Chapter 2 May, 1998. The back yard keg party victim.
Nursing is an odd job, it changes you. Nurses thought about weird stuff since we were exposed to the darker side of humanity. We dealt with pee and puke and shit and blood and death for a living. We saw dead people and people who were circling the drain. All that stark reality changed our brains then made us look at humanity differently. After you learned names for certain behaviors then saw them in friends and family it changed the way you dealt with people in general. Attention seeking and bullshit drama were some of my biggest pet peeves.
Nothing surprised me or shocked me anymore. In the movies I always noticed if an actor didn't look the least bit dead when they're supposed to be. That weirdness we all caught made it so medical people tended to hang with other medical people since we all had similar attitudes about people and stuff.
Don't take me wrong, when it came to saving a life I'm 100% committed and professional, but when it came to bullshit drama I only wade in up to my ankles, that's about all I can tolerate of mind games and lies from people. Like I said, nursing changes you.
Most people figured out after talking with me that I'm 100% gay. I'm not one of those feminine gays that wore dresses or felt trapped in a man's body. I was more of a quiet masculine gay man, which made me a bit of an oddball species when compared to the stereotype most straight people carried in their brains about gay men.
Actually, the flamers were always the outspoken minority, the silent masculine gays were the greatest part of our population. I'm also totally non-political. The number of gay or bi men in the world is probably a lot higher than people realized, but we remained silent and invisible because we don't fully trust segments of the hetero population. At work I'm 100% silent about being gay unless asked in a private setting by someone I felt would not turn into an enemy. One thing was for certain about gays, because we were so different there really was no 'gay community' and there was no spokesman for us, just fraudster posers trying to make a buck.
Since I worked twelve hour shifts I only worked three days a week, which was totally cool. By the end of the third day I was tired and ready to sleep ten hours or more. I've been working Wednesday evening to Saturday morning for the past two years. I picked that schedule myself. I worked 7pm to 7am then back again in twelve hours to do it again. I did three in a row then got caught up on sleep most of the day Saturday.
My four day weekend started every Saturday at 6pm and ended Wednesday morning at 9am so I could go to sleep for work that night.
We got paid every two weeks, I earned about $42 an hour (not including night shift bonus) but had very few bills so I had a growing pile of money in the bank and little to spend it on. I even thought about buying a new cell phone. Sprint PCS had the best service up here in the burbs, I already looked at the Motorola StarTac, which was a small basic phone with good battery life and it easily fit in my pocket. My dad had one and he liked it but my mother was not a fan, she liked her big ugly bag phone in the car.
Tonight we had one older burn patient that has been here for a while. He'll be discharged tomorrow morning. He suffered a common burn scenario, he was working at a restaurant and slipped on the slick kitchen floor. He tried to catch himself and accidentally shoved his left hand and forearm into the 420 degree deep fryer and came out with 2nd and 3rd degree burns almost to the elbow. We had him gorked on morphine for days while he was grafted and started physical therapy on the muscles in the arm. He'll have significant scarring but should regain some use of that hand and wrist again.
He's here because of skin grafting and to watch for signs of infection. We kept him on a morphine PCA (patient controlled morphine IV drip) that he triggered with a small button on a wire, which he's not using any now. He's been here on antibiotics for five days but that IV ends tonight. He's 32 years old with wife and small kid, they lived on the far north side of Chicago near the old '400 Theater' on Sheridan Road.
I got a call from the bed control office that I was getting a second patient coming up from the ER, he was (drunk) at a back yard party and fell into the fire, burnt all over the stomach, chest, and upper arms. He's twenty nine years old and coming here with his mommy, they'll be here in an hour. So I got his room set-up and watched the network for his admission orders to show up in the computer.
About 25 minutes later the burn doctor got his orders entered (from home), they looked like the routine orders for that type of patient. I could see his name was James, the demographic said he was single with no religious preference. Those facts along with his age and being male, in the area where he lived were all gay indicators.
