“This isn’t reading you accurately.” She maintained a level tone. “I’ll try another kind.”
Adrenalin spiking, she retrieved the oral digital thermometer. “Put this under your tongue. Keep your mouth closed.”
She waited the requisite time then read it.
The same. A hundred and five point one.
A temp that high could lead to brain damage and organ failure. But her patient wasn’t human. “What’s a normal body temperature for you?” She used her calmest nursing voice, trying not to reveal her alarm.
“I don’t know.”
Maybe Progg ran hot. Maybe one oh five was normal.
Except the admiral and others had died from a “cold.” What if they’d died of organ failure caused by fever? “Your temperature seems a little elevated. I’m going to try to lower it.”
How? How? The acetaminophen she’d been giving him for body aches hadn’t reduced the fever. Try ibuprofen? She gave him a tablet to take.
I wish I had ice!
She wished they’d stayed at the house. Not that she could do any more there than she could here. It would take a while to freeze water. Even the hospital would have been a bust. Auxiliary power had long since fizzled and without electricity to power the medical equipment, it was just a big building with a lot of beds. The only benefit to the hospital would be the availability of oxygen if he had trouble breathing—
Don’t think that!
Focus on the immediate need. I have to get his fever down.If this had happened right after the ice storm, she could have broken ice off the trees or chipped it out of the creek.
The creek! After the big freeze with the weather still chilly, the water in the creek should be cold.
“I’m going out for a little bit. I won’t be long.”Please don’t die while I’m gone. Please don’t die at all.
He coughed. “Okay.”
She donned her coat and stuffed some plastic zipper bags in the pocket. She sprinted the half mile to the creek.Icy-cold. Perfect!She filled the bags, pressed them closed, and ran to the cave, arriving out of breath, her chest tight.
A mile run would have been easy-peasy before the invasion, but after a year of inactivity, her physical fitness had suffered. But her gasps and chest tightness were caused by more than a lack of fitness. This morning, she’d awakened with the start of a sore throat and could tell a cold was coming on. But her situation wasn’t dire.
She tore off her coat and dashed to her patient. His skin, already ashen, had gone grayer than gray, and he lay deadly still.
“Oh, my god! Grav!” She shook his shoulder.
He groaned and opened his eyes.
Her knees wobbled, and she blinked tears of relief.
“Sorry, I had to wake you.” She held up the water-filled bags. “Let’s put these under your arms to help lower your body temperature.”
Major blood vessels were located under the skin in the armpit—in humans. An ice pack under the arm helped to dissipate the heat. Hopefully his vascular anatomy was similar.
She pulled back the covers, removing two of them all together. He’d complained of chills earlier and shivered like he was freezing, but if he had a fever, a ton of blankets would lock in the heat.
She placed a bag under each arm.
He hissed. “It’s cold!”
“I’m sorry. We need to try this.” She re-covered him with a single blanket. “Go to sleep.”
She kept the forehead thermometer handy. It had read the same as the oral one, and she could monitor his temp without waking him. After fifteen minutes, she retook his temperature. It had inched up a fraction.Shit.
“Laurel?” Fever-bright, glassy blue-blue eyes sought hers.
