Chapter 28

Archer’s eyes widened when I bore down on him. No security guard stood on hand to stop me. But after a split second, he just held out one arm for me and called, “And here we have Dr. Hope Sze, the detective doctor who saved his life on the scene!”

I ignored his open arm invitation and beelined for Elvis’s side.

Up close, he looked worse. Sweat beaded his face, neck and torso, which I’d expect after the exertion of his escape act, but his chest heaved before it began the prolonged expiration that’s the hallmark of asthma, even if I could barely hear him wheezing over all the noise.

He turned wild eyes on me. He reminded me of a frightened horse, somehow, an animal trapped in the wrong place and time. I reached out for him without conscious thought, but my hands grabbed the stretch material of his red jumpsuit-clad arm and I started dragging him off the stage

Elvis strong-armed me for a minute, so he could wave and bow at the crowd, but I gave him an extra-hard jerk, and he came with me.

As soon as we were off the stage, he hissed, “What. The. Fuck?” He had to pause for breath between each syllable, his chest bellowing underneath his eye-hurting jumpsuit.

“You need Ventolin,” I said. “Let’s get you some. They’ll have it in emerg—” But I paused. I’d never been in the UCH emerg, except as a visitor after Elvis’s first stunt, and I knew he’d refuse to head straight from his triumphant redo to the emergency room.

He shook his head wildly, wheezing like a tea kettle.

“El-VIS, El-VIS, El-VIS!”

“We love you, Elvis!”

“Elvis lives!”

“I want to have your baby!”

“Back up to the floor,” I decided aloud. “They’ll have Ventolin there. They’ll have to call for an order, or you might already have it as a p.r.n., an as-needed order.” I was babbling. Elvis didn’t give a crap. He was gazing at the curtains longingly. I thought of Harry Houdini, collapsing at intermission but rousing himself for his second act. Escape artists would not give up easily.

“Oh, okay. One more bow,” I said, pushing him on-stage.

He ran out, waving. Whistles pierced the air. I didn’t have to look at the audience to see that they were on their feet. I could hear them stamping their feet and screaming their lungs out.

While Elvis milked another 15 seconds of fame, I grabbed my cell phone and called up to the floor. It only took me a few minutes to connect, which felt like forever, and no one could hear me, but I yelled, “This is Dr. Hope Sze, the on-site physician for Elvis Serratore at his fundraiser. He’s having an asthma attack and needs eight puffs of Ventolin and eight puffs of Atrovent back to back times three. We can try puffers first, but he may need two switch to a mask. I’m bringing him up to the floor.”

The on-site physician bit was stretching it, of course, but it was literally true. I was in the room with him. Fingers crossed that the nurse could hardly hear my name anyway, what with the noise, and would just hear “Doctor” and “Ventolin” and have it ready once we got up.

I didn’t want to have to rush the stage one more time, but when I peeked out, Tucker and Archer had heaved Elvis onto their shoulders. They paraded him around the stage in a circle, to great acclaim of the crowd, before looping backstage.

Elvis was flushed and still wheezing, but his eyes shone with a light that I’ve never seen before. This was his calling. He loved this rush more than life itself.

Dangerous.

Tucker yelled, “You’re worried about his respiratory status?”

I nodded and shouted back, “I already warned the floor.”

Archer must have understood because he headed back to the stage and called, “Elvis is leaving the building. You’ll find more of him on ElvisLives.com, or the next time he performs in Winnipeg.” A few groans mixed in with the cheers, but Archer overrode them with, “The University College Hospital legacy lives on. Please give generously.”

That quelled them while Tucker and I quickly led Elvis out the back door, before his fans cut him off and started demanding he autograph their boobs.

In the elevator, Elvis looked even worse. Now I could see that his face and neck were blotchy but pale underneath the red splotches, and when I touched his hand, it was slippery with sweat. His wheezing filled the elevator. He touched the steel wall and shook his head. “This. Is. What. Happened.”

“What happened?” said Tucker.

I wasn’t sure Elvis was mentating correctly. People often go off their heads from lack of oxygen. We probably should have dragged him straight to the emerg, pride be damned. Instead, we were trapped in a steel cage with no inhalers, no steroids, no Epi, no Bipap. Nothing.

If he died in the elevator, it would be my fault.

The elevator stopped at two more floors, but the people took one look at Elvis and stepped back while we explained, “We have a medical emergency. Please take the next elevator.”

“God—damn it! I feel—bad—enough!” Elvis ground out. He leaned against the ads plastering the walls. “She wasn’t. Even. Worth. It.”

Tucker and I exchanged a look. If Elvis collapsed, I’d have to stop the elevator, no matter what floor we were on, and ask for help.

Finally, the elevator binged for the ninth floor. We dragged him out. He seemed to breathe a little better as soon as the door opened, but he staggered a little on his way out. Tucker steadied him.

