper, unworthy of their company or professional affiliation.  Brackett wasn’t usually prone to introspection, but his recent medical crises had precipitated his present contemplative mood.  One chapter of his life had drawn to a close, and it was time to begin a new one.  The prospect seemed downright daunting.  He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he didn’t notice anyone standing outside his room.

Early gently rapped on the frame of the open doorway.  “Kel?”

“Hey, Joe.  Come on in.”

The intensity of the afternoon sun seemed impossibly bright to the light-sensitive Early, and he reflexively held up his hand to shield his eyes.  “Sorry I haven’t been by yet today.  It’s been one of those days.”

Brackett recognized the characteristic photophobia that always accompanied Early’s migraines, and pulled on the cord to close the curtains.  “Uh oh.  Another headache?”

“I’ve been trying to fight it off for the past hour or so, but it looks like I’m losing the battle.”

“No offense, Joe, but you look like hell.  Have you taken anything for it?”

“I took some over the counter Tylenol tablets few minutes ago.”

Brackett scowled as he did the math.  “You’ve had a headache for about an hour and you’re just now getting around to taking something?  And why regular Tylenol?  I ought to call Sam Vance...”

Early held up his hand in an attempt to forestall the forthcoming lecture.  “Kel, first of all, I had an appointment with Sam first thing this morning...”

“Did you bother to keep it?”

“Kel, would you let me finish?  Of course I kept my appointment.”

“And what did he say?”

“He ordered some lab work which I’ll have done tomorrow morning, and scheduled a CT scan for Friday.  Sam also upped my dosage of Inderal and advised me to steer clear of ergotamines until I see Joshua Goldberg for my cardio workup next week.”

The convalescing physician wasn’t so easily placated.  “Why didn’t you let Mike or Roger or whoever’s covering my shift these days to give you a shot?”

Early was rapidly losing his patience with his friend’s overzealous preoccupation with his health.  “Kel, I’ll think about it.  Okay?  Like I said, it’s been a rough day, and it’s just now starting to catch up with me.”

It finally dawned on Brackett that his colleague was wearing scrubs under his lab coat, and his tone softened.  “Bad surgical case?”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Early replied in a weary voice.  “A laminectomy to drain a spinal epidural abscess.”

Brackett flinched at the diagnosis.  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“It gets worse.”

“How?”

“The patient is Johnny Gage.”

Brackett was absolutely dumbfounded.  “What happened?”

“That’s the $64,000 question,” Early remarked bitterly.  “It seems Johnny developed a sore throat a couple of weeks ago, but because we’ve been so overrun with non-urgent cases lately, Johnny decided to make an appointment with a general practitioner to have it checked out.  The appointment got cancelled at the last minute, so Johnny wound up in the ER over the weekend...after he fell down some stairs.  He sprained his ankle, fractured a few toes on the other foot, fractured some ribs and sustained some soft tissue injury to his back.  The sore throat was diagnosed as part of an upper respiratory infection, so a culture was done and a broad-spectrum antibiotic was prescribed, as well as Tylenol #3 and Flexeril for the pain and muscle spasms.  Johnny then asked for a copy of his records from the visit to be forwarded to his GP so that he could follow up on the results of the culture with him rather than have to come back to the ER.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” Brackett remarked.  “We were swamped.”

“Yeah, that would have made sense, if the general practitioner hadn’t been Nathan Grant.”

Brackett groaned.  “Oh, no.  Not that worthless piece of human debris.”

“That’s what I thought, too.”  Early massaged the back of his head while he finished rehashing the rest of the sordid tale.  “Grant told him that the infection was viral, which it wasn’t, and to stop taking the penicillin.  After that point, Johnny was pretty much abandoned.  He called Grant’s office a few times, but you know how it goes.  The staff kept giving him ‘the doctor is out of the office on an emergency’ routine, all the while Johnny’s worsening symptoms were practically screaming an SEA.  So this morning when he woke up and had trouble feeling anything from the mid-thoracic area on down, Johnny was worried enough to call Dixie.  She had Mike talk to him for a few minutes, and then called for a squad.”

“Damn it!” Brackett hissed.  “That bastard is going to kill somebody one of these days, and when he does, the state medical board is going to have blood on its hands.  Do you know how many complaints have been filed against Grant arising out of his drug use?  At least a half a dozen, and he’s only been practicing here since February.  All they do is advise him to seek treatment for his addiction.  For God’s sake, they don’t even give him a slap on the wrist.  And the credentialing department here at Rampart isn’t much better.  Someone got really sloppy about running a background check.  There are too many things that don’t add up, like the fact that Grant supposedly graduated from medical school twelve years ago, but has a California license less than a year old.  Where did he practice before?”

Brackett rubbed his freshly shaven face as his concern for Johnny competed with his ire.  “I just can’t believe this.  Of all the doctors Johnny could have seen, why Grant?”

Early started to explain how Johnny’s landlady had recommended Nathan Grant, but he suspected that the question was probably more rhetorical in nature.  Besides, his headache was getting worse, and he really wanted to wind down the conversation so he could go lie down in a dark room somewhere for a few minutes.  He slumped down in his chair and rested his chin on the back of his hand.  “I guess there will be plenty of time to sort that out later.  Right now, I’m just glad Johnny came here when he did, or...”

