Extreme Medical Services: Medical Care On The Fringes Of Humanity by Jamie Davis Read Free Book Online Page A

of the plastic catheter. He got the clear IV dressing that Brynne handed him and laid it down over the site where the IV catheter entered Gibbie’s arm. Lastly, he assured the IV was running properly into the vein and not into surrounding tissue.  
        Satisfied, he looked up at Brynne. “Twenty-five milligrams IV diphenhydramine next, right?”
        “Right, but what else do we need to do?” She asked. “I’ll get the med drawn up for you. What else haven’t we done yet? Think basics.”
        Dean thought for a moment before he came up with the answer, “Consider oxygen, IV’s done, now monitor.” Brynne nodded and he began to gather the electrode leads and sticky patch electrodes, attaching four of them to Gibbie’s upper arms and ankles. Turning on the heart monitor, his own heart rate spiked when he saw the rhythm. Ventricular fibrillation, a lethal heart arrhythmia. Damn, he needed to shock this guy, except he was awake and talking to them. One of his instructor’s famous phrases rolled through his mind. ‘Treat the patient, not the monitor.’ He looked over to see Brynne smiling at him.
        “Vampires don’t have pulses,” she said. “That’s why you see V-fib. Sure, in a normal human, it’s a sign of cardiac arrest and one of two shockable rhythms. In a vampire, it’s completely normal. I’m still not sure how their circulatory system works or how the blood moves around, but you should be able to run the diphenhydramine in and it will get where it needs to go.”
        Brynne finished drawing up twenty-five milligrams of diphenhydramine and handed the syringe to Dean. “That’s twenty-five milligrams of diphenhydramine from a concentration of fifty milligrams per milliliter so you should have …” she paused for him to finish.
        He looked up from the monitor and the alarming heart rhythm. “Uh, right, so twenty-five milligrams of the drug is half an mL, right?”  
        “That’s right,” she nodded in agreement. “Remember, this is a slow IV push so take it easy.”
        Dean checked that there was half a milliliter in the syringe then screwed the syringe hub on to the port on the IV tubing and began to slowly depress the plunger. It seemed to take forever.
        Brynne finished up wiping what glitter sunscreen she could from Gibbie’s arms and torso. “I have to say, Gibbie, you have outdone yourself this time. This is a first even for you,” she said with a smile. “Where’d you pick up this stuff?”
        Dean perceived that vampires didn’t blush, but Gibbie still looked embarrassed. “I found it in the back of a magazine for Cosplay folks. You know the folks who dress up like cartoon and manga characters?” He shifted as he tried to scratch an area on his shoulder he couldn’t quite reach. “Brenda’s such a fan of Twilight and was so excited that she found a real Vamp to date. I thought I’d treat her to her own sparkly hero boyfriend. I figured I’d be able to take the early sunshine and not get burned with the sunscreen on. Then I could sparkle for her just like Edward.” He shook his head. “This is embarrassing, Brynne. I can’t wait for the Twilight thing to blow over. Every century it’s something new. This Twilight phase is almost as bad as the 40’s and 50's were when everyone was expecting us to have Bela Lugosi’s Romanian accent. I got so tired of the whole ‘I vant to suck your blood’ thing, I thought I was going to scream.”
        “Well you should feel better soon but you're probably going to want to go into the hospital and get some steroids on board just in case that reaction is worse than it looks,” Brynne said.
        “No, I’ll be alright,” Gibbie said. “The itching’s starting to feel better already. You know vampire constitution. I just need to get home and get some rest. I spent all night coming up with the perfect romantic touch and now it’s all ruined. I just want to forget the whole thing.”