The two nurses at the nursing station rose, eyes wide, and I called, “This is Elvis Serratore, the patient in room 9020. He’s having a severe asthma attack. I called ahead about him, for Ventolin and Atrovent. He should have a mask now. Five milligrams of Ventolin and 500 mcg of Atrovent, back to back times three.”

Elvis stumbled into the nearest chair, in the family room on the other side of the elevators, so Tucker and I got him sat down. No need to force him to his room down the hall. More important to get him healthy.

“Do you want Epi?” asked a young, black nurse, in a high voice.

“Maybe,” I said. I’d never given it before, but I wouldn’t rule it out.

“Magnesium would be better,” said Tucker. “Let’s try to get a lock in while they’re getting the mask ready.”

I goggled at him. I’ve only done three IV’s in my life: one on a classmate and two for practice in the emerg. The nurses are approximately 3000 times better at it than I am. I would have left it to the experts, but Tucker disappeared into the nursing station and reappeared with a white basket of angiocaths, cotton swabs, and alcohol swabs. He pushed Elvis’s sleeve up past his elbow, a feat in itself since the damn jumpsuit was so tight. He wrapped the blue rubber tourniquet around his upper arm, swabbed his elbow, frowned, palpated and went for the cephalic vein.

He got it in on the first try. He even expertly secured the line with an Opsite dressing. “Done. Now he can have 80 of Solumedrol and we can get the magnesium ready.”

I raised my eyebrows at him, impressed. He shrugged and smiled. “We don’t have IV techs like they do at richer hospitals. McGill med students get a lot of practice putting these puppies in.”

For a second, I remembered how the nurses at St. Joe’s didn’t do EKG’s on the eighth floor. It wasn’t a far stretch for them to opt out of IV’s. Next, med students would be changing bedpans and mopping the floors.

But the expertise sure came in handy in a crisis. I grinned at Tucker. He waggled his eyebrows at me and said, “You should see me doing ultrasound-guided lines.”

“Looking forward to it.” I turned to Elvis, who was breathing a little better at rest, but not much. Meanwhile, a nurse said, “I need him in his room, for the oxygen.” She’d already magicked up a porter with a wheelchair.

Elvis climbed into the wheelchair willingly, which just goes to show how horrible he must’ve been feeling.

Minutes later, he was in bed, chest still heaving, but with a hissing mask attached to his face. On the cardiac monitor, his heart was thumping along at 149. He was breathing above 30, and was only satting at 94 percent, but I thought he was sweating a little less and getting a bit of air into his lung bases when I auscultated with the nurse’s stethoscope.

The nurse gave me and Tucker a look, raising her voice to be heard above the nebulizers. “Now. Who are you? I’ve seen you as visitors, but not working here.”

“I’m Dr. Hope Sze,” I began, but Tucker cut in smoothly, “And I’m Dr. John Tucker, at your service, Tanya. We’re both residents at St. Joe’s, but we’ve got training cards for all the McGill hospitals, so we’re covered for UC. I know you’ll be paging his team, and I’m happy to speak to them. In the meantime, we should get 80 mg of Solumedrol ready and 20 g of magnesium at the bedside, just in case the team is on board with the plan.”

“With 0.3 mg of Epinephrine IM,” I said.

She pursed her lips, not liking it, but Elvis was obviously not well. She held out her hand for her stethoscope, which I gave to her, and she said, “I’m paging Dr. Blumenfeld.”

“Please do,” I said. “We need as many experts on hand as possible.”

After another long moment, she said, “I’ll get the Solumedrol, magnesium, and Epi,” and left the room.

Archer cut into the doorway ten seconds later. “How’s he doing?”

“I’m hoping he’ll do better with some medication,” I said, after a shocked pause when I spotted Lucia just behind him, dressed in a fluorescent pink mini-dress and matching high heels. She might not have officially taken part in the show, but she’d obviously waited in the wings.

Archer stepped right up to this brother. I thought he was checking out his asthma, but instead he held up his hand and Elvis slapped it in a high five, managing to look slightly cool even though he was still trapped behind a face mask that hissed and emitted clouds of white vapour.

Lucia hovered by the foot of his bed, uncertain. Elvis’s eyes fixed on her and his wheezing kick back into fourth gear, confirming my suspicions.

Lucia whispered, “Is he going to be okay?”

“I think so,” I said back, in a normal voice, “But I also think he’d be better off if we all told the truth about what happened on Hallowe’en. When Elvis was in the elevator, he said a few things.”

Tucker opened his mouth to remind me that Elvis hadn’t exactly been copus mentus, but I pinned him with a look at he shut it down.

Lucia backed toward the door, shaking her head.

“What did I say? I don’t remember Hallowe’en,” said Elvis, his voice muffled from the mask.

“I don’t think you meant to hurt these guys,” I said to Lucia, indicating the Serratore brothers, “but we should talk about you and Elvis—”

She bolted.