The Sunflower: A Novel Read Online Free

here.”
    “Okay, guys, let’s do this. Give him the Succs, Kell.”
    Kelly pushed the syringe. Within moments the boy went completely limp. The woman screamed, “You killed him! You killed my boy!”
    “He’s not dead, ma’am. Medic, please take Mom to the family waiting room.”
    “I brought him in alive! He was alive! I love you, Stevie.”
    “He’s still alive, ma’am,” Paul said, “He’s going to be all right.”
    The paramedic took the woman by the arm. “I need you to come with me, ma’am.”
    “I love you, Stevie. Mommy loves you,” she sobbed as she was led away.
    Paul inserted the laryngoscope into the boy’s mouth and lifted his jaw, exposing the vocal cords.
    Marci walked back into the room, “Doctor, we need you, the patient just vomited and the paramedics can’t get him intubated.”
    “I can’t leave, suck out the vomitus and bag him until I can get there. Kelly, get me the…” Kelly handed him the forceps before he could finish. He reached down the child’s throat. There was a spot of color among the vocal cords. “There it is.”
    “Doctor,” Ken said, “Saturation’s at sixty-eight.” Just then the heart monitor started beeping. “He’s bradycardic,” Ken said.
    “What’s the rate?”
    “Thirty.”
    “Ken, start CPR. Kelly, two-tenths milligram of atropine IV and get a six ET tube.” He clamped the forceps on the object and slowly worked it out of the vocal cords. It was a small toy soldier. He dropped the toy and forceps on the bed tray. “Ken, where are we?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Tube, Kelly.”
    She handed him a narrow, plastic tube. He passed it between the boy’s vocal cords, then stopped to listen. “Breath sounds, end tidal CO2 are good. Kell, hyperventilate him.”
    “Doctor,” Ken said, “he’s in V-fib!”
    Paul felt for a pulse. “I’m going to shock him, Ken, the pads.”
    Ken pulled the boy’s shirt up and stuck pads to his chest, clipping wires on with alligator clamps. “Ready.”
    “Charge to twenty joules, all clear.” The tiny body jerked.
    They all looked to the monitor. Nothing.
    “Charge to forty joules, all clear.” Another jump.
    “Saturation’s up to ninety, Doctor,” Kelly said.
    “We’ve got oxygen, if we can just get this heart beating.”
    “Still nothing,” Ken said.
    “Ken, CPR. Kelly, epi two-tenths milligram IV.”
    Ken began massaging the boy’s chest. Paul stared at the monitor, “Come on, come on.”
    “Come on,” Kelly echoed.
    Paul turned back, “Forty joules. Again. Clear.”
    Marci was again standing at the door. “Doctor, what do you want to do with your patient in D? We can’t intubate him, we’ve shocked him six times, three doses of epinephrine and we’re up to a hundred and fifty milligrams of lidocaine.”
    A bead of sweat rolled down Paul’s temple to his jaw. “Are there any other docs in the hospital who can help us?”
    “We’ve paged overhead but no one’s responded. We’ve called Dr. Mabey at home, but he can’t get here for twenty minutes.”
    “This will be over in twenty minutes. Ken, continue CPR. I’m going to D for thirty seconds.”
    He ran the forty feet to D. Inside the room a slightly overweight man lay on his back, his shirt cut off of him. There were two paramedics; one of them was pumping on the man’s chest while the other watched. Camille, the respiratory therapist, was holding a mask over the man’s face and compressing a large bag to force oxygen into his lungs. Paul quickly scanned the cardiac arrest record trying to analyze what had been done and what still could be done. All looked to him, their eyes revealing their helplessness.
    “Marci, give him another milligram of epi, wait a minute and then, if there’s no change in rhythm, shock him again with three hundred sixty joules. Set me up for an intubation. I’ll be right back.”
    Paul ran back to the other room. The boy’s face was an ugly blue. “Where are we?”
    “Still in V-fib,” Ken