are you?”
I gave her the address. “We’ve got Nik and Daphne waiting downstairs with an ambulance from Good Shepherd en route.”
“I’m on my way. Do you see any bags hanging on an IV tree?” Jessa asked as I heard doors slamming down the line.
I looked over the room. “No. I don’t see a single bag of anything in here.” I looked at the monitor. “Her vitals look good though. Pulse is in the sixties, regular heartbeat.”
“Thank the good Lord. Do you see a chart anywhere?”
“Anyone see a medical chart?” I asked out loud.
Everyone began searching. Across the room, one of the Death Squad guys came over. “I found this. But I’m not sure what it is.” He handed me a clipboard with a couple of papers under the grip.
“Thanks.” I looked through the papers. I felt my stomach roll when I read the list of drugs. I was intimately familiar with at least two of them. “Jessa, they have her on paralytics,” I said as I turned away from Ryker and Corrie.
“Shit. Which ones?”
“Vecuronium and Pancuronium are listed. Each in suggested doses. But there’s no indication on which one, or both, they gave her.”
“Shit, shit, shit. Patch Nik into the call. I’m almost there. I’ll come up with the EMTs.”
I added Nik to the call. “Hey Nik, Jessa’s here. She needs to coordinate with you and the EMTs.”
“On it. Let me do a full conference. Stay there,” Nik said.
“Hello, you’re all on the same line. Willow, you’re up first,” Nik directed.
“Hello, I’m with the patient who has been positively identified as Corrie Sheridan. I have a series of drugs listed on a chart with her name at the top. I’m familiar with only two of the drugs. They are paralytics.” I gave the drug names again.
“Vitals?” an unknown male voice asked.
I read them off again. “Same as two minutes ago. She’s still unresponsive to stimuli.”
“Breathing? Assisted?” Jessa asked.
“On her own. At least I don’t see any cannulas or breathing tubes.”
“You’re doing great, Willow,” Jessa said. “Read off the other drugs on the sheet.”
I started reading them. Stumbled over most of the terms. Of all my familiarity with paralytics, that was about all I could comfortably pronounce.
“Three of those are her regular medications,” Daphne said over the line. “I recognize their names.”
“What’s the official diagnosis?” the man asked.
“Acute lymphoblastic leukemia and systemic lupus erythematosus,” Daphne answered.
Everyone on the call was quiet for long moments.
“Hello?” Daphne called.
No one answered. I didn’t certainly didn’t say anything.
“Are they still there, Nik? Hello? Hello?!” Daphne yelled.
“We’re still here, ma’am. We’re pulling up information on the treatment. We need to know all of her drugs, dosages, timing, everything you can think of. We’ll need to get her to her oncology ward as quickly as possible,” the male said.
“Yes. Of course.”
I heard someone running down the hall. “I’m here,” Jessa called through the phone and in person. “I’ll be on Ryker’s phone.” She hung up hers and darted forward.
“How long has she been unresponsive?” Jessa asked as she nudged Ryker out of the way.
“About thirty minutes now. Maybe forty,” one of the men called.
Jessa nodded and continued her exam. “Willow, get to the service elevator. We need to get the EMTs up here.”
I laid the phone in Ryker’s hand and ran out of the room and back down the hallway. I grabbed the box from the doors and pushed inside. Stabbing the PG button and the DOORS CLOSED button down together, I made sure no one could call for the elevator before I got to the parking garage.
As soon as the doors opened, Nik, Daphne, and two uniformed people with medical gear pushed on. “Up, up, up,” Daphne said.
Nik had her arms around the other woman.
I repeated the process and took us back up to the seventh floor. After the slowest ride in the history of elevators, we made it to the seventh floor. Everyone darted forward. I waited for them all to clear out.
Doing my original job, I stood in the way of the doors. I put the device back in place and kept the doors open. Good thing, too. In less than five minutes, everyone came running back. Corrie and the hospital bed included.
I got out of the way, removed the device, and took us all back downstairs. Ryker pushed up behind me, wrapped his hands around me, and just held me against his body. He pressed his lips into my hair.
I held the door open as we hit the parking garage one more time.