Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 10:42:47 -0500 From: Matt <mnhunter@midsouth.rr.com> Subject: Search-and-rescue-4 This is part four of my continuing story, and I sincerely hope you all are enjoying it thus far. Please continue to send me your thoughts, feelings, and suggestions about the story to mnhunter@midsouth.rr.com, and I'll get back to you. I hope you will enjoy reading the story as much as I enjoy writing it.. Most feedback about the medical content has been overwhelmingly positive, telling me it has an "ER" feel, so muddle through, there's a story in there somewhere :) My gratitude for the kind words and feedback of Alec, Firesong, Lauren, Yuli, and the many others who I've forgotten to mention.. My sincerest appreciation goes out to DLS, author of "Brian-and-me," and Kevin, author of "Lance & JC," for their professional insights and encouragement. If you have not read their work, I highly recommend it. That being said, here's my standard legal disclaimer. WARNING: This story is sexually-explicit, involving homosexuality. Do not continue if this will offend you. If accessing this story causes you to break local laws (village, town, city, county, province, state, or country, etc.), please leave now. By continuing, you implicitly declare and affirm under penalties of perjury that you are not a minor or in the company of a minor and are entitled to have access to sexually-explicit material. The content and opinions expressed in this story do not imply anything with regards to the sexual preference of any member of NSYNC or any other celebrities named herein. It is a work of fiction entirely. Justin flew limply to the ground while Heather and JC screamed in horror. I took Heather's paralyzed hands and used them to replace my own on the back of JC's wheelchair before running over to Justin's prone form. I made a quick survey of the scene, my eyes scanning and absorbing every minute detail in fractions of a second. Justin's leg was contorted in an odd position, and I suspected that his leg was probably broken. "Heather, run back to the emergency room and tell Scott, the doctor you saw earlier, what happened." She turned and began to do as I instructed. "Wait! Throw me your purse." She looked at me in complete confusion. I just extended my hand and made a motion with my head as if to say "Well?" She threw the purse to me and ran for the ER. I wanted her to move quickly. Most people don't realize how serious a leg fracture can be. Two well-positioned breaks can cause someone to lose over a liter of blood internally in a matter of minutes without ever showing an obvious problem. Still in my scrubs, I reached into my pocket and pulled out an ammonia capsule, better known as a smelling salt (and for those of you that wonder about the convenience of having it in my pocket, ask any nurse you know what's in their pockets--you're likely to find syringes, alcohol pads, tourniquets, medications, gloves, and just about anything else). I snapped the capsule several inches from his nose, and he came to consciousness with a jerky motion. His eyes strained to make out my shape. "Who are you?" "My name's Matt. What's your name?" "Justin Randall Timberlake. What happened?" "You were hit by a car, don't move. We're just outside the hospital. What do you remember?" "At the hotel . . . swimming . . . . Everything else is kind of blurry." "Justin, do you recognize the guy over there?" I asked, stepping out of his line of sight. "Yeah, that's JC, my best friend." I started running my fingers gently over his scalp. There was no obvious deformity, but a large contusion (bruise) was present on the right side of his head. I found no other abrasions, penetrations, burns, lacerations, or swelling. "Justin, can you wiggle the fingers on your left hand?" He did. "Now your right hand." Again, he did so. "Now the toes on your left foot." No problem. "Now your right foot." There was no movement. "Justin, wiggle the toes on your right foot." "I am," he responded. "Justin, can you feel my hands on your arms?" "Yes." "What about on your legs?" "I feel your hand on my left leg." "Okay, that's good, Justin. Justin, I'm going to shine a light in your eyes," I told him as I brought the beam of the penlight into position on each pupil. Where the hell were Heather and Scott? "Matt, can't we just take him inside?" JC asked. "No, we have to assume he has a neck injury until we know otherwise," I answered, turning my attentions back to Justin. "Justin, are you dizzy?" "Just a little." "Headache?" "Yeah." "Any ringing in your ears?" "Not really." "Are you nauseous?" "Some." "Close your eyes." He did. I rummaged through Heather's purse and found a candy bar. I opened it and placed it beneath his nose. "What do you smell?" "Chocolate." "Okay. Open your left eye. Can you read the first line on my name tag?" "Matthew N. Hunter, RN, BSN." "Good, now close your left eye and open your right. Now read the next line." "CCRN, CEN, CATN, CFRN. What does all that mean?" I smiled, "That's not important right now. They give me more titles to add after my name