Angel of Mercy (7 page)

“Everything is being done to make him as comfortable as he can be at this point, and he is genuinely in no immediate danger. But what happens next is just a matter of how fast we can catch it and what the antibiotics that we have on hand can do with it. I wish that I could be more definitive about the prognosis, but I can’t. He’s been lucky…so far.”

Tim and Chelsea thanked the doctor for his time and his candor before leaving Glynnis. Satisfied that all that could be done was being done, and assured the Gerald Giacomo would be asleep for at least the next 6-8 hours, the two friends went across the base and separated to go to their separate CHUs. Chelsea promised to check with Tim in a few hours and to go back to Glynnis and check on Gerald as well if she got a chance.

Later that evening, Chelsea awoke from a sleep that had been altogether too short. She had a tour scheduled from 2300 hours to 0930 and knew that she wouldn’t have a chance to check on Tim and his brother until the next morning if she didn’t check in before she went to work. At the reception desk in Glynnis, she asked where she might find Specialist Giacomo. The nurse told her that he was in 2D on the second floor of the two story structure.

Chelsea climbed the steps (the elevator was out…again) and knocked softly on the door to 2D. When there was no answer from inside, Chelsea opened the door ever so quietly and stepped into the room. There she found the patient sleeping peacefully amongst the tubes and machines that were softly whirring and keeping track of the health of his vital organs. In a chair beside the bed, but with his head resting against the blanket that covered the bed, was Tim Giacomo.

He had fallen asleep while praying for his fallen brother. Chelsea stayed only a moment. Just long enough to add her own prayer to the ones ushered heavenward by her friend.

Chapter Five

Chelsea’s tour of duty was relatively light that night. The most severe injuries were twofold. First a young kid (barely 18 years old and in his first week in Afghanistan) who had taken a piece of shrapnel in his left eye. He would lose the eye and complete his hitch in the Army with a medical discharge after only three months enlisted. The other serious case was actually a byproduct of a botched surgery that had been performed in a field hospital.

2nd Lieutenant Brad Malonder had undergone an emergency appendectomy while out in the field. A couple of days after he should have been well on the way to recovery his temperature spiked to 102.8. He had developed fecal peritonitis.

Fecal peritonitis results from the presence of feces in the peritoneal cavity. It can result from abdominal trauma and occurs if the large bowel is perforated during surgery. The patient was rushed to the Bagram Air Base medical facility where Captain McGuire determined that a laparotomy was needed to perform a full exploration and lavage of the peritoneum, as well as to correct any gross anatomical damage that may have contributed to such a full blown case of peritonitis after such a short time.

As it turned out, Brad Malonder’s insides were properly constructed. It was the surgery in the field that was to blame. Captain McGuire, with some quality help from Chelsea Bannister, successfully set 2nd Lieutenant Malonder back on the road to complete recovery.

Chelsea’s tour was light enough that Lieutenant McKay asked if she would be willing to work a couple of hours over to give Wendy Shafer a shorter shift in the hot weather. Lieutenant McKay intended to ask Chelsea if she would take Wendy’s first two hours and another nurse, Rebecca “Becky” Hulslander to take Wendy’s last two hours. The medical staff was a little concerned that Wendy hadn’t snapped back from her bout with heat stroke as fast as would have been expected.

Chelsea agreed to the arrangement. Lieutenant McKay told her that she should take a short break between the ostensible end of her own shift and the beginning of the next. In fact, Lieutenant McKay took a break at the same time. It was soon clear to Chelsea that Lieutenant McKay wanted to have a quiet word with Chelsea, away from the ears present in the medical unit’s main examination area. Lieutenant McKay (as was her style) didn’t waste any time getting down to the point.

“Private Bannister, you are performing very adequately here.”

Chelsea knew that this compliment, which in civilian life would have been considered to be lukewarm at best, was actually high praise from the demanding head nurse. Usually, the less that was said to you by Lieutenant McKay the better you could assume you did at work. The nurses had an expression when a tour of duty went well. They would say, “The silence was golden.” That meant that their butts had survived without a thorough gnawing by Lieutenant McKay. Chelsea hoped that this compliment wasn’t a prelude to the other shoe dropping.

