Chapter 99 - The Medical Situation (1/2)

The doctor goes straight into the ICU room; he acts as if he doesn't see Miguel and Claire standing there. Claire can see through the small glass window that everyone is attending to Gabriel quickly. The doctor's barking orders and administering drugs.

”What's happening?” Claire mutters.

Miguel says, ”Don't worry. They're doing everything they can. The doctor knows what he's doing.”

Inside the ICU, the doctor spends a long time talking to the nurses and updating Gabriel's charts. Three nurses are in attendance, including one that Claire knows is the head nurse—Claire had gone to this same hospital months ago and spoke with the same head nurse.

”See? Even the head nurse is personally attending to him,” Miguel says, as if reading her mind. ”The doctor is not taking any chances. And I'm telling you Gabriel is tough as nails. This would be nothing to him.”

If this were nothing, why did he even lose consciousness, is what Claire wants to scream. But she keeps her mouth shut. The last thing she needs is people losing control of their emotions. Not now.

When the doctor finally comes out of the room, Claire almost pounces on him. ”Doc, what happened to him?”

The doctor gazes at them, in his hands some documents that seem to be printed-out results of Gabriel's medical tests. He browses through them. ”The big picture is that Gabriel's fine,” he says. ”But there's a little caveat.”

The expression on Miguel's face says, Go on, don't play the big suspense game on us.

”Gabriel has an infection in his blood,” the doctor says. ”It's possible that he had been having it for the past few days or so. Didn't he feel under the weather lately? He should have come in for a check-up and lab tests. It shouldn't have come to this point.”

Miguel shrugs. ”We had no idea.”

”He seemed fine,” Claire says. ”There was not the smallest indication that he might be ill.”

”Are you sure?” the doctor says. ”As his wife, you should have noticed the smallest of—”

--”I'm not his wife, Doc,” Claire says sheepishly. ”Not even his girlfriend.”

”Oh,” the doctor mutters. ”Then why—”

”She's Gabriel's executive secretary, Doc,” Miguel jumps in, while giving Claire a strange look. ”She's only with Gabriel during office hours, so…”

”I see,” the doctor says, gazing at Claire. ”Well, the fact is, Gabriel had severe blood infection. He had it in the past few days, and something happened to him that allowed the infection to go overboard. Was he under some great amount of stress, lately?”

”Could running in the rain be a possible reason?” Claire regrets the question as soon as she says it.

”What do you mean run in the rain?” Miguel says. ”Yesterday, we had a brief rainstorm. Did he do it, then?”

She hesitates. She says yes, it could lead to more questions from Miguel, who might eventually lead to the big confession. And honestly, she doesn't feel like revealing these things right in this situation, not in front of this doctor. In the end, she just shrugs. ”It's possible that he did something yesterday that left him soaked up in the rain.”

Miguel stares at her questioningly.

”Yes, it's possible,” the doctor says. ”What happened to the patient is the bodily equivalent of a nuclear meltdown. His worsening infection found an opportunity to even go overboard when Gabriel's body underwent an extraordinarily high level of acute stress.”

”So what are we doing now, in terms of treatment?” Miguel says.

”We have administered a medical equivalent of 'shock and awe'. A big but safe dose of a certain antibiotic, as well as a host of other drugs to manage the symptoms. We're watching his fever go down. If it doesn't, certain medical protocols will kick in. If his fever goes down in the next twelve hours or so, then we can all take it a bit easy.”