instead of a raise." He smiled. "Close your eyes again." I removed my name tag and used the side to touch his forehead. "Is that sharp or dull?" "Dull." I withdrew the badge and gently pressed against his forehead with the point of the pin. "How about now?" "Sharp." I then touched his left cheek with the point. "Now?" "Sharp." Turning to the side, "Now?" "Dull." Using the point, I touched the jaw. "Now?" "Sharp." With the edge, "What about now?" "Dull." "Okay, you can open your eyes." I placed my hands on the sides of his jaws. I reached into Heather's purse and pulled out a tissue. I gently stroked the edge of the cornea in his eye, and he didn't really blink. I made a motion like I was going to strike him in the face, stopping just short of the eyes, and he blinked. I could see out of the corner of my eye that JC almost came out of the chair, but he said nothing. "Follow my finger with just your eyes." I moved in and out from the center of his visual field in six different directions, and Justin did as he was instructed. "Close your eyes again." I placed my watch beside his ear. "What do you hear?" "Ticking." "Okay, open your eyes and say 'ah.'" I looked into his throat and placed my ink pen inside until he gagged. He coughed and looked at me. "Sorry," I said. "Now stick out your tongue." He did, just as Scott and some of the ER personnel came running up with Heather in tow. While the others secured Justin in a cervical collar and placed him on a back board, Scott pulled me to the side as we moved towards the ER. "What do we have?" "MVA, car-on-pedestrian, single victim. Appears to have short-term memory loss, and symptoms are consistent with concussion. Left leg PMS (pulses, motor, and sensation) are virtually absent, I suspect at least one simple, non-communicated fracture with internal blood loss. I did an assessment on cranial nerves one through ten and twelve. I didn't do eleven because I didn't want to chance that he had a neck injury." "Good, what did you find?" "One through ten are grossly intact. The hypoglossal shows deviation to right, which is consistent with an obvious lesion I found on his scalp. An epidural hematoma is one of my concerns." "Okay," he turned to one of the other nurses. "Let's get two 16 gauges in, and I want two units of O-Neg hanging before we get to radiology. I want a complete bone scan and a CT of the head. And get John Douglas down here from neuro. I want him to place an epidural ICP monitor and keep an eye on this kid." "Yes, doctor." We started to go into the ER when Scott stopped me. "I think you're needed more out here," he said, nodding towards JC and Heather, before he continued inside. I'd honestly gotten so caught up in the moment, that I really hadn't given either of them much thought. I walked over to the two of them, and JC sat in complete silence. Heather picked up her purse, and I began pushing JC back to his room. JC was still terribly weak, so I lifted him into the bed. When I did, his shocked reaction of disbelief became one of utter hysterics. He was crying and thrashing about in an uncontrollable fit. I grabbed him by the shoulders, and his eyes seemed to look right through me. "I can't do it," he cried. "I CAN'T! Not again. First Craig, now Justin. What did I do to deserve this? What did they do? Is it such a crime to care about me? How can I love someone when I know it will condemn them to death?" "STOP IT!" I shouted. He stared blankly at me before he broke down again. "It's so hard. Oh, God, it's so unbelievably hard," he sobbed as he dropped his head against my shoulder. He just wept, and for the life of me, and for the first time in my life, I had absolutely nothing to say. I just placed one hand on the back of his head and the other on his back. I rocked him back and forth like he was my child and shushed the pained moans until he finally fell asleep. As uncomfortable as I was sitting that way, I didn't want to disturb him, so I just held him. It seemed as though that was what he needed most, and I hadn't a clue as to what else to do. I suppressed my own tears as I contemplated what this young man was going through--that end of the world kind of pain that causes wounds you think will never heal. It was a pain I knew all too well. Heather had fallen asleep in the ER waiting room, awaiting some word on Justin's condition. Scott walked out there and woke her to a cup of coffee. "It's not very good, but it's hot." "How is he, Doctor?" "Scott," he corrected. "People calling me doctor makes me look around for my father. He was a doctor, too, you know." "No, I didn't," she replied. "But I guess you don't care about that," he smiled. "Justin's gonna be just fine. He has a concussion and a broken leg. The effects of the concussion are only temporary. He's already started to regain his short-term memory. One of the orthopedic surgeons put a cast on his leg, and we replaced the blood he lost when it broke." "Can I see him." "Not yet. Let's let him rest a while longer." "Okay," she nodded, disheartened. "You're in love with him, huh?" "Wha--no, I mean, yes, how did you know?" "I'm