SMT snippet 3

First up, sitrep:
  I'm getting ready to go visit my dad in the hospital this morning. He was admitted yesterday after his foot and toe swelled up and his cut burst. I don't know how long he or I will be there. (his record is 9 days) I'm still furious over the stupidity of it all. (it's an infection in a cut on his toe) He doesn't have sepsis, it is a surface infection in the cut only, not past the epidermis but they are insisting he stay overnight and see a disease specialist and surgeon again. They keep trying to get him to slice off a chunk or amputate his entire toe and then spend 6 weeks+ recovering 'just as a precaution.'

It was a 1/4 inch long cut he made by accidentally going to deep into the cuticle while trimming his nail. The podiatrist opened it up to 1/2 inch a month ago while cleaning it. They want to slice off a large chunk and leave it raw to heal. That is just stupid.

  Dad goofed on the meds for it, he was taking them 1 a day a week 4-5 days a week with food when you are supposed to take it 2x a day on an empty stomach.  (I looked it up yesterday) Sigh. (I'm going to kick his ass for that one, and yes I can get my foot that high) He was also laid up with a cold or something and the longer he lays down the more likely his feet swell and the more likely he'll feel like crap.

  They are getting carried away. He's passed every test they've thrown at him, blood, x-ray, and ultrasound. All clean. They can't find anything wrong other than the surface damage but still insist on this course of treatment. They point to the irritation, swelling, and inflammation. I'm glad I wasn't there, (I stayed home, I wasn't feeling good and I was furious) I would have pointed out that they kept ripping the bandage off and then poking it 15+ times in a single day! Of course it's irritated and bleeding when you pull the scab off each time! DUH! He also takes forever to heal (Peripheral Neuropathy and Diabetes) and his being on blood thinners so that's not helping either!

The doctor said last week it was much better and half way healed when he checked. Now this crap. Sigh.

  Needless to say he and the rest of us are a tad stressed. (I've been getting calls and texts from upset family wanting to know what's going on. My sister has been too) I had another restless night which isn't helping my mood. My poor sister was with him until 10pm last night.

  He's also bigger than me, 6'8" and they make beds to 6 foot. That means the bed is extraordinarily uncomfortable. They can't figure that out. He's probably aching badly too. (they are also overbooked and tried to put him in the hallway overnight but found a room around 8pm) They take that as a symptom and not due to their stupidity.
  They also don't serve meals at proper times, dinner for instance isn't until 9-10pm when he's normally asleep so he's mad...and won't eat... which makes him fatigued and nauseated which they see on his vitals and justify holding him longer. GRR. If they saw my vitals they'd stick me in a rubber room!

The last time he was in the hospital he was in County. He was so miserable he just started to shut down. They put him in ICU due to his Afib. I tried to sleep in 1 of those horrible chairs for seven days. We had to fight with them to get him out. Once he was out he ate a solid meal (I'm not a great cook but he still loved it over the cold rubber crap they had) and he bounced back within hours.

So, yeah, I'm primed for a blow. Hopefully venting like this will help.... nope! GRRR. still fuming.

Anyway, on to the snippet:

Chapter 2

 

Tortuga

 

Zumika made it through the press of people to the lock and hefted his bag. There were a lot of panicked people, everyone suddenly wanted off. He'd heard rumors of the plague.

When he got to the lock he noted the shore patrol. He went to the lock and held up his bag and pointed to his face. “Bosun Cheny told me to get my gear! I'm here! Let me in!”

A face on the other side of the stained glass just shook his head.

“Why?”

“Move along. Admiral Ishmael his own self-ordered a quarantine,” the guard said gruffly. Zumika turned to him in shock.

“Are you serious?”

“Aye. Be off with ye before I use you for batting practice,” the human guard growled, fingering his neural baton.

Zumika flinched. He was well aware of what a prod could do from one of those things. “Aye, I be on my way. But I...”

He stopped at the steel eye of the other man. Obviously there was no reasoning with him. “Aye,” he said, shoulders slumping as he turned and walked back the way he came slowly.

