The Shanxi Virus: An epidemic survival story Read online

  "Wow! Is he alive?"

  "Yes, although they took him to the hospital. Ted... the taller hairy man over there, he heard the crash from his house. He said that the truck owner was in a serious condition when he found him lying in the middle of the highway. Anyway, let's not delay any longer. We have a plane to catch."

  As they passed the accident, her mother pointed out the window at one of the two men her father had been talking to. "Isn't that the Preston's pool boy? What is he doing here at this time of the morning?"

  "Who knows? Cleaning their pool?" her father said.

  "He's been coming by nearly every day and cleaning that pool. I thought something might be the matter with it, but I've seen Sherri Preston outside swimming in it, so that can't be right," her mother said.

  Her father cleared his throat, red faced and smirking. "Rich Preston never comes home anymore since he started renting that flat in the city. He says he entertains business clients in the evening, if you can believe that. Rich has a very attractive assistant. Eva is probably lonely."

  In the rearview mirror, she watched her mother's eyebrows furrow as she struggled with the concept. "Well I don't understand what that has to do with having her pool cleaned."

  Jen rolled her eyes. "Mom. Did you see the pool guy? He's ripped. He's not there every day to clean her pool. What else could he possibly be there for?"

  "I still don't understand--"

  "A hot young stud has daily visits with a middle-aged woman whose husband never comes home?"

  "Oh." Her mother turned bright red. "Oh!"

  "You don't have to be so crass about it Jennifer. Now tell us what the problem is that has you so worried. We may be able to help. Is it money?" her father asked.

  Money. Of course he thought it was money. Money was all that mattered. If only it were so simple. How could she tell them that after three years of medical school, her obsessive mind had turned the subject she was there to master into something that terrified her? They wouldn't want to hear about how her skin crawled in immunology class, learning about the thousands of pathogens that most people had never heard of, let alone would encounter. The first two years of curriculum were meant to be an introduction into the human body and its function. It had been a struggle for her, but she had worked through it. Starting this year though, her third, medical school had been a living nightmare as she had begun to do clinical work.

  The human body was rife with all manner of diseases, and many of them were contagious. There weren't enough latex gloves or respirators in the world to make her feel safe when she had been confronted with real patients who had real blood, real saliva, real phlegm, and other bodily fluids. It wasn't just pictures in a textbook any more. Her skin crawled just thinking about it.

  After doing some serious soul searching, Jen had come to the conclusion that she just wasn't cut out for medicine. She felt terrible about it, but there was no way around it. She could never become a doctor. Not that she was ready to tell her parents about the decision.

  Dad would be predictably pissed off at the wasted money spent on med school. Mom... Mom was more complicated. She wouldn't express anything directly, but Jen knew that she would be disappointed, and it would manifest itself in a different way from her father. Once in high school Jen had been forced to call her mother and have her mother pick her up from the police station. She'd gotten wasted at a party and passed out. A neighbor complained about the underage drinking and noise and the police were called. Jen's friends had run out and she was left behind, passed out on a couch, forgotten. Her mother had shamed her with nothing more than the look of disappointment in her eyes, as if Jen hadn't just made a mistake that other teens routinely made. Her father's anger would be swift, but it would blow over like a summer storm. Her mother's disappointment would be long lived. Long after the experience had faded in Jen's mind, she would be the daughter that dropped out of medical school. Never again did she want to be on the receiving end of her mother's guilt.

  "No, no. Just some personal stuff. Have you guys been listening to the news? About the Shanxi virus?" Jen turned the radio on, flipping through radio stations to find a news broadcast. Since the virus had spread beyond China's borders, it was nearly impossible to miss an update on some station or another. She found a local broadcast within the first few stations.

