Chelsea put aside what she had heard about the intense pride that the aircraft maintenance crew had in their job. “What about Tim?”
Tim Giacomo hadn’t told Chelsea anything about having to go out into the field, but that wasn’t surprising. If an aircraft had landed at another of the battle zone’s airfields and had mechanical difficulty, it would have been the crack mechanics from Bagram Air Base that would have been called in to do the repairs. Each base had its own mechanic shop, but everyone knew that the best wrenches in this man’s Army were wielded by the men and women at Bagram.
In fact, Michelle Sarnosky, one of the first female aircraft mechanics in the service, was considered one of the finest at her craft. She worked closely with Tim on some of the intricate parts of the maintenance task. Chelsea had gotten to know and like Michelle as well.
Regardless of the when’s and the why’s, Tim had been wounded on some kind of repair job. Chelsea was doubly concerned for her friend because, though he was heavily sedated when she had first come to his side, Tim had been conscious enough that he should have recognized Chelsea. There hadn’t been a hint of recognition in his eyes as they drifted closed. Chelsea prayed as she aided Captain McGuire in his task.
Dear Lord, I know that your ways are Holy and that my ways are just human, but please be with my friend Tim. It may be selfish of me, but he’s a wonderful man with a wonderful family who need him so much. Help Captain McGuire and all of us work with sure hands. In Jesus name, Amen
Just as Chelsea concluded her inner dialogue with the Almighty, Captain McGuire took stock of the situation.
“We have him stabilized. We’re going to have to get some images of his insides to see if there is any further damage, though. Walter?” Captain McGuire shouted, calling one of the transport medics. “I need you to make a run to Glynnis with this young man.”
Glynnis was the name given to the Nuclear Medicine and Imaging Unit of the medical facilities at Bagram Air Base. Located about 75 yards from where the patient was currently located, Glynnis (named when it was first built after the actress Glynnis O’Connor. The name, for no apparent reason, stuck) was a little slice of the famed Mayo Clinic in the middle of the God-forsaken desert. Complete with CT, nuclear medicine, large bore MRI, and the latest in healing technology for neuroblastoma tumor cells brought about by exposure to high temperature burns. The latter, known as positron emission tomography (or PET) was second to none in the world.
Today, the patient was going to be transported to Glynnis while under sedation to make the trip that much more comfortable. He would be restrained during the testing procedure. That would ensure that the resultant images would be as clear as possible. Rather than waiting days to determine if there was any hidden damage to his internal organs, Captain McGuire would know by early this evening.
The triage area of the medical facility was mercifully and for one of the few times lately, empty of incoming casualties. Chelsea asked if she could accompany Tim to Glynnis. Lieutenant McKay, with a puzzled expression that Chelsea couldn’t decipher, agreed.
Chelsea caught up with Private Walter Beauregard who, along with Pfc. Clayton Adams was carefully transporting Tim Giacomo’s sleeping body across the smooth sidewalk that connected the main medical facility to Glynnis. About a third of the way there, someone new fell into step beside Chelsea and asked, “How is he doing?”
Chelsea turned to answer and saw that the question had been asked by Corporal Tim Giacomo. Chelsea went pale as she looked from Tim to the patient and back to Tim. Suddenly it all came clear to the young nurse.
The patient hadn’t recognized her because he didn’t know her. Lieutenant McKay was puzzled by Chelsea’s request. As far as she knew, Chelsea had never seen this patient before. Tim asked how the patient was doing because the patient was Tim’s identical twin brother, Specialist First Class Gerald Giacomo.
Tim quickly realized what Chelsea had been going through for the last half hour. As concerned as he was for his brother, Tim put his arm around his friend and said, “I’m right here. I’ve been right here all along.”
Chelsea felt faint. Of course, the boy on the transport table was important to her, but to know that it wasn’t her dear friend brought about a guilty moment of pleasure. It was a moment that she quickly squashed.
“We think that he’s going to be fine. He’s been terribly cut up, though, and some of the wounds are pretty deep. He has movement to all of his extremities, though. We’re going to get him looked at in Glynnis.”