He kicked himself for being a fool. If he'd had his bag packed he would have been gone. And if he hadn't stopped for one last drink...

Well, the good news was that if they did have the plague as a human he was immune he thought as he stomped back the way he'd come, brusquely shouldering smaller people out of his way as he did.

“Hey! I know you! You're Zumika!” A voice said. He turned in annoyance and surprise.

“Do I know you matey?”

“Aye, I thought so!” The guy pointed to Zumika, eyes hard in accusation. “That's the guy! He helped the Horathians! He met with that Captain Layafette! He helped them! He's one of them!” the voice said, practically rising in a bellow as heads turned.

Zumika saw the angry sea of faces and bolted. When the ranks closed around him he tried to swing his bag and use it as a battering ram to get through.

He didn't get far. He whimpered as the pitiless hands and boots of the mob descended on him.

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Doctor White snarled tiredly when he got the report he'd been expecting. He'd been going through the notes from the Horathians over the past twenty hours. There had been no mention of a cure or vaccine. Most of what was mentioned about a cure was how to prevent one.

He closed his eyes in pain. He was tired, achy, and he felt a bit feverish. No doubt he had been infected. Medics always had the highest risk of infection; after all they had to go and diagnose someone and sometimes went in blindly to do so. He was paying for his vocation.

Paying dearly, he thought as he shook his head to the worried looking guards and lab tech on the other end of the video chat. But he needed to keep up appearances for morale's sake. He needed to lead by example even though he wanted to curl up with a bottle of hot toddy and blow his brains out. He definitely didn't want to spend the next few hours coughing his lungs out as mucus filled them.

“It's not your fault. Not any of our faults really. Well, if anyone's mine for not getting the damn cure! But that's over and done with now. We need to find out what we can. We need to know how deep this goes,” he said firmly. He felt the back of his throat tickle. He felt a cough rising and sternly suppressed it.

It wouldn't be long though, he knew. “Okay, I'm going to be sitting here working on the database to find what I can. I need you to run samples of that syringe,” he said firmly to the wide eyed lab tech. The human tech was in hazmat gear. That was something at least. “I'm going to pass over medical command to Doctor Sho,” he said as he felt a presence loom behind him. He turned to the human doctor. “It's the plague,” he said by way of confirmation. “And I've got it. No doubt many of us do,” he said.

Doctor Sho's eyes went wide briefly before his professionalism kicked in. He nodded once. “What do we do sir?”

“I'll wear a mask. I'm going to do a bit of research,” Doctor White said as he rummaged in his office for a sample kit. He coughed into his fist and then rubbed the mess onto a culture dish. He washed his hands and then leaned tiredly against the counter. “We'll need blood cultures too so we can get a timeline progression of the spread of the plagues.”

“Understood.”

“Get us a list of what's in that cocktail Rob,” the Neogorilla doctor snarled, turning back to the video feed.

“I'll try sir but I'm just a basic lab tech. I don't know how to recognize what I'm looking at,” the human said worriedly.

“Just do your best. Keep the computer open and run an image comparison if you have to. Call Doctor Sho too.”

“Yes sir.”

“Keep us posted. Now get to work. Use the lab there. The guards need to set up a perimeter and a decontamination system. I think there is one there.”

“Yes sir. It was broken though.”

“Have someone fix it. And have that same someone figure out how it works so we can replicate it. Something tells me we're going to need to do so real soon.”

“Yes sir.” the image in the lab winked out.

The gorilla turned tiredly and looked at the human doctor. “I'll stay on my feet and do what I can with the most infected. Find a damn cure.” His voice was leached of emotion. They both knew the chances of that. And they both knew the chances of a cure coming in time to help those who had been initially infected.

Especially in a cocktail of biological weapons designed to be hard or impossible to stop.

Doctor Sho nodded anyway. He knew he was in over his head but he knew the proper response and so went with it anyway. “Yes sir. I'll do my best.”

“Hell with that, I've seen your best. Do better. We need a real miracle here.”

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