I started reviewing his morning labs and his breakfast order. New patients usually arrived too stoned to talk much. He had no medical history really, no surgeries, no allergies, took no meds, and had great vital signs except his heart rate was way up, presumably from the pain. Second degree burns were very painful. Third degree burns didn't hurt because the heat killed the sensory nerves. All burns carried a serious risk for infection.
A little over one hour later the transport crew arrived with my new patient all bundled up. A middle aged lady with red eyes and messed-up hair followed behind the transport crew. I pointed them to the room, asked her to wait in the lounge for a while so we could get him settled in, the rooms were not big enough for everyone.
James was in pain. That was obvious from looking at the expression on his face and his heart rate on the monitor. The ER never cleaned his face or legs. He had a thin cotton sheet over the burned skin which went from his neck to the base of his penis and side to side. He looked like he had mostly 2nd degree burns with a couple small areas of 3rd on his belly on one side, he must have landed half sideways.
We moved him from the transfer cart over to the bed, moved his IV stuff onto our IV pole. After getting him on our bed the transfer crew left, I pulled the curtain across the door for some privacy. Looking at his ER chart I saw what meds he had been given and started his morphine drip device (it's called a `PCA'). James lay there and silently watched my every move, all the time grimacing in pain. Our two primary narcotic pain meds were morphine and fentanyl. Fentanyl seemed to be safer because it wore off quicker and since it was synthetic fewer people had severe allergic reactions to it. Drug addicts hated it because it wore off faster. His ER chart listed no known drug allergies and he did not have a bad reaction to morphine so that was what our doc ordered for his PCA pump.
Since the bottle of morphine for the PCA pump was rather large (large = expensive) we had to call the house manager to bring one from pharmacy, I did that while I set up the PCA pump and showed James how it worked.
His few belongings fit neatly into a drawer in the closet then I removed all the old ER blankets and started to assess my patient. I lifted the gauze sheet to inspect his burns.
When the transport crew rolled into our foyer the entire area was suddenly full of the odor of burnt wood and flesh. One thing I learned was the 2nd worst thing about being burnt was the stench of burnt human skin, everyone else could walk away before they gagged but the victim was stuck with it. Burn victims usually puked before they got to the ER because of their stench.
I gave his burns a quick once over visually then slid down the blanket over his groin. He quickly reached for it so I gently took his hands and pressed them back along his sides assuring him I only needed to see the extent of his burns, I would keep him covered. Part of my initial assessment after he arrived was to hand-draw an outline of his burns on a printed body map so the staff could check for burn creep - expanding burns that only became visible over time. It was very important to keep track of burns and how they appeared because infection was a major threat and they often appeared early on as minor skin color changes.
Then I got a tub of water and soap and carefully cleaned his non-burnt skin: face, hair, arms, hands, and legs down to his feet, which stunk like guy feet. I cleaned all the burnt stuff off him so he didn't smell like a human campfire anymore. You could see it started to make him more at ease after he saw I was an ally. It also allowed us to watch him closely for new skin color changes, even inside his mouth and nose.
Then I went to talk to his mother in the lounge to told her he would mostly be resting tonight, the burn doc would see him about 8am and there was really nothing to stick around for tonight. She went to the room to say bye then left for home.
I went back in his room to get his medical history and answers to questions not included on the ER paperwork. I showed him the morphine pump button and told him how to use it. We had a repeat discussion about any drug allergies, especially antibiotics and narcotic pain meds. James said he urgently needed to pee.
Pee was an issue for all new patient arrivals. I said he couldn't get out of bed tonight but he could use a urinal or I could put a Foley catheter in his bladder so he wouldn't need to deal with pee for a couple of days. Luckily, he opted to use the urinal but needed help.
Pee may be gross but it's sterile and wasn't as bad as poop so I was always thankful for pee over poop. I got a white plastic urinal, handed it to him but with the burns on his neck he couldn't look down, I asked if he wanted help. James lay there staring at the ceiling in resignation then sighed and told me to 'go ahead.'