Tim’s eyes clouded over as he looked at his sleeping brother. It is said that twins have a unique sense when the other half of the same fertilized egg is in distress. That was certainly true for the Giacomo twins. Once, when they were in elementary school, Gerald had been on the losing end of a fistfight. Tim’s nose had started to leak a little blood just as Gerald had taken a right cross across the bridge of his nose.
All today, Tim had been in a state of mental and physical distress, and he couldn’t explain any of it, until now.
The small medical entourage arrived at Glynnis shortly thereafter. Gerald Giacomo was wheeled into the testing area for further evaluation. Tim and Chelsea waited in the adjoining area where coffee, water, and snacks were provided.
Tim gulped two cups of coffee and sat down, having found himself suddenly weak in the knees. Chelsea sat down beside her friend, and said what she could in an attempt to allay his fears.
“Captain McGuire felt good about his chances of full recovery when he sent Gerald away. He didn’t say it just like that, but I’ve gotten so I can tell what he’s thinking about the patients and he had an okay look this time.”
Tim thanked Chelsea with his eyes. He respected her skills, not only as a nurse but as an observer as well. He had grown to appreciate her compassionate heart, and sense of humor. She was one of his best friends at the base, and he had written letters to his wife where he talked about her. Far from there being any romance at all in their relationship, Tim considered Chelsea to be just a great friend, and he wanted his wife to know about her and that their relationship was on the up and up.
For her part, Chelsea appreciated Tim as well. For a while, she couldn’t figure out of whom he reminded her, but there was something about him that recalled someone else. It was the way that he held his head back when he laughed, or a turn of phrase that he occasionally used. One night, when she was almost asleep in her CHU, Chelsea realized that it was her friend Guy Harris that was recalled when she was around Tim Giacomo.
Even now, sitting on the hard plastic chairs in the waiting area inside Glynnis with a worried expression on his face, Tim had an expression that was reminiscent of Guy Harris when he was concentrating hard, or was worried about an upcoming exam or skills test.
Chelsea had liked Guy but had never felt attracted to him beyond that. She felt the same way about Tim.
He is a really great guy, though, Chelsea thought. His wife is lucky that she fell for him. There is a lot about Tim that a woman could grow to love.
After about an hour, Master Sergeant Barry Blakeley came into the waiting area and asked to speak to Tim in a private room. Tim asked if it would be all right if Chelsea accompanied him. MSgt. Blakeley nodded his assent. They processed into the only cubicle in the front end of Glynnis that had a door that would close for privacy purposes. Tim and Chelsea took a seat in front of the desk facing MSgt. Blakeley, who directed his words to Tim.
“First of all, Captain McGuire did his usual magnificent job on your brother. We could tell that as soon as the shrapnel had cooled to the point of it being safe to remove, that’s exactly what was done.”
MSgt. Blakeley glanced quickly at Chelsea, “Some of what I’m going to say will be overly simplistic to you, but the patient’s brother isn’t in the medical field, I understand.”
Chelsea said, “Please, tell him what he needs to know in ways that he can understand. MSgt. Blakeley turned his attention back to Tim Giacomo. “The injuries that your brother
sustained were from what we call an L.E. That stands for low-order explosives. It appears that the patient ran up against a pipe bomb of some sort. Don’t get me wrong, though.
“The term low order doesn’t mean that it isn’t a dangerous piece of work. It only means that the explosive didn’t have a significant amount of liquid as part of the propellant process. The planes that brought down the World Trade Center towers on September 11th were low order explosives as well, just because the damage was primarily done by a solid rather than a liquid. Are you with me, so far?
Tim nodded, taking it all in. MSgt. Blakeley, satisfied that his words were being comprehended to this point, continued.
“The first thing that we have to be concerned about from a bomb like this is what we call primary blast injury. The respiratory system can sustain substantial injury as a consequence of supersonic pressure triggered by the blast wave. Pulmonary contusion is most common and generally occurs on the side of the body that was closest to the explosion. Signs and symptoms can be delayed up to 48 hours after the event.
