DECEMBER TWENTY-FOURTH
NUMBER OF CASES: 9,676
NUMBER OF DEATHS: 56
The last thing Jack did before leaving for the airport was stop in the ICU and check on Tess. She had had an uneventful morning and fortunately hadn’t deteriorated. Regrettably, she hadn’t shown any signs of improvement either.
The flight to New York took a little over two hours. Jack had the opportunity to spend quite a bit of time with Dr. Tau going over every aspect of her work. She was careful to advise Jack of all the possible complications Tess might encounter from receiving the specially formulated strep preparation. It was Dr. Tau’s advice to administer two doses five hours apart.
Thirty minutes after his plane touched down in West Palm Beach, Jack walked into Tess’s room. It was three p.m. Mike, Madison and Marc were there waiting for him. Mike had already signed a litany of documents, which Southeastern State’s legal department had prepared outlining in great detail his agreement to treat his wife with an experimental drug. The nurse manager and the attending physician were also present. A few minutes before Jack had arrived, Marc had wheeled the crash cart into the room. The cart contained all the necessary medications and equipment to deal with a cardiac arrest.
Mike pointed at the portable incubator Jack was holding. “I assume that’s it.”
Jack shook his head. “Have you changed your mind about going ahead with this?”
“I’ve made my decision, Jack.”
Jack removed one of the single glass containers from the incubator. He was normally steady-handed but on this occasion his hand was quivering like a feather in a gusty wind. After cleaning the top with an alcohol swab, he carefully drew up three CCs of the sky blue fluid into a syringe. After checking the amount twice more, he walked over to Tess’s bed. Selecting one of the rubber ports on the IV line, Jack slid the needle in the sterile tubing. His thumb found the back of the plunger, but instead of pushing the fluid into Tess’s bloodstream, his thumb froze in place. He raised his eyes to Mike.
“Go ahead,” he told Jack with an encouraging smile. “You’re just a couple of seconds away from saving Tess’s life.”
With his mouth as dry as a handful of gravel, Jack gently eased the plunger down, sending the Streptogenase V coursing through Tess’s veins.