I reached down to the blanket over his legs and lifted it exposing his lower belly. I set the urinal between his thighs and placed his penis in the opening and told him to go ahead. I had to stand by and wait for him to finish so I could collect a urine sample for the lab. His penis looked similar to mine in size and shape. When he was finished I covered him again.
As I walked out of his room I replayed his face and voice in my head wondering if I showed enough compassion. By 11pm I had his charting up to date and started working on the discharge packet for the other patient.
The house manager came by at 1am for report on my patients. She watched my peeps while I took a lunch break down the hallway. We're on the third floor along with the medical ICU and the surgical recovery units. At night there's about twenty nurses and eight techs on our floor. Most of them were younger girls, some of them were really decent looking, and all of them were very smart. I'm the only nurse here that went to WIU. Nobody here graduated from Northwestern University except one of our hospital doctors.
At 2am I checked on my two patients, the older guy was asleep and ready for discharge during day shift, his last use of IV morphine was over 24 hours ago. My new patient in room three (James) was awake with tears in his eyes but never spoke so I leaned back against the counter and offered conversation.
James was scared if he would ever be normal again and how he looked below his chin since he really couldn't look down, the neck burns hurt too much to move his head. I gave him my honest evaluation.
"Well, you've got a few spots of 3rd degree burns, those are gonna scar no matter what, but the good news is it's a small area on the side of your stomach an area about the size of a baseball, then there's two by your hip bones that are both about one or two inches wide. The rest of your injuries look like 1st and 2nd degree and should heal. One of the things we watch for is burn creep, because burns tend to get larger over time as more skin shows thermal injury. That's why I looked you over every three hours. Your belly button is not too bad, probably no scarring there and your nipples are intact as well, which was probably a miracle that your left one didn't get burned worse, that's on the side where you fell into the fire."
James started to cry and held one hand over his eyes. I held his left hand briefly then left the room since I didn't know enough about him to possibly get too close. He managed to sleep for about 90 minutes then was awake again in pain around 4am. When I went in to push his PCA button I reminded him to stay ahead of his pain. I don't think he fully grasped the concept yet which wasn't uncommon for new burn patients to be overwhelmed with thoughts of life with scarring.
We talked a little more. I asked him if he wanted to talk about his burns, of course he said he did.
"Right now it looks like your penis isn't burned. Did you have a lot of hair growing on your chest and stomach before the fire?" As he started to answer I leaned over the bed and looked closely at his chest. I took his right nipple with my fingertips, gently squeezed it then slightly pinched the teat and pulled up slightly to see if the skin showed any cracks or drainage.
"Just some below my belly button but my chest didn't have any yet, what about my armpits?"
"That's all gone on the left side and half gone on the right side. Your face isn't scarred at all. Your left nipple is peeling but not blistered so it should heal and go back to normal and the right nipple is just red, maybe 1st degree. There's a chance you might develop a small areas of 3rd degree on the inside of your left upper arm but right now it looks too small to graft. Problem is they'll rub against your chest so that might be a longer term sore area but should also heal."
We were quiet for a moment then asked what 2nd degree burns looked like years later. "Well, see the skin in the back of my hand?" I said and reached over so he could clearly see my hand. "See how the skin is one solid color all the way across?" He nodded yes. "Old burns might have a less uniform appearance, like patches of lighter skin, sort of like reverse freckles." I took in a breath then started on a long statement.
"You see our skin grows in layers, as each layer matures it slowly works its way up and becomes the surface skin we see and feel. When you get burned part of a layer is removed so the skin under that will always be a layer thinner, that's why it will always be a bit more sensitive to sunlight, heat, and friction. That's why burn scars and tattoos are permanent."
"Oh fuck! I'm so freaked out. I swear I'll never go to a keg party again, so help me God!"
"Hey, don't be so rough on yourself dude, that's why they call 'em accidents, nobody plans these things. You got someone aside from your mom that can help you with dressing changes when you get home?" I asked probing for relationship status really.
"Nope, just my mother. I had a close friend but he moved to California for work, we haven't talked since." He was now actually looking me in the eyes with these huge sad blues that were really nice to stare into. My gaydar was starting to get a few small pings.
