November 8, 2007

• On with the story

  CONTINGENCY PLAN

  five-EPIPHANY

  All hell was not quite breaking loose, but it was certaintly testing its restraints. The city of Chicago had been placed under quarantine by the CDC, along with New York and Los Angeles, whom, while they were not as bad as the windy city, were well on their way, being unable to control their infections either. In the last month all of the Metropolitan Group Hospitals had filled up with the new superbug patients. There were no more beds left, and even people with the disease were being turned away unless they were severly symptomatic. With the exception of one or two hospitals, nursing staff weren’t even bothering to put patients under isolation conditions anymore…precautions had gone from airborne to droplet, to simply contact, mostly due to the lack of room. The real isolation rooms were saved for the patients who had progressed into severe stages of the disease.

  The intial stages of the infection were fairly vague…an initial high fever followed by progressively lower tempuratures, maybe some myalgias, but overall nothing specific. Of course, studying the disease progression in age ranges was much easier now since so many were infected.

  After an inital week of infection, most of the patients had several seizures. This was where they began to differ in their course. The very young, 3 and under, simply died. That was it. The bodies were burned and returned to the family.

  The Elderly would often have one or two severe seizures, and then lapse into a persistent vegetative state. PVS was a much better phrase than the layword “coma” mostly because coma implies the person is not moving. Post-ictally, the infected seniors would perhaps be comatose for an hour at most.Then they would be up and around with that same shambling gait and altered mental status, unable to communicate beyond grunts and often combative as well, attempting to strike or bite. Since the hospital had long since run out of restraints, most of these patients unfortunately had to be discharged if there were no more isolation rooms. After all, the nurses werent able to check vitals on any of the ambulatory patients…they kept biting the thermometers in half. Had the elderly’s muscles not been so atrophied from aged and prolonged hospital stay, several of the smaller nurses might even have been overpowered.

  But the most disturbing was the average healthy adult, obese or otherwise. They tended to last almost a full two weeks with the infection, getting progressively worse each day, not knowing why, but knowing where it was going to lead. Initially a code blue had been called when these patients seized, but now it was mostly ignored. It was too unreliable. Every patient suffered an eventual seizure. The healthier the person at the time of infection, the worse it seemed to be. And while most also went into cardiac arrest, the application of ACLS protocols did nothing; the defibrillator, the epinephrine, the cpr…whether instigated or not, the patient would regain consciousness within several hours with the same damn symptoms. Three patients had been pronounced dead only to be seen up and wandering the floors within hours. The first couple of times it frighted the daylights out of everyone. Now if a code was called, the charge nurse just waited for the coma period to restrain the patient.

  Josh had been present at the code of one of those first three patients. The young woman suffered a seizure that was almost similar to the textbook clonic-tonic, or “grand mal”. Spastic muscle convulsions, limb thrashing, complete unawareness of surroundings.

  Similar as it seemed to a classic seizure though, there were a few differences Josh didnt recall from any textbook. Instead of having to worry about the patient biting her own tongue or injuring herself, this patient had to be restrained so she wouldnt injure others. Her head whipped back and forth, snapping at anything in reach. She managed to break restraints on one arm and scratch at one of the residents, opening a small cut. Now those restraints were tied down securely, so either the woman had gained a great deal of strength, or a complete inability to feel pain sometime during the course of the illness.

  She had gone into a cardiac arrest. CPR was performed on her for a full 45 minutes before time of death was officially called. The patient wasn’t breathing, had pulseless electrical activity on the heart monitor, and temperature at time of death was 88 degrees farenheit, only several degrees away from pre-superbug temperatures of those who resided in the morgue

  And yet, two and a half hours after the code was called, screaming was heard from the room. One of the nurses who had gone in to obtain supplies from the room saw the patient up and thrashing against the restraints. On observation the formerly deceased patient appeared to be confused (although, who wouldnt?) and moving her limbs randomly, like one discovering them for the first time. No outward hostile actions were noted, yet any motion near the patient’s head elicited a rooting type reflex…the patient would turn the side of motion, and attempt to bite, rather than suckle. It was like watching an infant, albeit a potentially dangerous one

  Josh could ignore this no longer. While he didnt know the origin of this bug, he could no longer deny its conclusions…zombies. He knew what he had to do next…

  TO BE CONTINUED…

  P.S.

  Remember, if you would like to be FEATURED in the ongoing Novella Contingency Plan, all you have to do is
  1)Comment on the site with the name and location of your character
  2) in the comment include what ability or knowledge YOU could contribute to a contingency plan (i.e. marksmanship, cooking, anything that would help a small band survive in a world filled with the walking dead.)

  best responses will be introduced in later portions of the story

  • 6:31 pm
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