  "According to the World Health Organization, India has confirmed cases of Shanxi flu in the city of Mumbai. Quarantine measures are in place, but will they be any more effective than they were in China? The world will have to wait and see. Next up we'll look at the economic impacts of the Shanxi epidemic--"

  "Would you turn that off please? I don't want to think about that. We're about to go on vacation and I don't need that kind of negativity," her mother said.

  Jen turned the radio off. A shiver ran down her spine as she pictured how events would unfold in the affected countries. She'd seen enough viral outbreak footage from researchers to understand the horrors they would face. A highly contagious and extremely lethal influenza strain was the definition of her nightmare scenario. There had been zero chance of her taking up Dr. Sbuka on her offer. She gave a silent prayer that the virus would never find it's way to America.

  "You still haven't told us how things are going in school. You're usually much more talkative. Is there some problem that we should know about?" her father asked.

  A wave of guilt washed over her, and Jen's mind raced for a way out of the conversation. "Aren't you guys worried about going overseas for a week with an epidemic at large?"

  "We're going to Spain dear. We're going to be on a cruise in the Mediterranean. We're going nowhere near the affected regions. There aren't any stops in Asia," her mother said.

  "Yeah, but it's already spread to other countries. If this is as contagious as the C.D.C. claims, it's only a matter of time before it spreads. What if the C.D.C. decides to shut down international flights from Europe just like we did with the flights from Asia. And what if--"

  "I know what you're doing Jennifer," her father said sternly. "If you won't tell us what is the matter voluntarily, then I will have to insist that you tell us. What is going on at school? A counselor left a voice mail on the home line for you. She said that you hadn't signed up for your dorm next year yet. Why not? What's going on? Is it your illness?"

  Heat burned her cheeks and her belly filled with fire. She wasn't mentally ill, at least not in the manner he was implying. "Yes Dad. It's my illness. You've hit the nail on the head. Do you know what? You want to know? Fine. I'm going to drop out of medical school. I just can't take it anymore. I know the names of more pathogens than you can even imagine. Nasty little things that get inside you and multiply into the billions. I can tell you about thousands of ways a human body can become sick and die. And don't even get me started on cancer. Let me tell--"

  "Jen!" her father barked. "Put that down this instant and take the steering wheel."

  She looked down, unsurprised to see that she'd unconsciously picked up a bottle of hand sanitizer from the dash and had squirted a large volume of it into her hands, using her knees to keep the steering wheel in place. Jen rubbed the alcohol in, relishing the intense burn the sanitizer caused in the deep cuts in her hands. It meant she was clean. When she finished cleaning her hands, she took hold of the steering wheel again.

  Her father's neck and face were beet red. "I knew it. You've stopped taking your medication. You listen to me little girl--"

  "I'm not your little girl anymore dad! I'm twenty-five years--"

  "Until I stop paying for medical school you are my little girl, and you'll damn well do what I say. I refuse to let my daughter ruin her life over untreated mental illness. No more avoiding this problem Jennifer. You will go to see a psychologist and let them fix you. Do I make myself clear?"

  Her mother sat quietly in the back seat, looking out through the side window. She had a faraway look on her face. The one that said that she regretted ever having a child, or at least one as flawed as Jen.r />
  Jen stomped on the gas and accelerated to fifteen miles an hour over the speed limit. She stared out the front window, fuming. The cat was out of the bag now. Her parents knew that she was going to drop out, and they had expressed their displeasure. She couldn't wait to dump them off at the airport.

  Friday, June 5th

  Chapter 5

  Mike awoke slowly. In pain, disoriented and confused. His throat was raw and dry. Something was stuck in there too, something that itched and burned and made him gag. He opened his eyes and saw that he was lying in a hospital bed with an IV tube protruding from his right arm. His left arm was in a cast from his fingers up to his elbow, and there were several wires taped to his head and body that led to monitoring equipment next to the bed. Soft wrist restraints tied to the metal railing of the bed kept his arms pinned next to his sides. He shivered. The room was icy cold, and he was naked beneath the thin sheet covering his lower torso.

