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“Christ. Looks like they nicked his liver. No wonder he’s been bleeding like a stuck pig.” She looked at Sarah. “Do you know his blood type?”
“B positive, I think.” Sarah stood on the other side of Jason, clutching his pale, cold hand.
“Anybody here B positive?”
“I’m O negative.” Dianne stepped closer to Tina. “It’s the universal donor, right? That’s what they tell me when they call me twice a month to pester me about giving even more blood than I already do.”
Tina threw a bony thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the kitchen. “Get in there and get cleaned up. I want both of your arms washed and ready to go. Mark, dig around in that kit some more; I’m pretty sure I saw a line and a couple of needles in a packet in there.”
Dianne pulled off her jacket and rolled up both sleeves as she went into the kitchen to wash her arms. Tina focused back on Jason’s wound, cleaning it out with a sealed bottle of water she had found sitting on the floor in the kitchen.
“Shouldn’t you use something else to clean that out?” Sarah spoke up from across the table as she stood on her toes to watch Tina work.
“Nope. Alcohol or hydrogen peroxide can do more harm than good. Just need to wash it out thoroughly, seal it up and get him started on some antibiotics. Hey, Dianne?” Tina shouted into the next room.
“Yes?” Dianne called back as she walked back in, drying water from her hands but leaving her arms wet to air dry until Tina told her what to do next.
“You have general antibiotics around, right?”
Dianne nodded. “Some old stuff, yeah. We don’t have a lot, though.”
“Can Mark go look for them?”
Dianne looked at her son. “In the big box we put away, remember? The pill bottles. Grab all—well, no. Just bring the whole box in. Set it on the table in the kitchen and we’ll go through it in a bit.”
Mark nodded and ran off to find the box of supplies. Dianne walked over near Tina and looked at Jason’s side before wincing and turning away. “That looks bad. How’s he looking?”
“The wound’s not terrible. He’s not doing well, though. He needs blood right now.” She looked at Dianne. “You ready?”
Dianne nodded. “How are we doing this?”
Mark, having already retrieved the box of medicine, was standing quietly in the corner holding a pair of sealed plastic tubes, IV needles and small bags used for saline or medicine. Tina motioned at Mark. “Give those to your mom. Dianne, open both bags, take the needle out of the end of one of the lines and jam it into the other line. We need a line with a needle at both ends. This’ll be a direct blood transfusion.”
“Are you sure it’ll work?” Dianne spoke as she worked, manipulating the plastic tubing and the sealed needles as requested.
“Gravity works in mysterious ways.” Tina looked over the line that Dianne had put together and nodded. “Okay. I need to wash up real quick then we’ll do this. Sarah, come around the side here and hold this compress in place. I’ll tape it up once we finish the transfusion. We should have done this right away but it would have been difficult to do in the truck.” Tina hurried to the kitchen to dispose of her gloves and wash the blood from her arms. She returned and rummaged through the medicine box until she found a couple packs of alcohol wipes and pointed at where she wanted Dianne to stand before putting on a fresh set of gloves.
“Stand there, on the left side. Sarah and Mark, you two need to stand next to her. You’re going to feel woozy once we get into this but I need you to be elevated so we make sure the blood flows through, okay?”
Dianne nodded and stepped over next to Jason. She put her hand on his bare shoulder, shuddering at how cold he felt. She wanted to ask Tina for the details on how Jason was doing and what she thought his chances at survival were but with Sarah in the room—and very close to breaking down over the condition of her husband—she held her tongue. Tina inserted the tip of the needle into Dianne’s arm smoothly and swiftly, working off of years of experience of performing dozens of similar operations nearly every day.
Blood filled the line, quickly running down to the opposite end where it began to dribble out. Tina used a piece of scotch tape to hold the line and needle down on Dianne’s arm and began tapping the tube and the needle at the other end gently to ensure there weren’t any large air bubbles in the line. Once she was satisfied, she inserted the other needle into Jason’s arm and taped it down before turning to Dianne. “This is crude as hell but it’ll do.”
“How long will it take?”
“Should be about half a liter every fifteen minutes or so. I’d like to give him two liters, if you’re up for it.”
“That sounds like a lot.”
“Yep.” Tina nodded. “He lost a lot, though.”
Dianne sighed and nodded. “Whatever it takes. I’ll stay up for as long as I can but I don’t mind telling y
ou I’m already starting to feel a little bit dizzy.”
“Hang in there. You’ve got this.”
Chapter 7