"Okay, you're likely to be here for a few days, we'll have plenty of time to work out support at home. In the mean time you need to stay up with the pain meds. Pain's controlled better from a preventive position then catch-up position, so anytime you get uncomfortable you press that button okay?"
"I don't want to get addicted, I had a friend once, it was really bad for him."
"That won't happen during the short time you'll be on this med, not to worry about that. It takes quite a while to become addicted. You will develop a tolerance, but that's not addiction, so try to stay ahead of the pain, okay?"
"Here, gimme the button." I clipped it around the bed railing by his right hand, he grabbed it and gave it a push with his thumb. There was a tiny rainbow flag tattoo on his right wrist on the underside but I didn't react to it, then I raised his head a little with the buttons on the railing.
"Can you help me pee again, I think the saline is goin' right through me!" He said with a small smile. I said I would but advised him that tomorrow night he should be able to do it on his own.
Same routine as before, I put on gloves, grabbed the urinal, lowered the sheet, and placed his penis in the opening and told him to start. Then I leaned against the railing and watched him pee into the jug and thought to myself how much his looked like mine except I buzzed my pubes off and he didn't.
I asked him how he fell into the fire. James said he had too much to drink and was trying to get over to the keg, he was standing with a bunch of people near the fire trying to stay warm, but when he tried to squeeze between the fire and some people standing close by he lost his balance and fell sideways onto it. Three guys grabbed him and lifted him out and rolled him on the grass and some of the women screamed and someone called 911. He went to an ER near the train station but ours was the only open burn unit bed so he came to Northwestern University instead of Evanston Hospital or some place in the city. He said the party was at a home just two blocks from the border between Chicago and Evanston.
Listening to him tell how he got burned reminded me of then I was in college and I did some volunteer shifts at the hospital ER. I shadowed with the supervisor who was an Army medic veteran.
When they got drunks in their ER he'd make comments back in his office with the door shut, it was obvious he wasn't a fan of drunks. He'd say stuff like, "If you can't go to a kegger without falling in the fire then you're too fucking stupid to drink alcohol!" or "I can drive just fine after a few beers, then you see in the news some moron got drunk and drove the wrong way down the highway and killed three people, I mean like how fucking stupid do you have to be to do shit like that? If you can't handle alcohol then you got no business touching the stuff, stay the fuck home!"
He'd also complain about all the wives that brought their drunk husbands to the ER because most people thought we had an antidote for alcohol, he'd say, "Sure, we'll babysit your drunk ass loser husband and charge you nine thousand bucks to watch him sleep it off!" He said if you had a medical record for being seen in the ER for being drunk, then years later got in an accident and tested positive for drugs or alcohol, your prior ER trip would almost certainly cause you to lose in court for the rest of your life!"
By 6:30am the day shift staff arrived, some ate breakfast at work while others read the free Chicago Tribunes we got for the family lounge.
At 7am I stopped into room one and wished my other patient well in his recovery at home, he shook my hand and smiled like his wife in the bedside recliner. They thanked me for taking good care of him.
I walked to the stairs, down to the ground floor, outside past security, and across Sheridan Road. I walked west on Noyes Street and stopped at the Greek diner for breakfast to-go, an omelet and bacon strips, then up the platform for a short ride on the north-bound electric train (The L) to Linden Avenue which was the North end of the rail line. Then I walked one block east, down our driveway into our back yard, down the five steps, unlocked the door, stepped inside, and dropped my backpack by the door. I dropped my scrubs in the hamper and took a quick shower. Ten minutes later I was at my desk checking email and the news, then off to bed by 8:15am, alarm set for 4:30pm to repeat the whole process again, then again the third day.
As I lay in bed I kept seeing James' body in my mind. He seemed pretty devastated, just like they all did when they first arrived. Before 9am I was sound asleep.