It wasn’t. Lieutenant McKay was concerned about something else but wanted Chelsea to know that all was well as far as she was concerned. Now that the niceties were over Lieutenant McKay forged on to the real reason for this little get-together.

“How well do you know Private Shafer?” she asked.

Chelsea squinted into the sun as she thought about her answer. She had left her sunglasses beside her bed in the CHU.
Rookie mistake
, she thought.

Aloud she said, “I guess I know Wendy about as well as I know any of the other girls that got here after I did. There is a tendency to hang with the people that came when you did, so I haven’t spent a lot of time with her. I like her, though. Why do you ask?”

“Her work was first rate when she initially arrived. Just as good as yours. Better maybe.”

Why you old bat!
Chelsea thought.
Pay me a compliment and then throw me under the Jeep with the next thing that you say. That’s McKay, though.

For all of the insulting things that were going through Chelsea’s mind, she kept her facial expression composed and open. Deep down, she knew that Lieutenant McKay respected her work. Whether the older nurse liked Chelsea as a person Chelsea didn’t know, and figured that she probably never would. It probably wouldn’t matter in the long run. Chelsea realized that, while lost in her thoughts and trying to hide her thoughts from her face, she had lost track of the thread of the conversation.
I need to catch up
, she thought.

“It’s just something that the rest of the senior staff and I have been noticing a little bit. There isn’t anything specific that we can put our finger on, though.”

Lieutenant McKay stopped speaking and looked at Chelsea, obviously awaiting a reply.
Damn. What did I miss?
Chelsea thought. She decided to wing it and hope that Lieutenant McKay didn’t realize that Chelsea had been mulling over how nice it would be to run the senior nurse over with a Humvee.

“I would be glad to help figure this out, Lieutenant McKay. Is there something that you would like me to do specifically I mean, to answer the questions that you and the doctors have?”

There. That sounded helpful and concerned, but vague.
You’re good, Bannister,
Chelsea congratulated herself.

Lieutenant McKay looked at Chelsea and answered her dryly. “Why yes Pfc. Bannister. Why don’t you take a little time out to talk to Private Shafer and inquire as to her welfare? Just as I suggested less than a minute ago.”

Chelsea could feel the flush as her face reddened. “Yes, Lieutenant McKay. I’ll do that.”

“Thank you, Bannister. Not a great poker player, are you?” Lieutenant McKay said as she opened the door to go back into the unit. The Lieutenant waited until the door had closed to smile.

Over the next several days, Chelsea tried to get closer to Private Wendy Shafer. At first the younger nurse seemed reticent to share much about her personal life beyond the fact that she was a native of Racine, Wisconsin and that her Dad had served in the Da Nang Province during the Vietnamese conflict. Chelsea kept at it, though, and eventually learned that Private Shafer was hiding something. She suffered from acute panic attacks, and she was afraid that she was going to be discharged other than honorably if she couldn’t do her job.

That would make her father ashamed, she was sure. The fainting spell that she displayed in the surgery area had been more or less a ruse. She had been frozen in place by a panic attack and had fallen to the floor rather than admit to it. The pale complexion that Lieutenant McKay had noticed came with the territory for Wendy.

“I started getting severe panic attacks in the last three years. I had never had them before. I ended up going to the emergency room several times and was put on Zoloft by my doctor. I had them one after the other last year, but they went away for months and months when I was first on the medication. I figured I would never get them again and decided to join up. That was a big mistake! Now they have come back with a
vengeance
.

“I also had an EKG done showing numerous PVCs – it just means my heart stops for a second or two. It’s not that dangerous, but no fun either, because every time they happen I feel as if I'm going to die.”

Chelsea’s heart went out to Wendy. She had assumed that the young nurse was just one of those kinds of people who didn’t like to talk very much. Now she could see that Wendy was not anti-social. She was scared.

Chelsea walked over to Wendy and sat down next to her on the bed inside Wendy’s CHU. Wendy’s roommate was on a tour in surgery and wouldn’t be back for a while.
That’s probably why Wendy opened up now,
Chelsea thought.
She’s hiding this from everyone. She’s even hiding it from her roommate.
“Are you still on the Zoloft?” Chelsea asked.