“Or he could have died,” Brackett supplied.

“He still could.  A spinal epidural abscess is a very nasty diagnosis with a mortality rate ranging anywhere from 18-23%.”

“But Johnny’s young and in otherwise good health,” Brackett countered.  “He doesn’t have any co-morbid conditions like diabetes, alcoholism, IV drug use, chronic renal disease...oh, crap.  I almost forgot about his spleenectomy.  That could seriously screw up his immune system and make it harder for him to fight off the infection.”

Early nodded his head in agreement.  “Exactly.  I cultured the wound during surgery, but the results won’t be ready for at least 48 hours.  In the meantime, I’ve started Johnny on Nafcillin.  We’ll probably get him started on passive physical therapy tomorrow, but between you and me, it would be a miracle if Johnny escaped without significant neurological impairment.  The best he can probably hope for is some limited sensation and mobility in his legs.”

“But Johnny’s beaten some pretty long odds before.  Theoretically, he could make a full recovery.”

The neurosurgeon shrugged.  “Yes, theoretically, it’s possible.  His cord symptoms were less than 72 hours in duration, he came in before the paresthesia developed into full-fledged paralysis, and as you pointed out, he’s young and in otherwise good health.  If you factor that in famous Gage luck and determination, I suppose he could fall way outside the bell curve and make a full recovery.  But is it likely to happen?  I doubt it.  Most SEA patients suffer from permanent neurological damage.  Look, Kel.  I’m not trying to be a wet blanket here.  I’m just trying to be realistic.”

“I know.”

Eager to change the subject, Early gestured toward Brackett’s nose.  “I see they finally pulled the tube.”

Brackett’s hand automatically flew up to his face to the tender area made raw by the so-called hypoallergenic tape.  “Bob pulled it early this morning, although I’m not exactly sure he did me a great favor.  So far, all they’re letting me have is a clear liquid diet that tastes like dishwater.”

“Did he say when he plans to turn you loose?”

“Probably on Friday.  David’s released me from a cardio standpoint, so Bob’s going to have the final say as to when I can go home.  Of course, I’ll still have to come back here a couple of times a week for a while for rehab.  I guess that will give me plenty of time to sort some stuff out and figure out what I’m going to do.”

There was something about that last sentence that triggered a strange sense of foreboding in Early.  “What do you mean?”

Brackett sighed as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.  “I might not come back to work in the ER.  Maybe I don’t need all of this stress and aggravation anymore.”

“But you’re an adrenaline junkie, Kel.  You thrive on chaos.”

“I think it’s time to make some changes in my life.”

“Like what?  Are you planning to take a desk job?  Are you crazy?”

Brackett smiled at his friend’s reference to his questionable mental status.  “Maybe.  I’m thinking about leaving the medical field altogether.”

By now, Early was thoroughly confused.  “And do what, pray tell?”

“Go back to school and become a lawyer.  I’m still young enough.”

Early thought he was going to have to scrape his jaw off the floor.  “What?  Kel, I don’t even know where to start.  Is this some kind of weird debt you feel you owe to your father because you survived your MI and he didn’t?”

Brackett tried to defend his position.  “But practicing law would probably be a lot less stressful than practicing medicine,” he argued.

“Isn’t that like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire?  Have you bothered to ask Bob Mueller how many of his patients are attorneys?”  Early wondered if his sudden nausea was the product of his developing migraine or Brackett’s stunning announcement that had sent him reeling.

Brackett’s eyes narrowed as he noted the slight change in the other man’s complexion.  “Joe, are you okay?  You look like you’re going to be sick.”

Early almost laughed at the absurdity of the situation.  Usually he wouldn’t consider an acute attack of nausea a blessing, but in this case, it provided a convenient excuse for him to flee the room and thus avoid having to debate Brackett’s ill-conceived plan.  “I think I’ll take your advice and ask Mike to give me something for my headache and then go crash in the on-call room for a bit.”

“That would probably be best,” Brackett said, equally relieved that the conversation would be mercifully cut short.

Early rose from his chair and gently rested his hand on his friend’s shoulder as prepared to leave.  “Kel, I’m sorry about your father, but becoming a lawyer isn’t going to bring him back.”

Brackett didn’t bother to reply.  How could anyone possibly understand?  He wasn’t trying to resurrect his father from the grave.  He simply wanted the ghost of James Brackett to stop inhabiting his tortured dreams.

+ + + + + + + + + + + +

The morning after his surgery, Johnny struggled to pay attention as Early conducted a post-operative neurological assessment.  He wasn’t sure what kind of medication was being infused through the catheter in his chest, but whatever it was, it made him feel fuzzy.  Unfortunately, the mystery medication didn’t help to alleviate his mounting anxiety as the neurosurgeon completed his exam.  Finally, Johnny couldn’t stand the suspense anymore.  “C’mon, Doc.  You’re killing me here.  What’s the verdict?”

Early hesitated briefly before he answered.  “It’s about what we’d expect to see at this point.”

Johnny’s heart sank at the less than glowing report.  “Uh oh.  Does that mean I’m going paralyzed for the rest of my life?”

“There was a significant amount of edema around the spinal cord, Johnny.  Once the infection clears and the swelling goes down, we’ll probably see more of an improvement.”