old, not blind," he smirked. "Go on in. I'll have Cathy get you a cot to sleep in." "Thank you." "My pleasure. Did Matt take your brother back to his room?" "Yeah." "Okay. I'm gonna go tell them the news." "Do you want me to come with you?" He sipped his coffee and shook his head. "No, Juliet, you're Romeo is here. I've done this before, so I think I can manage on my own as long as the senility doesn't make me forget where the room is," he answered with a grin from ear to ear. She hugged him, and he gladly returned the embrace before leaving the waiting room. Scott appeared in the doorway and raised an eyebrow. I guess the situation did look kind of strange with JC laying against my chest while I rocked him. Scott told me to join him in the hallway. I tried to gently shift JC onto the pillow, but that only succeeded in JC's head sliding into my lap. When I tried to stand, he roused from his slumber long enough to mutter, "Don't go, please." Scott raised that sardonic eyebrow again, but he only said, "In the morning, and this time, I mean it." I pulled down the blanked beneath me and spread it over JC. I placed the pillow against the side rail of the bed and leaned against it. This didn't look very good for either one of us, but I knew everyone that worked here. I also knew that Scott would watch out for me, as he always had, and that everyone in this hospital would offer up a lung for him at the first cough. It looked inappropriate, but it was innocent. There was that part of me that made me become a nurse. It was that selfsame part that me want to help JC now, just as it made me want to help him at the accident. I just stared at JC, who occasionally shuddered, lost in some unseen nightmare. I softly stroked his hair. I noticed that while my hand rested against his skin, his shaking ceased, so I never removed it for more than a moment. I reached behind me, turned off the light, and I, too, went to sleep. A sharp pain in my neck returned me to the land of the living. The uncomfortable position I had lied in most of the night was virtually unchanged. Wiping my sleep crusted eyes, I realized that JC was no longer there. The blanket I had spread over him was now covering me. I slowly rose to my feet and walked to the window. I looked out at the morning sun which, too, had only recently risen. I felt a hand gently touch my waist trying to get my attention. I turned around to see JC with a cup of coffee between his teeth and another cup in his left hand. I took the cup from his hand, and he pulled the other from his lips. "Morning," I greeted. "Morning," he returned. "I take it you're feeling better." "Much." "How long have you been up?" "A little over an hour, I guess," he answered, scratching his head. "Where have you been all that time?" "I went down to check on Justin." "How was he?" "He seemed comfortable and too peaceful for me to wake up, so I just sat down beside Heather for a while. She said your friend said he would be okay, just a mild concussion and a broken leg." "That's good, all things considered. How come you didn't wake me up? I would have come with you, you know." "I know, but you were sleeping pretty soundly, and it looked like it was the first decent night's sleep you'd had in a while, despite your human pretzel impression." "Thanks." "Thank you. I really needed a friend last night, and with my best friend in the world doing a repeat performance of my near-death experience, things would have been a lot worse without you." "Just doing my job." "I really wish you would stop saying that." "Tell you what, I'll stop saying that if you stop saying 'thank you.'" "Deal," he agreed with a smile that could light up a room. I turned sideways and resumed looking out the window. JC moved beside me and did the same. About that time, Scott leered around the corner to see if I was awake. Without turning to face him, I told him to come in. I could see the questioning look on his face, and I laughed. "I'm not psychic. Psychotic, maybe, but not psychic. I could see your reflection in the window." He wasn't laughing. I assumed that meant that the later he kept promising was now. "I'll be back in just a minute, Josh. I need to step outside with Scott." JC nodded, and I walked out to the hallway with Scott following. "You know what this is about, don't you?" Scott asked. I silently nodded in grim resignation. "The powers that be saw your performance on the news the other night, and they were less than pleased to say the least. They've forwarded report to the state board of nursing for peer review to see if you've acted outside the scope of the nurse practice act." "I see," I commented, quelling a burning desire to say something in my defense, but I knew Scott was only the messenger. "No, Matt, I don't think you do. If they do find that you've acted outside boundaries, which they will, they can suspend or even revoke your nursing license. Either way, the directors are fed up with your cowboy mentality. You're fired." TO BE CONTINUED . . . . The plot thickens :) What do you think so far? Please send feedback to mnhunter@midsouth.rr.com.