At 6pm I walked to the Linden Avenue L station. By 6:45 I walked across Sheridan Road and by 6:55 I was in report. My patient in room one was gone, James in room three was still emotional and scared. They planned to harvest skin patches from his thighs tomorrow to graft the spot on his stomach and the one to the left of his penis. His mom was there. We were supposed to get an ICU patient too, an older guy that had his appendix removed today but was slow to come out of the anesthesia meds, which happened once in a while.
There are some people that were very slow to metabolize the IV drug that puts people to sleep for surgery. He must be one of them, it would take something like 20 times longer to clear the med, he just had to be monitored to be safe while his liver cleared the drug. They always seemed to snap out of it suddenly and were ready to go home.
Around 8:15pm I went in to assess James, he smiled when I walked in the room in my navy blue scrubs. I listened to his breathing sounds, which were normal. I lifted the cover, he was blistered and leaking fluid. He said they got him up to use a portable toilet to take a dump (his words) that afternoon, his pain was better but he was scared about skin grafting and wanted me to talk honestly with him about it. I told him I was getting another patient soon and we'd talk later, but I wanted him to try to sleep after his mother left.
I got my new patient around 9pm, he was 48 and slow to come out of anesthesia. That happened once in a while. Some people were really sensitive to the anesthesia drugs used in surgery, which was why the anesthesiologist always came to talk to you before you went under the knife. But there was no way to predict how people would react. He just wouldn't stay awake for more than a few seconds and went right back to sleep. My main job was to protect his airway, monitor his vitals, and watch for his condition to improve. The guy's wife was in the room the entire time. We agreed on how to split up the floor into visitor and staff areas.
By 11pm my guy in room five was starting to stay awake for longer than three seconds at a time, which was a big improvement. He would always wake up and answer questions and could remember some things from hour to hour. Then I went in to see James to inspect his burn perimeter. His chest was nicely shaped. The blisters were all flat. It looked like he was in the water therapy tank today with a waterproof dressing over his two badly burned areas. Water therapy sounds nice at first until the patient learned the main task there was to scrub his burns, which was extremely painful. Emphasis on extremely.
Most burns were covered with a white cream called Silvadene. Burnt skin leaked fluid, the fluid that filled blisters. That leakage combined with Silvadene formed a nasty crust that had to be scrubbed off daily. Scrubbing raw burnt skin hurt almost as much as the first half hour after the initial burn. You sat in the tank and used a brush to scrub your burns. Your first trip to hydrotherapy sounded wonderful like it might be a spa, but it soon became clear this was going to inflict severe pain and it had to get done every day you were in the burn unit.
"Am I gonna live doc?" He asked with a smile.
"Going by the numbers, you have a 75% chance of surviving." I told him with a straight face. He looked stunned. "Why would I die?"
"Infection is the biggest danger, that's why we're keeping you flushed with gallons of saline and closely watching for infection. But yes, some people die after burns like yours, you need to take this seriously."
He dropped his head back on the pillow, raised his hand to his eyes and started to sniffle again like last night. I pulled down the gauze sheet cover to look him over and saw no evidence of infection. I saw he had a nice smooth stomach and a normal inny belly button, probably a bad lint trap, and his nipples were flattish and round maybe as big around as the cap on a BBQ sauce bottle, similar to mine. His body looked a lot like mine except our belly buttons were very different. Mine was wide but shallow but his was deep and as wide across as a cigar.
I left him alone for a time and checked on my guy in five who was now asking his wife to turn on the TV and able to talk normally. I paged the anesthesiologist and ICU doc to report the improvement.
Around 3am I went in to check the three infusions on James, he was asleep. My guy in room five was asleep, his wife in the recliner was also asleep. I lifted the gauze to check James' burns again, he really looked good despite the injuries. He woke up silently and opened his eyes, watched me stare at his upper body.
"Thanks for being so kind to me Nurse Brad." He said in a whisper. I went back in a half hour and told him the truth about skin grafts, harvesting and re-implanting and care afterwards, which made him cry again. This time I held his hand. He squeezed mine hard and wouldn't let go, it was awkward at first but it was late at night and nobody would know. I was about to walk out the door when he stopped me.