Although the doctor didn’t actually come out and say it, Johnny knew his prognosis was bleak.  He had spent too many years as a paramedic not to recognize bad news, no matter how diplomatically it was phrased.  Still, he needed to hear some kind of confirmation from the neurosurgeon.  “Dr. Early?  I want to know the truth, not the watered down version that you doctors like to give out when you’re trying to soften the blow.”

Early pulled up a chair and sat beside the anxious paramedic.  “Johnny, don’t jump to conclusions here just yet.  You just underwent major surgery near your spinal cord.  The problem is that the body doesn’t know the difference between a good trauma and a bad trauma.  It’s going to take a few days before we know anything for sure.

“But you’re not expecting a complete recovery, are you?” Johnny persisted.  “I noticed that you said you’re hoping for an improvement.  You didn’t rush to assure me that I’m going to be able to walk again.”

“Johnny, it’s premature to speculate about the long term prognosis,” Early gently chided.  “Right now, we need to concentrate on what to expect in the short term.”

“Such as?”

Grateful for the opportunity to slightly alter the course of the conversation, Early outlined the treatment plan.  “Okay, let’s see.  You’re getting Nafcillin, a broad-spectrum antibiotic, through your subclavian line, as well as Prednisone to reduce the swelling around your spinal cord.  Later on, maybe in about a week or so, we’ll put in a PICC line since you’ll need intravenous antibiotics for an extended period of time.  Of course, once the causative organism has been identified, we might need to change your medication to one that’s strain specific.  The lab results should be available in another day or two.  I’ve also prescribed subcutaneous heparin to prevent clots, Tylenol for the fever and Phenergan for your nausea.  And since your body is going to be burning calories like crazy while it fights off the infection and recovers from the trauma of surgery, we’ll need to insert a feeding tube later today to make sure that your nutritional needs are being met.”

“Who’s going to put all of these tubes in?  One of the nurses?”

“Probably.  Or if you prefer, I can do it.  It’s completely up to you.”

Johnny knew that the nurses were a hundred times better at stuffing tubes into the human body than most doctors were, but he felt more comfortable if Early did the honors.  For some warped reason, he felt less emotionally vulnerable in front of Early than he did in front of the nursing staff.  “I’d rather you do it,” Johnny finally answered.

“No problem.  I don’t mind.”

“Okay.  Thanks.”

Early stood up and began to stuff the neurological testing paraphernalia back into his black doctor’s bag.  “Is there anything else I can do before I leave?  My shift starts in about fifteen minutes.”

“Yeah.”  Johnny shifted uncomfortably from the last position the nurses had placed him in.  “What about physical therapy?”

“Actually, we’ll start you on passive PT right away.  Mostly range of motion exercises at this point.  Over the next few days, we’ll let you sit up in bed and then let you transfer to a wheelchair and sit in a chair for short periods of time.”

Johnny blanched when Early mentioned the dreaded wheelchair.  “What about rehab?  Will I go to the same place that I went to after I busted up my leg in that car accident?”

Early shook his head.  “No.  That was mostly an orthopedic rehab center.  I’d like to refer you to a facility that specializes in neurological trauma.  They have an excellent occupational therapy department.”

“Oh.”  Several seconds ticked by as the significance of the doctor’s words registered in Johnny’s mind.  His worst fears had just been confirmed.  Extensive physical therapy was a given as part of the rehabilitation process, but occupational therapy was a completely different matter.  It implied that he would have to learn to live with a permanent disability, and that meant his career as a firefighter/paramedic was over.

Johnny stared up at the ceiling tiles and frantically tried to blink back a tear.  “I guess they won’t have to worry about retraining me to do my job from a wheelchair, huh?  I mean, it’s not like there’s huge demand out there for crippled paramedics like me.”

“Johnny, don’t do this to yourself,” Early pleaded.

“You’re right, Doc.  Maybe I’ll just skip rehab this time.  It would be a complete waste of time.”

“You don’t understand...”

“No, you don’t understand.  I can’t do this anymore.”  Unbidden tears welled up in Johnny’s eyes as he struggled against the torrent of emotions that threatened to overwhelm him.  “I’m tired of having to fight and claw my way back from some illness or injury, just so I can have the rug pulled out from under me time and time again.  It took me almost a year to recover from that femur fracture.  I don’t have any fight left in me, Doc.  I just can’t do it.  If I can’t be a paramedic anymore...”  Johnny’s tenuous control faltered, and an occasional tear or sniffle gave way to the convulsive sobbing that wracked his injured body.

“It’s going to be okay,” Early soothed.  “I’ll get one of the nurses to give you something to help you rest, okay?”

But Johnny never acknowledged the doctor’s kind words or the comforting hand on his shoulder.  He was only aware of the dark curtain of despair that had suddenly descended upon him.

+ + + + + + + + + + + +

Roy slowly ascended the stairs to Johnny’s apartment, careful not to make any sudden jarring motions.  His hangover from hell had finally begun to dissipate yesterday afternoon, but sudden movements still tended to make his head throb.  Thank goodness he didn’t have to report back to work for a few more days.  That should give him plenty of time to recover from his self-inflicted ordeal.  But as Roy reached the top of the stairs, a wave of apprehension suddenly washed over him.  He might be able to conceal any remnants of his hangover from the rest of his shift-mates by then, but fooling his partner so soon after his latest drinking binge was a completely different story.  Johnny seemed to have a sixth sense about things like this.  Roy wondered if he should even try to pretend that he hadn’t broken his promise to his best friend.  Or should he go ahead and confess his terrible secret to Johnny and get it over with?