“No, I’m not on anything. The Army is really strict about any kind of drugs. Even prescriptions. So I’m trying to get by without. I don’t know how long I’m going to be able to, though! I can feel myself cracking from the inside out!”

Wendy’s leaky eyes gave way to full-on desperate sobs. Chelsea rubbed her back and her neck but nothing that she could do seemed to help the wailing young lady beside her. Chelsea hearkened back to her psychology section when she was in college.

“Have you tried the non-medication techniques? You probably have. But did they do any good? Some people say that meditation, yoga, Tai-Chi, prayer, even diet changes can help.

“I saw a civilian herbalist just before I was deployed. I didn’t want anyone at work to know that there was anything wrong. She recommended that I completely do away with processed sugar. She said that the sugar heats up the nervous system and makes it more vulnerable to anxiety for people who are already prone to that kind of thing.”

Chelsea nodded, hoping that they were on to something. “Did getting rid of sugar help?”

Wendy laughed ruefully. “Not that I could tell. And the next time that I went for a complete physical they said that I was a touch hypoglycemic.”

Chelsea smiled. “Low blood sugar. Gee, I wonder why?”

Wendy looked at her new friend. ‘Thank you for listening, Chelsea. It actually helps a little to have someone to tell. I still don’t know what I’m going to do, but thanks anyway.”

Chelsea went back to her own CHU.
People stateside don’t have any idea what being in a war zone is all about. They think that it’s getting shot at—or not in our case—and going home when it’s time to go home. There are a lot of people like Wendy, though. There are lots of lost souls that are just trying to get by.

Just as Chelsea drifted off to sleep she thought about Tim Giacomo and his brother. She couldn’t get the sight of Tim asleep with his head on his brother’s bed out of her mind. There was something so simple and yet so profound about the scene. Part of Chelsea was glad that she had the opportunity to see it. But another part of her wondered if she should have been privy to such a private moment.

I’ll go and see Tim’s brother tomorrow
, Chelsea thought as she drifted away.
It’s been a few days. I wonder how he’s doing?

She found Tim at one of the vending machines in Glynnis the next day, and told him what she had witnessed. Chelsea quickly found out that there was no issue with her having seen Tim and Gerald that night. In fact, what she thought had been Tim asleep was, in fact, Tim in prayer.

“I knew that you were there, Chels. I was just thanking the Man upstairs for keeping Gerald alive and me safe so far. You know the old expression, ‘There are no atheists in foxholes.’ Well, I guess it was really true for me. Don’t get me wrong. I was never a full-on atheist. But until this happened to my twin brother, I hadn’t given any time to God or prayer or anything in months…maybe years. But ever since he got hurt I can’t stop checking in with Him.”

Chelsea put her hand on Tim’s arm. “I know what you mean. The sick and dying people have made me find my spiritual center too. Would you like to join me some time for prayer? Just the two of us, I mean? We can pray for your brother.” Suddenly Chelsea realized that she had left out a very important part of the beginning of her conversation.

“How is he doing, anyway?” Tim smiled widely. “He’s doing great. He developed an infection just like we were told that he would, but the antibiotics that they gave him have it just about completely whipped. Do you want to go see him? He was flirting with a nurse when I left the room just a little bit ago.”

Gerald Giacomo had indeed perked up since Chelsea had last seen him. Chelsea had learned to detect the signs of a patient in real recovery, and Gerald had all of the earmarks. His eyes danced, and there was no hint of tremor in his movements. She was so glad for both Gerald and Tim that Gerald was going to be fine. Tim introduced Chelsea and told him the role that she had played in his treatment. He shook Chelsea’s proffered hand and invited her to sit down in the chair that had been recently occupied by Tim. “It’s okay,” Chelsea said. “I’ll go get another chair from the nurses’ station.”

“Nonsense,” Gerald said. You’re a hell of a lot prettier than my brother. You sit there, and he can go find another chair. Or he can just go away, and I can get to know you.”

Tim laughed. “Are you gonna be okay with this character, Chels? I need to call my wife anyway. I’ll meet you downstairs. Don’t tire him out,” Tim said, throwing a wink his brother’s way. Chelsea smiled at Gerald, but felt a little bad that she had taken the patient’s brother’s chair nevertheless.