"Brad, can I ask you something?"
"Sure." I replied.
"You in a relationship?"
"Umm, I'm single. You?" I asked.
"Me too, I mean, no. I mean yes I'm not. SHIT! I mean I'm single!" His voice got louder with each word that time.
"Where bouts you from?" I asked, but I already looked at his chart to see his home address was in Evanston about eight blocks from the hospital.
"Here, I've lived in Evanston all my life. I came here because the Evanston unit was full."
"Ah ha! I see. I'm from Wilmette near the L-Station on Linden Avenue, I rent an apartment in my parent's basement, come and go as I please. They pretty much leave me alone. What you do for a living?"
"I'm a painter, I mean, I paint. Like I paint new construction. I'm learning to mud drywall and finish it. Then my crew comes in and does the huge paint jobs. We do new construction in the city mostly, big jobs, lots of floors. I hate it but it pays the bills. I got a studio apartment on Main near the L station."
"You might be glad you live there. You're gonna need close follow up on those grafts for weeks afterwards with the docs here on campus." I told him.
James lay there wide eyed. I guess nobody but me had told him the long term care of skin grafts. We seemed to be stuck staring into each other's eyes, me at the foot of his bed, him on his back stunned staring back at me. Smiling briefly I turned towards the door.
"You're gay right?" He softly asked as I walked out. I stopped briefly and smiled slightly nodding yes then walked to the nurses' station to chart what I'd done and eyeball the guy in room five on the way. It was one of the few times I actually ever answered that question at work. Made me think that coming-out just might be a lifelong process, not a single event. It kind of bothered me when people I didn't know personally asked if I was gay, when I never asked them if they were hetero, nor did I want to know. The only good part was most of the time it was gays that asked if I was gay.
By 6:40am I was ready to report-off to the day shift. The boss came through the department asking about my surgery guy I told her he was awake, alert, and oriented, and seemed to be fully recovered. She said thanks and walked out. The rest of my morning was exactly like yesterday and probably the same as tomorrow would be.
That night I was back, James was my only patient at the start of my shift. His skin grafts were done and was asleep on his side. Now he had sore areas on the back of his left thigh in addition to his burns. At 8pm I went to check on him, he was asleep. His upper body was exposed, I watched his chest move while he breathed and got a new set of vital signs. A cleaning crew was in room five wrapping up their work in there. Apparently they didn't cut that guy loose until around 3pm because the docs were super busy. He needed a full medical assessment before discharge which was why he stayed so long.
After the housekeeping crew left I went in to assess James and his donor site and the grafted sites. Everything looked great and being young and healthy helped too. Around 1am I took my lunch break and saw he was awake. I waved as I walked out the department doors. He looked worried like I was leaving without saying good bye.
I was back to work charting notes and his response to his morphine PCA so around 2am I went into his room, James was awake watching TV. He had flowers in a vase on the table next to his bed and he looked better. His 2nd degree burns looked much better, no more leakage but everything was very red. His grafts looked great, he said the donor site was tender as hell. I pushed his morphine button, he smiled. We talked for a while and he asked for my cell number so he call me after he went home, I said I would have to think about it.
Tonight I helped him get out of bed at 3am to change his bedding and give him a new gown. For a time he stood naked next to the bed and seemed to enjoy it, I kept a professional attitude but I stalled a little to see as much flesh as I could and check his donor site out on his back side. He reached behind to scratch his butt while I was close-in inspecting his donor site. Then I asked him to sit on the toilet which he did while I left the room. He pooped and cleaned himself then got back in bed but never covered himself. When he stood beside the bed we laughed at his bed sheet had ashes and bits of burnt wood leftover from his arrival in the ER.
When I returned to the room he was on his side all naked and bandaged and smiling, obviously stoned on morphine. I got him tucked into bed and was ready to walk out the door. I stopped and said, "Bandage"
"What?" He almost shouted across the room.
"Bandage." I repeated.
"What bandage?"