He was tempted to simply turn around and go back home until the residual effects of his hangover were no longer detectable, even to the most expert eye.  However, as soon as the thought crossed his mind, Roy immediately dismissed it.  First of all, even if his physical condition didn’t give him away, his guilty expression would, no matter how much time had passed since a drop of alcohol had touched his lips.  And secondly, Roy hadn’t checked in on Johnny in almost a week, and his uncharacteristic neglect weighed heavily upon his conscience, even if his partner wasn’t that seriously injured.  Hopefully Johnny would be too stoned on painkillers to notice that anything was amiss, and if he wasn’t...well, Roy decided he would have to cross that bridge if and when he came to it.

Before he knocked on the door to Johnny’s apartment, Roy retrieved his keys from his pocket.  The last time he had dropped by, his sidelined partner hadn’t exactly been in any condition to pry himself from the couch to answer, and Roy wanted to be prepared just in case.  He took a deep breath to steel his nerves before he rapped his knuckles on the door.  “Johnny, it’s Roy.  Do I need to let myself in?”

Roy was surprised when a tall stranger answered the door.  For a moment, he was afraid that he wasn’t as sober as he had thought, and had accidentally knocked on the wrong door by mistake.  His fears were quickly put to rest when the man ushered him into the uncharacteristically tidy apartment.

“Oh, wow!  Am I sure glad to see you, Mr. DeSoto!” Boomer gushed.  “We’ve been trying to get in touch with you since yesterday morning.  I know you’ve been out of town, but Miss McCall had hoped...”

A sick feeling totally unrelated to his hangover formed in the pit of Roy’s stomach.  “Dixie McCall?” Roy interrupted.

“Yeah.  She must have called your number at the house a zillion times.  Johnny told her that you probably wouldn’t be home, but she insisted on trying to get in touch with you anyway.”  It finally dawned on Boomer that in his excitement to see the senior paramedic, he had completely forgotten to properly introduce himself.  “Oh, sorry.  I’m Boomer Tomjanovich, and you’re probably wondering what in the heck I’m flapping my gums about.”

Roy nodded cautiously as he shook the young man’s hand.  “Oh, yeah.  You’re Johnny’s friend, the football player.”

Boomer closed the door and motioned for Roy to have a seat while he finished packing some toiletries and various odds and ends into a canvas gym bag.  “Mr. G.’s in the hospital.  He had a spinal epidural abscess, and had to have emergency surgery yesterday morning.  Dr. Early says that he’s doing as well as can be expected, but he doesn’t seem to think Johnny is ever going to be able to walk again.”

“Oh, my God.”  Roy thought he was going to lose his breakfast.  His best friend in the whole world needed him yesterday, and he had ignored every single call just because he was suffering from a stupid hangover and was too lazy to pick up the phone.  What had he done?  How could Johnny ever forgive him?

Still dazed by the news, Roy sat on the couch in stunned silence as Boomer explained how Johnny’s symptoms had worsened over the past few days, why a squad and ambulance had to be dispatched to transport Johnny to the hospital, and how after only twenty-four hours after emergency surgery, he had already given up any hope of recovery and was already starting to sink into a depression.  Roy felt that if he hadn’t been so busy feeling sorry for himself ever since Joanne and the kids left, he could have prevented all of this from happening.  He castigated himself for not stopping by to check in on Johnny more often, or insisting that he go back to the emergency room instead of following up with his GP.  Good grief, he didn’t even answer the damned phone when it kept ringing off the wall.  What kind of a friend was he anyway?

Boomer seemed to sense the other man’s inner turmoil, and offered a weak smile.  “Mr. DeSoto, I hope you’re not beating yourself up over this.  Dr. Early said that this diagnosis is pretty rare, and that even some doctors miss the early signs because they don’t seem all that serious at first.  And it’s not your fault you haven’t been around a lot lately.  Mr. G. knows that if it hadn’t been for that family emergency, you would have been here every second when you had the chance.  Don’t sweat it, man.  The important thing is that you’re here now.”

“Yeah,” Roy lied without conviction.

Satisfied that he had packed everything Johnny had requested, Boomer zipped the bag closed and hefted the strap over his shoulder.  “Well, I hate to run off on you, but I gotta stop by the store pick up a couple of things for Mr. G. before I head back over to Rampart.  I’m glad I finally got a chance to meet you, Mr. DeSoto.  I just wish it had been under better circumstances.”

“Same here.”

After Boomer closed the door behind him, Roy walked over to the window and slightly parted the curtains so that he could peer outside.  He watched the energetic young man bound down the stairs two at a time and then jog over to an older model Chevy pickup.  It was only when Boomer drove away did Roy bury his face in the curtains and lament his role in this senseless tragedy.  “Oh, my God,” Roy moaned piteously.  “What have I done?”

