“Hi, Mr. Carter, my name is Mersey, and I just need to get you hooked up to some monitors so we can keep track of everything that’s going on with you better,” she said and immediately started bustling around him. Hooking up an IV line to his catheter port, she explained, “We’re going to start you on antibiotics to help you fight the infection.”
Nick nodded, watching as Mersey hung a bag of liquid on the IV pole beside his bed. Then she started sticking small, round leads to his chest. Even before she went to explain what they were for, he blurted, “Is there something wrong with my heart?”
“Oh, no, sweetie,” Mersey said quickly, smiling down at him. “We just like to keep track of everything here in ICU, and your heartbeat is one of them.” She flipped a switch on a machine somewhere above his head, and he heard the familiar “blip... blip... blip” of a heart monitor. And though she said it was routine, it scared the shit out of him, reminding him just how much he hated hospitals and all things medical.
By the time Mersey was done, he had several IV lines coming out of his catheter, giving him various intravenous drugs, and was attached to numerous other monitors. A thin canula had been put into his nostrils, giving him oxygen. It tickled and made him want to sneeze, but when he complained that he could breathe just fine, Mersey only shook her head and replied, “Sorry, it’s pretty much standard that all ICU patients go on oxygen.”
She finally left him alone, but he didn’t feel alone at all – in fact, he now knew what it might feel like to be a goldfish trapped in a fishbowl, for that’s exactly what he felt like trapped in that glass cubicle. Doctors and nurses bustled all around, checking on patients, and when he had strength enough to keep his eyes open, he could see everything. The only good thing was that most of the other patients there were probably too sick to care that he was Nick Carter, Backstreet Boy, so no one bothered him.
As promised, Dr. Lugo came to see him shortly after he had gotten settled in. “We’re still waiting on your lab results,” he told Nick. “How do you feel?”
“Like crap,” Nick admitted honestly.
“I’m sorry. The antibiotics should help make you feel better,” the doctor replied, motioning to the IV. As he flipped open Nick’s chart and started to scribble something on it, Nick heard a familiar voice talking loudly to a nurse outside his cubicle. Looking up, he saw his mother brush past Mersey and burst in.
“Nick!” she cried frantically, dashing up to him. “Oh God, baby... what happened??”
“I have some kind of infection,” Nick murmured quietly, as his mother fussed over him, pressing the back of her hand to his forehead and brushing back the last wispy tufts of hair that clung to his almost-bald scalp. At some point, he had been wearing a bandana to hide that, but it had been removed sometime during all the hubbub when he got to the ICU. By now, he felt too ill to care.
“That’s what that nurse told me, but how?” Jane Carter demanded, looking from Nick to Dr. Lugo. Speaking more to him than to Nick, she said, “He was perfectly fine when I left an hour ago, and now he’s in Intensive Care. What the hell happened?”
“Your son has probably been battling this infection for awhile longer than that, Mrs. Carter, but the symptoms did not start to appear until a short while ago. We have him on antibiotics now though, and hopefully they will combat the infection.”
“Hopefully? What do you mean, ‘hopefully’? They damn well better get rid of the infection!” Jane cried hysterically, her eyes blazing.
“Mrs. Carter, please calm down,” Dr. Lugo said patiently, his mellow accented voice never rising. “We will not know what kind of infection it is until we get Nick’s bloodwork back, but it does not seem too critical at the moment.”
Jane nodded, some of the color leaving her cheeks as she settled down and focused her attention back on Nick. “Do you need anything, sweetheart?” she asked, a tone of false cheeriness creeping into her voice.
“I’m kinda cold,” Nick shivered.
Turning to Dr. Lugo, she snapped, “Did you hear him, he’s cold! He needs another blanket!”
“I’ll have a nurse bring one, ma’am,” Dr. Lugo said with a nod and ducked out of the room, looking slightly intimidated. Nick rolled his eyes and then shut them all together, remembering why he hadn’t wanted his mother around earlier. This was going to be a long afternoon.
***
“So, it’s true. I’m off for one morning, and you totally fall apart on me. What is going on, Nick?” teased Dr. Kingsbury, eyes sparkling mischievously as she smiled down at Nick. Just as Dr. Lugo had promised, she had come on duty that evening and had stopped by right after dinner to check in with him. Jane had gone to the bathroom, and he was glad to have a chance to talk to Dr. Kingsbury before his mother could harass her the way she had the rest of the staff the entire day.
Nick managed a weak smile. “Well, hopefully now that you’re here, you can fix me up,” he said softly, his voice hopeful.
“Well, Nick, your bloodwork came back, and I just saw it. It looks like you have the flu.”
“The flu?” Nick repeated. “Well, that ain’t that bad.”
“Well, it could be worse, at least it’s not pneumonia. But the thing is, influenza – the flu – is a viral infection. That means it can’t be treated with antibiotics like a bacterial infection can. So all we can do is keep you hydrated, try to keep your fever down, and wait it out.”
“Oh. That sucks,” Nick sighed tiredly. “So when can I go home?”
Dr. Kingsbury pursed her lips. “Not for a few more days at least. Once you’re through the worst of this, I’ll probably be able to release you, but it’s too risky right now.”
Nick sighed again. “That’s what I figured.”
“Well, look on the bright side,” Dr. Kingsbury said with a sympathetic smile, “we did stop your chemo to give you a chance to recover.”
“Yeah, that’s good,” Nick muttered, but really, it made no difference to him. He was still nauseated, only now it was because of the flu, not the chemo. Big deal.
Over the beep of the heart monitor, he heard the familiar rapid clicking of high heels on the tiled floor and knew that his mother was returning.
“Oh!” exclaimed Dr. Kingsbury in surprise when Jane entered Nick’s cubicle. “You must be Mrs. Carter.”
“Yes,” Jane said, eyeing the other woman. “Are you Nick’s doctor?”
“Yes. Barbara Kingsbury,” Dr. Kingsbury introduced herself, extending her hand to Jane.
Jane shook it and promptly said, “Nick’s still not feeling well. What can you do to make him better?”
“Well, as I was just telling your son, his labs are back, and it looks like he has the flu. It’s serious in chemo patients, but it could always be worse. The problem is, it’s viral, so it can’t be treated with antibiotics. So we’ll be taking Nick off the antibiotics.”
“Then how will you get rid of it?” Jane demanded.
“The only thing that will take care of the flu is time. We just have to keep Nick as healthy as possible and wait it out,” Dr. Kingsbury explained.
Jane’s eyes narrowed skeptically. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“Of course I do,” Dr. Kingsbury replied evenly. “Ask anyone – there is no treatment for the flu other then plenty of fluids and rest. And that’s what Nick is getting now. So we’ll keep him here a few more days until his body is able to fight it off.”
Nick half expected his mother to question the doctor again, but she did not. Instead, she smiled, took Nick’s hand, and said, “Did you hear that, honey? You’re going to be better in a few days.”
“I heard, Mom, I’m not deaf,” Nick muttered dryly, sick to death of her bitching at the hospital staff one minute and treating him like a little boy the next. Why couldn’t she just accept that the staff was qualified and he was an adult and just treat everyone respectably for a change?
“Don’t smart off to me,” Jane snapped, giving his hand a hard squeeze, then dropping it.
“Whatever. I’m going to sleep.” Half because he truly was tired and half out of defiance, Nick closed his eyes. Dr. Kingsbury left, and he feigned sleep, faking it until he really did drift off into a fatigued slumber.
***