“So, while I can tell you that your brother appears to be doing well at this time and that we see no sign of this kind of traumatic injury, we won’t be able to know for at least a couple of days if that continues to be the case.
“The bomb that impacted your brother today had a deadly mixture of bolts, nails, and glass in the recipe. That creates an additional concern going forward.”
MSgt. Blakeley started to rise. It looked as if he was about to conclude with his last statement, but something bothered Chelsea.
“Doctor, you said that there were two concerns that you had about this patient in particular. What is the second one? I mean besides the dangers inherent in secondary explosions.”
The doctor nodded in Chelsea’s direction. “I’m glad you asked, but it’s not a concern unique to this patient. I’m sorry if I have given either of you that impression. It’s just that infection is almost a given in the case of shrapnel injury. The detritus that the attacker puts into the bomb is filthy, and if it isn’t filthy naturally, the attacker makes it that way by adding dirt to the mix. I’m sorry to say that, while the care that your brother has gotten today has been superb, infection isn’t a matter of if but of when and where it strikes.
“Everything is being done to make him as comfortable as he can be at this point, and he is genuinely in no immediate danger. But what happens next is just a matter of how fast we can catch it and what the antibiotics that we have on hand can do with it. I wish that I could be more definitive about the prognosis, but I can’t. He’s been lucky…so far.”
Tim and Chelsea thanked the doctor for his time and his candor before leaving Glynnis. Satisfied that all that could be done was being done, and assured the Gerald Giacomo would be asleep for at least the next 6-8 hours, the two friends went across the base and separated to go to their separate CHUs. Chelsea promised to check with Tim in a few hours and to go back to Glynnis and check on Gerald as well if she got a chance.
Later that evening, Chelsea awoke from a sleep that had been altogether too short. She had a tour scheduled from 2300 hours to 0930 and knew that she wouldn’t have a chance to check on Tim and his brother until the next morning if she didn’t check in before she went to work. At the reception desk in Glynnis, she asked where she might find Specialist Giacomo. The nurse told her that he was in 2D on the second floor of the two story structure.
Chelsea climbed the steps (the elevator was out…again) and knocked softly on the door to 2D. When there was no answer from inside, Chelsea opened the door ever so quietly and stepped into the room. There she found the patient sleeping peacefully amongst the tubes and machines that were softly whirring and keeping track of the health of his vital organs. In a chair beside the bed, but with his head resting against the blanket that covered the bed, was Tim Giacomo.
He had fallen asleep while praying for his fallen brother. Chelsea stayed only a moment. Just long enough to add her own prayer to the ones ushered heavenward by her friend.
Chapter Five
Chelsea’s tour of duty was relatively light that night. The most severe injuries were twofold. First a young kid (barely 18 years old and in his first week in Afghanistan) who had taken a piece of shrapnel in his left eye. He would lose the eye and complete his hitch in the Army with a medical discharge after only three months enlisted. The other serious case was actually a byproduct of a botched surgery that had been performed in a field hospital.
2nd Lieutenant Brad Malonder had undergone an emergency appendectomy while out in the field. A couple of days after he should have been well on the way to recovery his temperature spiked to 102.8. He had developed fecal peritonitis.
Fecal peritonitis results from the presence of feces in the peritoneal cavity. It can result from abdominal trauma and occurs if the large bowel is perforated during surgery. The patient was rushed to the Bagram Air Base medical facility where Captain McGuire determined that a laparotomy was needed to perform a full exploration and lavage of the peritoneum, as well as to correct any gross anatomical damage that may have contributed to such a full blown case of peritonitis after such a short time.
As it turned out, Brad Malonder’s insides were properly constructed. It was the surgery in the field that was to blame. Captain McGuire, with some quality help from Chelsea Bannister, successfully set 2nd Lieutenant Malonder back on the road to complete recovery.