+ + + + + + + + + + + +

Brackett surveyed the contents of his lunch tray and frowned in dismay.  If the dietician was trying to tempt his appetite, she was failing miserably.  Salt-free cream of mushroom soup, green Jell-O, a plastic container of apple juice and a cup of decaffeinated coffee hardly constituted a decent meal in his humble opinion.  Brackett understood exactly why his gastroenterologist had started him off on a bland liquid diet.  Part of his stomach had been removed a week ago today, and the NG tube had only been pulled yesterday.  But surely the dietary department could scrounge up something that at least looked or smelled appetizing.  Maybe he should call one of the guys from Station 51 and see if they’d sneak him a thermos of Hank Stanley’s famous clam chowder.  It was worth a try.  If his doctors expected him to eat and put on some weight, they were going to have to authorize something better than this and the hyperalimentation he was still getting through his subclavian line.  Brackett set the lid back on the hot plate and pushed the tray aside.  A soft chuckle from the open doorway didn’t improve his disposition.

Early leaned against the doorframe and grinned.  “What’s the matter, Kel?  Not quite what you had in mind?”

“There ought to be laws against food like this,” Brackett complained.

“Actually, there is.  I believe it’s addressed under the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in the part about cruel and unusual punishment.”

“Hmmpf.  Cruel and unusual.  I’d definitely say that about covers it.”

Early sat down in one of the chairs beside Brackett’s bed.  “I’m sorry I missed you this morning.  I stopped by the lab to have some blood drawn, and by the time I made it up here, they had already shipped you off to your cardio rehab.”

Brackett grumbled at the memory.  “They had me walking around in circles and riding a stationary bicycle again.  Now I know what a hamster feels like, exerting all that energy and never getting anywhere.  I’ll be glad when I can go home.  I’m sick and tired of this crap.”

“Are you referring to the rehab, or being a patient in general?”

“Both, I guess.”

“Is Bob still planning on letting you go home on Friday?”

Brackett glowered at his untouched lunch tray.  “That depends.  Now he’s threatening to keep me here until I start eating, but he won’t let me have anything that tastes halfway decent.”

Early tried to reason with his friend.  “Kel, I know you’re frustrated, but the sooner you cooperate, the sooner you’ll get out of here.”

“That’s easy for you to say.  You’re not the one who’s been lying in a hospital bed for nearly two weeks.”

“Kel, cut it out.  I understand a lot more than you give me credit for.”

“Do you?” Brackett challenged.  “You have absolutely no idea what I’ve been going through.”

Early couldn’t believe his friend and fellow physician would make such a ridiculous statement.  “Kel, you have to be kidding.”

“Do I look like I’m laughing?”

“For crying out loud!  I’ve had brain surgery and an emergency double bypass, remember?”

“But you never actually had a heart attack, did you?”

The normally avuncular neurosurgeon was infuriated by the remark, and lashed out at Brackett in a voice dripping with sarcasm.  “Of course not.  Silly me.  I took the easy way out and let Fred and Tom crack my chest open, stop my heart and slice up my leg so they could harvest a saphenous vein for a graft so they could re-route the plumbing to my heart.”

“Yeah, but...”

“But what?”

“But that was done under controlled conditions.  You didn’t have the Grim Reaper sneak up on you like I did, not once, but twice,” Brackett countered.

“The Grim Reaper, or your father?” Early shot back.

“Hey, that’s not called for...”

“Oh, yeah?  Just because I was basically asymptomatic doesn’t mean that I wasn’t scared.  And my condition was a heck of a lot more serious than yours.  Your blockage was confined to a small distal branch of the right coronary artery.  I had a complete occlusion of the mid RCA, and a high-grade lesion in the left anterior descending coronary artery.  You didn’t even need surgery, just a few weeks of rehab.  Plus, it took me months to fully recover.  You’re looking at a matter of weeks.  So I’d say you got off pretty easy by comparison.”

“Easy?!” Brackett sputtered.  “I nearly bled out from a gastric hemorrhage!”

Early refused to back down.  “That’s your own damned fault.  You had that ulcer for nearly two years.  If you hadn’t been so obstinate...”

By now, Brackett was about ready to jump out of his hospital bed and wrap his fingers around the other man’s throat.  Instead, he settled for a verbal barb.  “Really?  You mean like the time when you refused to have your headaches evaluated because you assumed they were just migraine variants?”

“So just because I did something incredibly stupid, does that mean that you’re entitled to pull a boneheaded stunt, too?  Are we even now?”  The nagging headache that had plagued Early for the past half hour was getting worse by the minute, and this conversation was not helping at all.  Soon the multi-colored spots that danced across his central vision would mutate into an ever-expanding herringbone pattern until it floated into the extreme periphery.  Nausea would inevitably follow, as well as an extreme sensitivity to light and sound.  He had to get out of here before his headache escalated faster than the argument.

Brackett sighed in exasperation.  “I don’t know why I even bother with all of this.  I ought to just check myself out AMA and go home and get it over with.”

“And do what?  Rot in a darkened apartment like I almost did?”  Early’s expression quickly shifted from one of anger to one of concern as he thought about the last part of Brackett’s comment.  “And what did you mean by ‘get it over with’?  Kel, you’re not planning on...”

“On what?  Killing myself?  Is that what you want?”

“Of course it’s not what I want.  You’re twisting my words.”

“And you’re not?”

“Then what did you mean?”

“I mean that I’m tired of people telling me what to do all of the time, especially people who don’t understand how I feel.”

