Chapter 4: Wrong Bag

I was off the cot before I was fully awake.

The monitor still showed a steady line.

His heart rate was normal, and his oxygen was normal.

On the bed his face looked exactly as it always did.

But his thoughts were screaming.

My chest. It's closing up. Clara, the bag, the bag.

I tore the clamp shut on the tube and ripped the line out of his port.

Then I held the IV bag up to the lamp.

It was the wrong bag.

The label said concentrated potassium, and no nurse in the world hangs that bag on a patient without a pump and a second pair of eyes.

Somebody had hung it on a plain line and left.

I hit the call button on the wall and held it down.

"Doctor to the suite!" I shouted into the intercom. "Now! Wrong IV, he's crashing!"

I didn't wait for an answer.

I put two fingers on Damian's neck and counted, with my other hand on his chest.

The monitor beeped wrong, then wrong again, and then it screamed.

Stay with me, I thought as hard as I could. I know you can hear me. Stay with me, Damian.

I'm here, he thought, and it was very faint. Don't go.

"I'm not going anywhere," I said out loud, and my voice broke.

The door banged open.

The day nurse ran in wearing a coat over her pajamas, and the house doctor came a step behind her with his bag in his hand.

"What did he get?" the doctor said.

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