  Mike yanked hard on the restraint holding his right hand in place, breaking the flimsy Velcro apart. His hand free, he clawed at the Velcro straps holding the ventilator's mouthpiece in place on his face. Gagging, he slid the long ventilator tube out of his throat, suppressing the urge to throw up.

  A voice across the room startled him.

  "Hey! You're awake! You shouldn't do that," a frail looking man said from a bed kitty corner to his own. The white-haired old man frantically pressed the call button lying on the bed next to him.

  A female voice answered a moment later, terse and business like. "Yes? What is it?"

  "Nurse! It's the other guy in my room. He's awake. You'd better come in here," the old man said.

  The speaker on the call button went silent, and the door opened a few seconds later as a plump middle-aged nurse entered the room. She glanced at the ventilator Mike had cast aside, an irritated look on her face. Sliding the privacy curtain shut that separated Mike's bed from the rest of the room, she moved over to a panel of buttons and gauges on the wall and turned the ventilator's hissing air supply off.

  "Sir, you aren't supposed to remove that by yourself," she chided. Her tone softened a bit as she checked the monitors next to the bed and lifted the sheet to adjust one of the monitoring wires on his side. "How are you feeling?"

  Now that the tube was out of his throat, pain registered in every other part of his body. He touched the ribs on the left side of his chest and winced with pain. He looked down to see that the entire left side of his torso was a massive purple bruise. He tried to move his left hand, but his fingers and wrist were held immobile by the cast. He could tell by the way pain shot up his arm that at least this thumb, index, and middle finger were broken. His wrist was either strained or broken as well. What caused him the most pain was the plum sized lump on his forehead. His eyeball felt like it was going to pop out of the socket, and he had a banging headache. He pressed on the lump with his fingers and a lightning bolt of pain lanced through his skull and he saw white spots appear. Mike struggled to sit up in the bed, and an overpowering wave of dizziness immediately came over him. His head spinning, he struggled to remain upright, hoping the spinning would go away.

  "Mister Dunham? Lie down before you hurt yourself. You're in no condition to get up."

  "Where am I?"

  "In a hospital. There's been an accident. You are lucky to be alive. Stay put, I'll get the doctor. He'll explain everything."

  Fifteen minutes later, a doctor strolled into the room. He picked up a chart and glanced at Mike. "How are you feeling?"

  "Sore. Real sore. How long was I out for? Where am I?"

  "You were out for seven days. Right now you're at Missouri Baptist Medical Center in St. Louis--"

  "A week? Are you kidding me?"

  "I'm afraid not. You were in rough shape when they brought you in."

  "Just how in the hell did I get to St. Louis?" Mike asked.

  "You were transferred from one of our satellite hospitals in Sullivan. They treated your immediate injuries from the crash and then sent you here for a CT scan once you were stable enough for transport. Mike, you've been comatose. We weren't sure if you were going to wake up. It's a good sign that you're awake now, but you're going to need to stay here for a while yet and take it easy. Frankly, you were lucky to walk away from that accident."

  "I don't even remember it. What about the other driver? Are they all right?" Mike asked.

  "Hmm. I'm not sure. You were the only patient transferred here," The doctor said.

  The doctor inspected his wounds, pulling aside the bandage on his forehead and poking at it until Mike began to see spots again and grunt with pain. A frown appeared on the doctor's face, and then he pulled the privacy curtain aside, moving to the other side of the room. "Mr. Bauer! How are we feeling today?" The doctor asked the old man across the room.

  Mike sank back into the bed, and then used the adjustable electric bed remote to raise himself up into a semi-sitting position. He felt around on the nightstand next to the bed, pushing aside a vase of flowers in the way, until he located the television remote, and then turned on the small set in the corner. Nearly every channel he flicked past had a news broadcast on, and all of them covered the same story.

  "--Received confirmation that the Shanxi flu has spread to Iran and parts of Iraq."