Early rolled his eyes.  “Oh, so we’re back to that.  Okay, so maybe I don’t know what it’s like to walk in your shoes, but you don’t know what it’s like to walk in mine either.  Well, let me give you an idea.  I get spooked whenever a familiar symptom rears its ugly head because I’m afraid I’m about to suffer a recurrence of something I’d rather not think about.  If I develop a really bad case of indigestion, I start to wonder if it’s because my heart isn’t getting enough oxygen because my arteries are clogged, and I worry that I won’t survive another bypass surgery.  The same thing happens when I get a headache.  I wonder if it’s just a migraine, or if it’s another meningioma, or worse.  So I try to bury my head in the sand like an ostrich and hope the symptoms go away on their own, because I’m terrified of what the doctors might tell me if I go in for an evaluation.  As stupid as it sounds, there’s a part of me that feels that nothing bad can happen to me if I stay in denial long enough.”

Brackett continued to sulk, even though Early’s words had struck a nerve.  “Aren’t you being a tad melodramatic?  And anyway, it’s more complicated than that, Joe.”

“Because of your father?”

“Yes.”

“Have you talked to Chris Hauser about it?”

“Not exactly.”

If nothing else, Early was beginning to better understand Brackett’s hamster analogy.  He felt like he was going nowhere in a hurry.  Early wished he could impart some special words of wisdom, but he couldn’t think of anything profound to say, especially when his head was pounding.  But as he rose to his feet, Early decided to make one last ditch effort to get through to his friend before he sought sanctuary in a cool, dark room somewhere.

Standing at Brackett’s side, Early spoke in a soft, halting voice.  “Kel, I know that you and your father had your differences over the years, but you can’t let him run your life from beyond the grave.  You’re not the first man who ever disagreed with a parent over a career choice, and you won’t be the last.  Trust me on that.  But I can’t tell you how much it frustrates me to see a man who can resume a normal life want to throw it all away, while another man may not have that opportunity.”

Brackett sadly nodded at the implication of Early’s words.  “Johnny.”

“Yes, Johnny.”

“How is he doing?  Any change?

Early massaged the back of his neck in a feeble attempt to alleviate a fierce muscle spasm that was contributing to his worsening migraine.  “His neuro exam looks a little better, but not much.  He has more sensation in his legs, proprioception has improved and he can wiggle his toes, but overall, I can’t say the results are particularly encouraging so far.  Johnny is already talking about refusing to go to rehab.  He doesn’t feel it’s worth the effort.”

“Maybe I should go see him.  Do you think that would help?”

“Only if you promise to keep your gloomy thoughts to yourself.  I don’t want to get a call from the neuro ward telling me that two patients flung themselves out the window after a pity party.”

A few minutes ago, Brackett would have been incensed by the mild rebuke.  Now he found himself in complete agreement with the older physician.  “I promise.”

“Good.”  Early started to turn toward the door, but there was more thing he had to get off his chest before he left.  “Kel, I wouldn’t put too much stock in certain things your father might have told you.  After all, he did say that you had a great bedside manner.”

Brackett narrowed his eyes in suspicion.  “And what in the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Early smiled enigmatically.  “Just that your dad’s judgment wasn’t always perfect.  Think about it, okay?”

Think?  Brackett was positively going to obsess about it.

+ + + + + + + + + + + +

Roy nervously paced outside Johnny’s hospital room while he tried to summon his courage.  Usually when he felt he had failed his partner in some way, it was over some perceived rather than real transgression, and Johnny would good-naturedly kid him about it once they finally cleared the air.  But this time was different.  Roy had let his friend down.  Johnny just didn’t know it yet.  How did one even begin a conversation of this nature?  Forgive me, Johnny, for I have sinned?

He took a deep breath and slowly counted to ten...and then twenty.  Roy was about to try for thirty when he realized the futility of stalling for time.  It wasn’t going to be any easier to face Johnny in ten more seconds, or in a ten thousand.  Oh, well.  Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.  Roy knocked on the door, and nearly jumped back at the loud sound his knuckles made against the heavy wooden door.  Had he hit the door that hard, or was that the sound of a guilty conscience accusing him of his misdeeds?

Fortunately, Roy had no difficult recognizing the sound of his partner’s voice, and pushed the door open as soon as he heard the magic words inviting him to come in.  He wasn’t sure what he was expecting to see when he entered the room, but this wasn’t it.  If he hadn’t just heard Johnny with his own ears, he would have assumed that his partner was sleeping peacefully in his usual position, on his back with his left arm draped over his eyes.  Roy supposed that given the seriousness of Johnny’s condition, he expected more medical paraphernalia or something.  Roy tentatively approached his friend’s bedside and softly cleared his throat.  “Johnny?  It’s me.”

A pale imitation of his famous crooked grin crept across Johnny’s features as he repositioned his arm behind his head.  “Roy!”

“I stopped by your apartment to see you this morning, and I ran into Boomer.  He told me what happened.  I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”

“Me too.  I missed you.”

Roy mentally took a quick inventory of the tubes invading Johnny’s body.  He understood the purpose of the subclavian line and the much-despised Foley, but the nasogastric tube baffled him.  Boomer had told him that Johnny was depressed, but was he already refusing to eat?  Roy pointed toward the tube taped to Johnny’s face.  “What’s with the NG tube?”