"No silly, you wanted my cell to call me, my number is B-A-N-D-A-G-E, 226-3243, area code 847."
"Cool, thanks!" This was about the first big smile I'd seen on his face.
I walked back to the nurses' station to chart stuff and felt my cell buzz in my pocket, pulled it out and saw a message: missed call.
Friday night was the same routine. I had a surgery patient to recover. The patient was an elderly man who had his appendix removed earlier today. He was recovering well, fully awake but needed watching because he had a history of post anesthesia arrhythmias and they wanted close observation by remote telemetry. I moved the code cart beside his door just in case. Most patients didn't know what a code cart was or when it's outside your door that meant something serious.
James called me twice from his room asking for more ice and water first and later on to ask for help getting to the toilet. Same as last night I changed his bedding and gown. Tonight I had him stand by the sink so I could shampoo his hair. We both got wet doing it but I really made a friend doing it for him, plus I shaved him too since there was no mirror for him to do it himself. I felt him staring at me with lusty thoughts while I shaved his face but couldn't do his neck because of the burns. His grafts looked great. I told him he might be going home soon.
Each single skin graft created new spots with a risk for infection: the donor site and the transplant site.
In room two I had a very unusual patient that I was assured would be no problem. She was an elderly woman, a retired Nun. She was dying of cancer and was 96 years old. She'd worked in the chapel on campus for most of her life and was also a university administrator long ago. She was moved to us because we were about the quietest place on the third floor. She had no relatives left alive and she had been in a coma for two weeks now and was only here as a hospice patient. She had a saline drip and a urinary catheter. They expected she would die overnight and the house manager would do all the paperwork and make all the mandatory calls. I checked on Sister Kriss every half hour and monitored her heart rate and breathing but nothing else.
She passed at 4:11am and when I saw her rhythm change on the monitor I went in her room, sat on the stool and held her hand, she actually squeezed my hand back when I squeezed hers. I thought she was aware she was not alone. I introduced myself then she squeezed my hand again, as if to say 'thank you son.'
I watched her heart rate slow and her breathing stopped. After her heart rate slowed to 15 beats per minute the waveform on the monitor changed to what we call Tombstones then those became smaller and her grip relaxed on my hand and her face changed. Her mouth opened slightly and she was gone. I leaned over and kissed her forehead and pulled the sheet up to her chin and called the shift nursing manager. I sort of wished I'd had a chance to meet her because she was brave in the face of death.
I felt something during her final hour like there were other people in the room with us, people I couldn't see. My skin got tingly.
When I walked outside in the morning my mind was unusually peaceful and quiet. I remained that way until I went to sleep, I prayed for her before I fell asleep.
I got home around 8:30am after eating at the Greek diner by the L station in Evanston. I liked their breakfasts more than the ones in the hospital cafeteria but the Greeks charged twice as much. It's too bad they were closed on my way to work.
Two days later I got a call from James, he was home in his apartment but a bit overwhelmed with caring for his burns. He couldn't shave and wasn't allowed to bathe but could shower if he kept the sites dry, which required some site dressing skills. I figured he was working towards asking me for help.
On day four back at home he finally asked for help, I agreed and he gave me directions to his place. On my next day off I met him inside the entrance to his building. He had a small studio apartment with a westerly view of the L-tracks but good soundproofing. The place was clean but sparse. Sort of looked like an Ikea model apartment, maybe twenty feet wide and twenty five feet deep. It was a large living room, a small kitchen area in one corner, decent sized bathroom, and utility closet in a hallway with washer and dryer. His bed was in the living room behind the sofa. The place had beautiful hardwood floors and tall ceilings. It looked like it used to be a warehouse or a factory long ago.
He wore sleeping pants that sat really low as to not touch his tender burns. He wore no shirt and had flip flops on his feet. The skin on his upper body looked much better, still pink but nicely healed. By the time we got to his apartment I noticed his pants were pulled lower, I could almost see the base of his penis. They weren't like that downstairs in the lobby.