Chelsea’s tour was light enough that Lieutenant McKay asked if she would be willing to work a couple of hours over to give Wendy Shafer a shorter shift in the hot weather. Lieutenant McKay intended to ask Chelsea if she would take Wendy’s first two hours and another nurse, Rebecca “Becky” Hulslander to take Wendy’s last two hours. The medical staff was a little concerned that Wendy hadn’t snapped back from her bout with heat stroke as fast as would have been expected.
Chelsea agreed to the arrangement. Lieutenant McKay told her that she should take a short break between the ostensible end of her own shift and the beginning of the next. In fact, Lieutenant McKay took a break at the same time. It was soon clear to Chelsea that Lieutenant McKay wanted to have a quiet word with Chelsea, away from the ears present in the medical unit’s main examination area. Lieutenant McKay (as was her style) didn’t waste any time getting down to the point.
“Private Bannister, you are performing very adequately here.”
Chelsea knew that this compliment, which in civilian life would have been considered to be lukewarm at best, was actually high praise from the demanding head nurse. Usually, the less that was said to you by Lieutenant McKay the better you could assume you did at work. The nurses had an expression when a tour of duty went well. They would say, “The silence was golden.” That meant that their butts had survived without a thorough gnawing by Lieutenant McKay. Chelsea hoped that this compliment wasn’t a prelude to the other shoe dropping.
It wasn’t. Lieutenant McKay was concerned about something else but wanted Chelsea to know that all was well as far as she was concerned. Now that the niceties were over Lieutenant McKay forged on to the real reason for this little get-together.
“How well do you know Private Shafer?” she asked.
Chelsea squinted into the sun as she thought about her answer. She had left her sunglasses beside her bed in the CHU. Rookie mistake, she thought.
Aloud she said, “I guess I know Wendy about as well as I know any of the other girls that got here after I did. There is a tendency to hang with the people that came when you did, so I haven’t spent a lot of time with her. I like her, though. Why do you ask?”
“Her work was first rate when she initially arrived. Just as good as yours. Better maybe.”
Why you old bat! Chelsea thought. Pay me a compliment and then throw me under the Jeep with the next thing that you say. That’s McKay, though.
For all of the insulting things that were going through Chelsea’s mind, she kept her facial expression composed and open. Deep down, she knew that Lieutenant McKa
y respected her work. Whether the older nurse liked Chelsea as a person Chelsea didn’t know, and figured that she probably never would. It probably wouldn’t matter in the long run. Chelsea realized that, while lost in her thoughts and trying to hide her thoughts from her face, she had lost track of the thread of the conversation. I need to catch up, she thought.
“It’s just something that the rest of the senior staff and I have been noticing a little bit. There isn’t anything specific that we can put our finger on, though.”
Lieutenant McKay stopped speaking and looked at Chelsea, obviously awaiting a reply. Damn. What did I miss? Chelsea thought. She decided to wing it and hope that Lieutenant McKay didn’t realize that Chelsea had been mulling over how nice it would be to run the senior nurse over with a Humvee.
“I would be glad to help figure this out, Lieutenant McKay. Is there something that you would like me to do specifically I mean, to answer the questions that you and the doctors have?”
There. That sounded helpful and concerned, but vague. You’re good, Bannister, Chelsea congratulated herself.
Lieutenant McKay looked at Chelsea and answered her dryly. “Why yes Pfc. Bannister. Why don’t you take a little time out to talk to Private Shafer and inquire as to her welfare? Just as I suggested less than a minute ago.”
Chelsea could feel the flush as her face reddened. “Yes, Lieutenant McKay. I’ll do that.”
“Thank you, Bannister. Not a great poker player, are you?” Lieutenant McKay said as she opened the door to go back into the unit. The Lieutenant waited until the door had closed to smile.
Over the next several days, Chelsea tried to get closer to Private Wendy Shafer. At first the younger nurse seemed reticent to share much about her personal life beyond the fact that she was a native of Racine, Wisconsin and that her Dad had served in the Da Nang Province during the Vietnamese conflict. Chelsea kept at it, though, and eventually learned that Private Shafer was hiding something. She suffered from acute panic attacks, and she was afraid that she was going to be discharged other than honorably if she couldn’t do her job.
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