  Mike flipped through to another station.

  "--An estimated six hundred million dead in China. Just an unbelievable number. With no sign of a vaccine in the near future, the rest of the world is left to wonder where the virus will strike next."

  "Make sure to get some rest Mr. Dunham," The doctor said. "It is good to see you up, but don't take things too fast." The doctor's voice barely registered as Mike flipped through the stations, reading the text scrolling across the bottom of the screen and listening to the news anchors at the same time.

  "--Authorities in Sao Paolo say they aren't sure how the virus got past airport screening measures, but the one thing they do know is that the virus has spread quickly throughout the city's southern district. Efforts to contain the virus have not been successful."

  The Shanxi virus was in Brazil! It would only be a matter of time before H7N9 spread throughout South America, up through Central America, and then to the United States. If the draconian measures imposed by the authoritarian Chinese government had been unable to contain the disease, no nation in the world would be able to stop it.

  His heart pounding like a drum, Mike tried to pull the IV out of his right arm, but the cast on his left arm wouldn't allow the movement. Taking the IV line in between his teeth, he ripped it out of his arm, tape and all. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and looked around for his clothes, but they were nowhere to be seen.

  "I've got to get out of here. Where are my clothes?"

  The doctor turned to face him, frowning as he looked down at the blood dripping from Mike's arm. "Mr. Dunham, you can't just go ripping things out of yourself. Let's get a bandage on that."

  The doctor stuck a cotton ball on his arm to stop the bleeding from where he'd removed the IV line, and then stuck a bandage over it. "Now, where were you off to in such a hurry?" the doctor asked.

  Mike flicked his head towards the television. "The Shanxi virus has jumped from the old world to the new world. I've got to get home."

  The doctor smirked as he glanced up at the news program on the television.

  "Come on now. Don't be irrational. This won't spread to America. That's a second and third world problem. We have a modern medical infrastructure, and the C.D.C. is quite capable of putting a halt to any epidemic. Trust me, the government will quarantine anyone who comes down with the virus, and it won't spread."

  Mike shook his head, making the dizziness worse. "No. You're wrong. I've got to get out of here."

  "Remember how everyone panicked during the Ebola crisis?" The doctor frowned at him and waved his hand dismissively. "Do you remember when we brought a few sick people to the C.D.C. hospital in Atlanta for treatment? Nothing came of that, did it
? A couple of nurses were exposed, but it didn't spread. What you are seeing in those other countries? That can't happen in the U.S. It won't. The news media is simply pandering to mass hysteria to get higher ratings. Simple fear mongering."

  It can happen, and it does happen, all of the time. Anywhere. Anytime. You'd know that if you read your history books, Mike thought. Epidemics have done a real number on humanity on a regular basis if you take the long view of time. "I guess we'll have to agree to disagree."

  The doctor rolled his eyes, then resumed his detached and clinical demeanor. "Get some rest, and ring the nurses if you need anything."

  "Thanks doc. Will do."

  After the doctor left, Mike waited for several minutes, impatiently clicking through channels on the television before he tried to get up out of the bed again. He had to get out of here. His truck must have been totaled if he was in this bad of shape. He seemed to remember the truck rolling over. Several times in fact. His gear was probably strewn all over the place on the side of the highway. That meant there would be no bugging out to Rio Grande National Park in Colorado. The best thing that he could do now, in the shape he was in, would be to find a cab and get his ass home. He had enough supplies to ride this thing out from home, although it was far from the ideal place to be during an epidemic. Still, home in his cabin was miles better than stuck at a hospital in a city as large as St. Louis.

  He was weak and his head was still spinning, likely because he hadn't eaten since the crash. Summoning his strength, he sat upright in the bed and swung his legs over the side. His stomach did somersaults and a weak shiver ran through his body before his vision went fishy.

  "Hey. You'd better lie back down. Do you want me to call the nurse for you?" The old man across the room asked him.