When I turned him around to see the donor site he dropped his pants to his ankles so I could see his thigh. I got on my knees behind him to examine his donor site which was now basically like a 2nd degree burn, his grafted sites looked good. He had an appointment to see the doc in three more days. I offered to clean and re-dress it for him, he said fine that he couldn't reach it or see it himself at all. I noticed that the hairs were starting to grow back in the donor site.
Then he turned around with a semi-hard on so I could see the burn site just a couple inches from his hip. I pretended not to notice that his wiener was pointing at me. His groin burn looked great so I dressed it too.
"I see your parts are working better now too." I said while I smiled and looked higher to attend to his belly burn site next. He said nothing. I inspected that site and could see it was healing fast and would not be a problem. I told him he would probably be able to shower normally starting next week, which made him say, "Hal-lay-lu-yah!"
"Here, let me help you with those pants." I grabbed his sleeping pants by the waist and slowly slid them up his legs then gently up to his waist but not on his burn. Just on a whim I grabbed his now fully erect penis and pressed it against his belly and slid his pants up just over the top where it formed a nice tent.
"Looks like that thing needs a little attention too by the way."
"Would you mind since you're here, Nurse Brad?"
I stopped moving and stared into his eyes to see if he was joking but he looked sincere. So I slowly reached over to grab the tent pole with my hand and gently rubbed him from the outside of his sleeping pants. He smiled while looking down at me still on my knees in front of him.
He watched me with the look of lust in his eyes while I massaged his boner.
Then I slid my hand under the waistband of his pants and gently pulled it out into the light of day and slid my grip the length of his shaft, which I guessed was about five inches long.
I figured kneeling here in his kitchen stroking him by hand probably wasn't the nicest place to do this, so I gestured towards his bed and he walked back to sit with his feet on the floor. I got on my knees and took him in my mouth. James leaned back resting his hands on the mattress behind him, sitting upright, eyes closed, breathing slowly and deeply.
I worked him mostly with my tongue and lips, mostly the last couple of inches. I figured this was his first orgasm since he got burned and he might come soon, which he did.
Just before the orgasm he reached down and put his hands on the sides of my skull. He moaned that he was about to come so I pulled off so we could watch his boy parts work their magic. One glop flew out and landed on the floor, then another, the rest dripped on the bed between his thighs.
I got up to the kitchen grabbed some towels off the roll and started to clean up. He still had his eyes closed but now had a nice relaxed smile on his face, that special smile only seen after an orgasm.
We talked for a while, then I left after I let James plant a kiss on my cheek. I came back next week to check on his grafts and again the week after that. He was finally able to shower or bathe whenever he wanted. His other burns were well healed and slowly returning to normal color. Every time I came by he never had a shirt on. I think he liked showing off his chest or something. We never discussed dating, I thought he would bring it up. I suspected this was soon to come to an end which was about how most of mine went since high school. I've had nothing but a series of one-time dates but I wasn't sure why, except that I was too nerdy for most guys.
I never saw any hairs growing on his chest and after four weeks he could shave his neck again with an electric. And at eight weeks post grafting he no longer used any dressings on those sites. I went to his place twice a month for dinner and oral sex. I brought him to my place after he insisted. Mine was larger but his looked nicer. I really like his nice hardwood floors.
One night last week (four months after his burns) James came into the burn unit at 1am with Italian carry-out for my lunch, totally a surprise! In the break room he told me his old BF was moving back here from California but he wasn't sure if he even wanted to see him. I expected this would be the end of us. Time would tell. I anticipated this was how we would end but I'm glad we said goodbye with smiles and hugs. Most guys just stopped calling.
Running two miles around east Wilmette was my normal routine on days off, usually early in the morning. This summer I tried something new, I ran to Gilson Park and swam one mile, parallel to the beach. The water was cold but the workout was great. One time I met an old guy that did the same workout but he usually swam at Kenilworth Beach, which was small. I preferred Gilson Park Beach because its large so three runs from end to end was just over one mile. Gilson sometimes had strong off shore currents because it kind of stuck out into the lake.
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