The Cruise

         They told me it would be like a vacation. All I needed to do was to kick back and hand out a few seasick pills. "Sure, I can do that," I told them. The job was mine.

         Two days out, the passengers started plummeting -- like rats jumping ship. The first day, in dropped a fifty-year-old woman, recovering from a cruel divorce and ripe for a shipboard romance. Her face was broken out in red blotches, itching and swelling. Hives, I suspected at first.

         But hives aren't contagious. The next day, I was treating a sixty-five-year-old lascivious old goat who delivered streams of dirty jokes in the midst of his aches and groans, a thirty-two-year-old newlywed and her brand new husband a couple of years older, and two elderly women of indeterminate age who wouldn't trust me with such information, but whom I was guessing were probably in their eighties.

         All of the passengers were wearing tattoos of red across their face and bodies -- although for the elderly ladies, I was just guessing. I couldn't figure how their usual doctor gave treatments, but it must have been over the phone because they wouldn't allow me a quick look of so innocent a part as a leathery old belly.

         I took blood and urine samples, and scraped skin cells. I pored over the information in my shipboard computer. Nothing matched with the data. Whatever these folks had it was new and unique.

         I was on my way to discuss the situation with the captain, when four more cases dragged themselves into my office. My first problem was where to put them. The beds were full-up. One of the incoming was green with nausea. I was almost excited to see a different symptom, but not thrilled when she upchucked all over the floor. Another, a crewman this time, fainted before I could find him a chair. I rang for the captain. Let him deal with it. I was ready to jump ship!

         Of course, I could do no such thing. We commandeered the closest two cabins and annexed them to our enlarging mini-hospital. By the afternoon, they were all filled with blotching, vomiting patients.

         That night, I looked in the mirror at my blood-shut eyes, and thought back over my conversation with my medical practice office personnel and patients. Hard to believe how full of excitement I'd been two weeks ago, telling everybody about the cruise I'd be going on -- the clear, clean days of fresh Alaskan air and sunshine, romance in the evenings, good food, and pleasant conversation...

         The captain had just called in a quarantine. The ship was returning to home base, but even then the voyage wouldn't be ending. A mysterious disease like this, spreading like an out of control forest fire, wouldn't allow debarking for anyone.

         I kept in constant contact with the naval hospital as well as the Crisis Center. My samples had been helicoptered that first day back to our home port. Help would be arriving soon, but that didn't provide assurance to the passengers with their red facials. And more of them were vomiting by then.

         Three crewmembers had been assigned to assist me. They handled bedpans and "barf pans", as my non-medical helpers had labeled them. But the sore throats, chills, and fevers were something that only I could contend with, and I was strapped by fatigue and the scratchy eyes that accompanied too much research.

         Late that night, I had cornered the bacteria. It was an organism with similarities to scarlet fever. However, the fact that it was an infectious disease, related somehow to streptococcal was puzzling. Scarlet fever was usually found in children, occurred in the late winter or spring, and the first symptoms displayed themselves under the arms or across the chest. The face was usually not even involved.

         This bacterium did not follow those rules. None of the patients were young, it was August, and the face was the first area to develop the scarlet rash. And the rash, itself, was not scarlet feverish in appearance, but more like the flat, dark red spots of typhoid fever.

         I had still not been given permission to start on penicillin or erythromycin, something I would have normally begun the moment symptoms appeared and the relationship was determined. However, I had everything in readiness for the moment that Crisis Team at the hospital called in the prescription. I hoped they didn't wait much longer; the young newly wed couple had been hard hit. I was losing both of them to convulsions.

         The call came at 2:00 am; I was to start penicillin at once. Although it woke me from my first sleep in 32 hours, I jumped up and began injecting. Two hours later, the convulsions in the young couple had stopped, and the others were showing signs of diminishing fevers. The last case of vomiting occurred two hours after that.

         I got some shuteye, and woke to find complaints of sore throats and three rooms full of querulous patients. It was a good sign. In my observation over the years, grumbling patients do not yield to death. Perhaps irritation is one of nature's healers.

         The penicillin brought the cure to all except one; and after the alarm of his sudden allergy to the drug was dealt with, he happily improved with erythromycin.

         The older man, the one who was trying to imitate Hugh Heffner, crawled into bed with the divorcée. One of the suites was appropriated, and I kicked the couple out of the hospital ward. They were doing fine with the antibiotic, and it appeared that they were eager for their privacy. Besides, someone deserved to enjoy this cruise!

         A helicopter had dropped off a case of penicillin, so I was able to inject each of the passengers and crew with one form or other of the antibiotics. After 48 hours no one was contagious. I hung up my stethoscope and turned in my ship's badge. Then I waited for our quarantine to officially be declared over.

         As I was leaving the ship, the captain personally shook my hand and thanked me. He offered me a free cruise without a medical position attached. I shook my head and declined. I had had enough of the adventure of sailing the high seas.

First Place Adventure Race Against Time Contest 1/20/03 "Invalid Item" 
Word Count: 1058