“Oh, that.”  Johnny’s fingers traced the thin tubing.  “Dr. Early said that spinal epidural abscess patients burn tons of calories while the body tries to heal and fight off an infection at the same time, so he put that in about an hour ago.  I can still have real food, but so far the cafeteria hasn’t sent up anything edible.”

“Is there anything I could bring you?  Like a burger or a milkshake or something?”

“Maybe later,” Johnny answered in a sad, quiet voice.  “I don’t really feel like eating just yet.  I’m still trying to deal with all of this, you know?  I just spent a year of my life trying to get back to where I was before the car accident, and now this.  It’s not fair.  What was the point if I was going to wind up in a wheelchair anyway?  I feel like I wasted a whole year for nothing.  I can’t tell you how much it hurts to know that I’ve made my last run as a paramedic.  It’s like my soul has been ripped right out of my body.  I don’t know what I’m going to do.  Outside the fire department, I don’t have any other training or job experience.  How am I supposed to support myself?  I don’t even know if I’m eligible for any kind of disability since this didn’t happen on the job, and I’m not sure how long the company that owns Katie’s apartment building is going to be willing to foot the bill once they find out this is going to cost big bucks.  And where am I going to live?  My apartment’s on the second floor, and there aren’t any elevators.  Maybe if I get lucky, this infection will do me in and solve all my problems in one fell swoop.”

Roy pulled up a chair and sat down.  He knew his words would seem hollow and trite, but he had to make the effort to provide some measure of encouragement.  “Johnny, I know this must seem terribly overwhelming, and you have every right to be upset.  But it’s too early to know how everything is going to work out.  You can’t give up before you’ve even gotten started.”

“What’s the use, Roy?  I’m never going to walk again.  I might as well go ahead and quit the fire department.”

“Johnny, you’re giving up way too soon.  You might make a miraculous recovery and surprise everyone, including you.  And if, God forbid, you don’t, I’m sure HQ could reassign you to a desk job.  You already have about ten years invested in the department.  It would be a shame to throw all of that away.  Or what about asking Brackett if you could help out with the paramedic program like you did when you were sidelined with your broken femur?  I’m sure he’d love to have you back, especially since he just had that heart attack.  Brackett would probably jump at the opportunity to let you take on some additional responsibilities to lighten his work load.”

Johnny, however, was not in the mood to be placated, and quickly dismissed his partner’s suggestions.  “Roy, you don’t get it, do you?  I’m a hose jockey, not a desk jockey.  I’d be bored to tears.  And I don’t want to help train paramedics either.  It would be like rubbing salt into an open wound, a daily reminder of what I’ve lost.  The only reason I managed to get through it before was because there was a sliver of hope that I could be a paramedic again.  This time I’m doomed from the get-go.  Besides, even if I could regain the full use of my legs, the department has no business turning me loose on the unsuspecting public.  I’d probably screw up and miss other people’s symptoms like I missed mine.  I blew it, Roy, plain and simple.  I should have known something was wrong with my back, but I so afraid that people would think I was a wimp...oh, never mind.  I don’t want to talk about it anymore, okay?”

“But, Johnny...”

“I said don’t want to talk about it,” Johnny repeated in tone that brooked no argument.

“Fine.”  Roy was almost regretting his decision to abstain from alcohol.  The tension in the room was almost palpable, and he could use something to calm his frazzled nerves.  He was therefore relieved when Johnny broke the uncomfortable silence.

“So how did your trip to...uh...oh, crap.”  Johnny adjusted his IV line to allow for more slack so it didn’t pull at the needle sewn below his right collarbone.  “I forgot where you told me Joanne’s folks moved after her dad’s latest job transfer.”

“Sacramento,” Roy supplied.  “And to answer your question, the trip didn’t pan out like I hoped.  By the time I got there, Joanne had already left and her parents wouldn’t tell me where she went.”

“Oh, man.  Sorry to hear that.  What are you going to do?”

“I dunno.  She might be staying with her sister and her husband in San Francisco, but I haven’t tried to call yet.”

“Why not?”

Roy slumped back in the chair and rested his feet on the undercarriage of Johnny’s bed.  “I guess it’s because I need to feel that I still have control over something in my life.”

Johnny’s confusion was evident by his blank expression.  “I don’t understand.  How does not calling your wife give you control?”

“Because it makes me feel like our separation is my choice and not Joanne’s.”

Roy realized that his answer failed to satisfy Johnny’s curiosity, so he made another clumsy attempt.  “Okay, I admit that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but bear with me for a minute.  When Joanne started spending so much time with Cynthia and got into all this women’s lib stuff, I felt I didn’t have any choice in the matter.  Joanne was determined to do what she pleased, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it.  If I told her that Cynthia wasn’t welcome in our home anymore, all she had to do was wait until I was at work and then invite her over.  Then when Joanne left, I didn’t have anything to say about that either.  I came home from work one day, and she and the kids were gone.  So when I showed up on her parents’ doorstep the other day and Joanne wasn’t there, I felt like I was being rejected all over again.  So you see, I just can’t handle any more rejection in my life right now, and by not calling her, it gives me the illusion that I’m in the driver’s seat for a change.”

An incredulous Johnny shook his head.  “Do you have any idea how dumb that sounds?”

“Yeah,” Roy admitted.  “If I had known then what I know now, I would have saved myself a trip.  Then I could helped you out more instead of...”

