Love Hurts

A is for Anthrax - Part 3

A few days into Jay's treatment and being on the antibiotics, Jay's fever finally began to break. But he hadn't quite turned the corner yet. Both Will and Ellie had predicted right, things had gotten worse for Jay before they had begun to get better. Jay had gotten weaker in the past few days. The antibiotics he was on made him exhausted, he slept most of the time, and even though Ellie kept him on the anti nausea meds he would wake up vomiting and those episodes took every bit of energy Jay had left in him. He had absolutely no appetite. Ellie kept bags of fluid in him to keep him hydrated. She had him sipping water and pedialyte as much as he could. And the only thing resembling food she could get in was unsalted chicken broth. She tried a bit of V8 vegetable juice but that had a very negative effect so she ditched that idea quickly. She was able to get him to suck on crushed ice chips, that seemed to help his sore throat. The only good thing the last few days was that his vital signs had seemed to stabalize. He was breathing a bit better and his heartrate had slowed down a bit but Ellie was closely monitoring all his vitals, making sure he had enough fluids and closely monitoring all his bloodwork making sure his electrolytes, potassium, and sodium levels were on point so he didn't go into an arrthymia again.

And through it all, the constant was Ellie. More than just taking care of him as a Dr, she was caring for him too because she did care. And Will was right she was falling for him, if the truth were known. She had already fallen. She was by his side through this whole ordeal just like she promised him. They were in this together. She comforted him as he got sick. She held the cup to his lips as he sipped water and pedialyte. She soothed him to sleep by gently caressing his head and running her fingers through his hair. And though they hadn't spoken about where they stood in their relationship other than the night before he opened the envelope of Anthrax, where they decided they would be good friends who could depend on each other and maybe they would grow to be such good friends like she had become with Will, it was obvious they were beyond that. They didn't speak about it, but they were holding hands most of the time, she would softly caress him to calm him, she would brush soft kisses on his forehead or his cheeks, she would hold him as he fell asleep, She had moved her hospital bed right up next to his and would sleep right beside him. She would watch his chest softly rise and fall during the night. Her favorite new sound had become the soft steady beeping that occured every time his heart would beat. No scratch that , it was her 2nd favorite sound, her favorite sound was the soft slow beating she would hear when she would listen to his chest through her stethoscope.

But today they were finally turning a corner, the first real sign of recovery even though Ellie knew the recovery would be slow. The first several days of Jay on antibiotics brought Jay's fever down little by little but today was the day. It finally broke. But by doing so, it made Jay feel like complete Crap. He woke up to feel every muscle in his body ache. He felt like he had the flu. Jay looked over at Ellie, who was nestled into his side. Her head resting on his bare shoulder.

Jay: El? Ellie?

She opened her eyes and looked over at Jay. She softly smiled at him glad he was the one who woke her up today. That was a good sign.

Ellie: Hey, good morning

She went through her normal motions of when she would wake up next to him. She reached over and felt his forehead. It was soaken wet, and cool, clammy even. She jumped up.

Ellie: Jay how are you feeling sweetie?

Yeah there's that too, but he never questioned it. He groaned his response as she made her way to the other side of his hospital bed. She felt his forehead again and then felt each of his cheeks with the back of her hand. She turned to look at the monitor. And specifically looked at his temp stat. which read 99.2. She turned back to face him and picked up his wrist to feel his pulse.