“Instead of what?”

Roy quickly averted his eyes and stared at a spot on the floor.  “Oh, nothing.”

Johnny had worked with his partner for too many years not to know when he felt guilty about something.  But why would Roy be blaming himself?  What had he done that was so awful that he couldn’t look him in the eye?

All of a sudden, the picture became as clear as glass, and Johnny was furious at his friend.  “You’ve been drinking again, haven’t you?  That’s why you’ve been avoiding me, isn’t it?  You couldn’t face me because you knew you had broken your promise.  Tell me, Roy, were you drunk yesterday when Dixie tried to call you?  Were you?  Or were you so hung over that you couldn’t pick up the phone?”

Roy’s excuse sounded pathetic to his own ears.  “But Johnny, you have to understand, I’ve been going through a rough time lately.”

“And I’m not?!” Johnny shouted.  “Look at me, Roy!  I’m paralyzed.  I’m never going to walk again.  I can’t even take care of my most basic needs.  The nurses have to turn me every couple of hours to make sure I don’t develop blood clots or bedsores.  I can’t even pee on my own or control my bowels.  Do you have any idea how humiliating that is?  Do you know what it’s like to have to be diapered like a damned baby when you’re thirty-one years old, or need a catheter to empty your bladder?  Or how about when your doctor starts talking about storing your sperm so that you can father children some day?  How would you feel if you could never make love to a woman again, and had to rely on the medical equivalent of a turkey baster to get someone pregnant?  Who’s going to want to marry a guy like me who can’t get it up anymore?  At least you already have a wife, even if you’re too much of a coward to go chase her down and patch things up.  So how dare you sit there and try to justify your broken promise to me just because you’re scared Joanne is going to hurt your itty-bitty feelings.  If your marriage was that important, you’d do something about it instead of drinking yourself to death.”

Enraged by Johnny’s remarks, Roy launched into a verbal assault of his own.  “Oh, yeah?  Isn’t that like the pot calling the kettle black?  You’re so scared, you won’t even consider any kind of therapy that could help you get better, or least improve your quality of life.  You’d rather lie there in that bed, safe and sound, and feel sorry for yourself.”

A stout, middle-aged nurse carrying a couple of syringes entered the room and stared menacingly at the senior paramedic.  “Sir, I’m going to have to ask to you leave.  Mr. Gage needs his rest.”

Roy thrust his jaw forward in a defiant gesture as he scrambled to his feet.  “I was just leaving anyway.  I wouldn’t want to stay where I’m not wanted.”

The nurse’s countenance remained stern and unyielding until his former partner stormed out of the door in a fit of rage.  Only when the sound of Roy’s retreating footsteps faded away did she smile at her distraught patient.  “I’m so sorry about that.  If I had known he was going to upset you like that, I never would have let him in here.”

Johnny’s lower lip began to quiver as he tried to keep up a brave front.  “It’s okay, Lottie.  I don’t think he’ll be coming back.”

Lottie noticed the slight catch in his voice as she emptied the syringes into his IV port.  “You know, Dr. Early authorized something if you got this upset again.  Do you want me to get that for you?”

What he wanted was for his legs to work so he could walk out of here.  But for now, he’d gladly accept anything that would help him forget the pain of his friend’s betrayal.

+ + + + + + + + + + + +

Unable to sleep, Early stretched out on the couch and watched an old Humphrey Bogart movie.  He had already seen The Caine Mutiny at least a dozen times, but at two-thirty in the morning, there weren’t many viewing alternatives.  Nonetheless, Early was grateful for the diversion.  His heated exchange with Brackett had been weighing heavily upon his mind all day, and the more he thought about it, the worse he felt about his less than exemplary behavior.  It simply wasn’t in his nature to be confrontational.  What could he possibly have been thinking?

Early had initially attributed his irritability to a number of different factors.  The first alleged culprit was a possible electrolyte imbalance.  For the past few days, Early had waited until he was practically throwing up everything but his toenails before he would allow one of the other emergency room doctors to give him an injection for his migraine-induced nausea.  That line of logic inspired the low blood sugar defense.  Not only had he been unable to keep anything down, Early had to have some fasting blood work drawn that morning.  Then things got pretty hectic in the ER, so he never got a chance to grab a quick bite or down a cup of decaf with a generous amount of sugar and cream.  Therefore, he was running on fumes by the time he went to see Brackett during his lunch break.  Of course, the migraine provided another convenient excuse.  But no matter how hard he tried, Early could not justify losing his temper that like, especially at his best friend, even if that best friend was behaving like a giant pain in the ass.

How had his good intentions gone so seriously awry?  Early had hoped that having undergone brain surgery and a double bypass, he would somehow be endowed with special insight that would help him to be more understanding and supportive of Brackett during his two recent medical crises and subsequent rehabilitation.  Instead, he had used his experiences as ammunition in a gloried pissing contest.  What next?  A competition to see who could outdo each other in the coulda, shoulda, woulda game of self-recrimination?

Early was ashamed that he had handled the situation so badly, and resolved to make amends as soon as possible.  But this time, he’d eat something before he went to talk to Brackett.  If nothing else, that would give him one less excuse to act like a jerk.  As Early turned off the television set, he wondered how he was going to like the taste of crow for breakfast.

Part 4