Thawing A.C. Nielsen--Sharing Ch 24

Today I'm sharing chapter 24 of "Thawing A.C. Nielsen". I hope you'll read it. I'm trying to share a chapter a day, although at some point I will have to take them all down as the book starts to go to press.

 Very excited! My new novel, Thawing A.C. Nielsen, is now up and available for "pre-sale" (just $2.99 for Kindle or other ebook format, then price goes up before the holidays) on Kindle here:

http://amzn.to/2bULRD1
  
In the first 24 hours the book is already in the top 8% of Amazon books sold! Woot!

Also, newly posted there-- a 5-star review from one of the top reviewing companies! Until it goes "live for sale" there won't be any customer reviews or samples-- that happens Oct. 18th. There will also be a paperback version up soon. Check it out and please spread the word. I need all the publicity help I can get since I am not giving away my book to a mainstream publishing house!

I am wondering if any of you would consider reviewing the book. It will be released on Amazon/Kindle on October 18th. I need reviews from regular folks posted to amazon on the release day, if possible. You get a FREE pdf, word.doc or .mobi (Kindle ebook file) copy and plenty of time between now and mid-October to read it. Let me know, friends!

 Chapter 24 is short, but upsetting. It seems that the veterinarian, Amman, has found something wrong with Mr T, the recenty defrosted guinea pig. Wahh.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

November 2013

Word spread quickly throughout the building, even to the people watching over A.C. Nielsen—somehow cryo had cured Mr. T’s cancer tumors from 1987. But how in the world was that possible? No one knew the answer. Amman and Ritika, with Kate’s help, kept studying Mr. T day and night, combing their data for anything that might tell them more. Meanwhile, Mr. T kept on wiggling and piggling away. Ritika eventually had to return to Boston, and Edouard would leave soon for a week or two in the Caribbean, so most of the continuing work fell on Amman. Chrissy had already taught Mr. T a few tricks to the amazement of everyone. He was the number one attraction at ExitStrategy—so much so that Mike had to occasionally shoo people away and yell at them to get back to their actual work.

Despite these happy times, Amman had found some issues that weren’t to his liking. He kept these to himself for a while, waiting to gather evidence to confirm or deny them before he told anyone else his concerns. Norm happened upon him once, as Amman stared almost cross-eyed at some EEG readouts, drumming his fingers for minutes on end. When Norm asked if he was okay, Amman snapped out of his trance but looked troubled. Norm decided to not press the issue, figuring that perhaps Amman was simply sleep-deprived. However, this all came to a head three weeks after Mr. T had rejoined the living.

One morning, Amman entered ExitStrategy with a newly arrived guest from San Francisco, a veterinarian named Dr. John Shipley, who had attended grad school at Cornell’s revered veterinary program with Amman. Amman had asked Mike and Kate to let him bring in Shipley as a consultant. Amman and Shipley disappeared into Amman’s temporary office and were holed up in there for hours. Kate wondered what was going on, but left them alone. Amman finally emerged, looking exhausted. He walked into the lab and sat down beside Mr. T’s cage. Mr. T was hard at work rearranging his wood chips for the seventh time that day. Amman stared at Mr. T for what seemed like forever. Kate noticed him there but held back—she could see that something was bothering him. Shipley entered the room and stood quietly by Kate. She finally broke Amman out of his trance.

“So what do we know, Amman?”

“What I’ve always told you, Kate. He’s a guinea pig.”

“Right. And you brought him back to life,” she said gently.

“Yes, the whole team did. It wasn’t just me.”

“True, but you were the one with all the training, all the knowledge.”

“Yes, and Ritika, too.” Amman kept staring at Mr. T, not even looking up at Kate. Finally, he stood up and walked back to his temporary office. Kate looked to Shipley, who just stared back at her without expression. Amman returned to the lab with his laptop and brought up the report he and Shipley had created for Kate and Mike to read.

“Kate, come over here, look at this—page one, page two, page three, and so on. This could be any guinea pig in the world.”

Kate squinted at the data and charts. “That’s good, Amman. We want him to be like all the other guinea pigs, right?”

“Here—” He stood. “—take my seat. Go ahead and keep scrolling.” Amman started pacing the room slowly. Meanwhile, Shipley remained like a statue, expressionless. Kate kept reading and scrolling. As she went through more and more pages her face lost its luster, and her usual cheerful smile turned into a frown. At page forty, Shipley’s observations as an expert in mammalian behavior appeared. Over the past week Amman had sent him hours and hours of video footage of Mr. T, and Shipley had summarized his observations for inclusion in the report. Kate read on about ten more pages. “That’s far enough, Katherine. Just technical-shmechnical stuff there now. Go ahead and skip to page seventy-five. There’s a fairly succinct summary there,” Amman said softly.

Kate found page seventy-five and read more slowly, mouthing each word. When she finished she took a moment to steel herself before she spoke.

“Amman, thank you. Dr. Shipley, thank you for reviewing this case and sharing your expertise with us. We really appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome, Miss Pearson. I’m sorry,” he said.

“Shall I call Mike in, Amman?” Kate said.

“Yes, I think so,” he replied. “But better yet, why don’t you get everyone in here? We’ll tell them all together.”

“We could do that. Almost everyone is here now. I can get the rest of them here by one this afternoon.”

“Let’s do that, then,” Amman said, placing his hand gently on Kate’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, too, Kate. I never expected this.”

Thawin A.C.Nielsen--Sharing Ch. 23

Today I'm sharing chapter 23 of "Thawing A.C. Nielsen". I hope you'll read it. I'm trying to share a chapter or two a day, although at some point I will have to take them all down as the book starts to go to press.

 Very excited! My new novel, Thawing A.C. Nielsen, is now up and available for "pre-sale" (just $2.99 for Kindle or other ebook format, then price goes up before the holidays) on Kindle here:

http://amzn.to/2bULRD1
  
Selling like crazy- please go to that link and consider ordering the ebook or at least sharing the info with other book enthusiasts! It's already hitting top 100 various genre lists on Amazon!

Newly posted there-- a 5-star review from one of the top reviewing companies! Until it goes "live for sale" there won't be any customer reviews or samples-- that happens Oct. 18th. There will also be a paperback version up soon. Check it out and please spread the word. I need all the publicity help I can get since I am not giving away my book to a mainstream publishing house!

I am wondering if any of you would consider reviewing the book. It will be released on Amazon/Kindle on October 18th. I need reviews from regular folks posted to amazon on the release day, if possible. You get a FREE pdf, word.doc or .mobi (Kindle ebook file) copy and plenty of time between now and mid-October to read it. Let me know, friends! 

In Chapter 23 Mr. T, the amazing guinea pig, is way healthier than anyone could expect!

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The next morning Kate, Amman, Ritika, and Edouard began their day with a visit to their furry little patient. Chrissy was fussing over him as he sat in his cage chewing on some shredded carrots, wiggling his little nose and whiskers. She was assigned to chart his health and behavior and had been with Mr. T almost nonstop.

“Look, y’all, he’s such a sweet little guy.” Chrissy smiled, obviously very happy with her new pet.

“You might not know this,” Edouard said, “but in much of South America, guinea pigs are served up grilled or roasted on a spit, Chrissy. A low carbon footprint source of protein. You’re not hungry right now, are you?”

“You’re barking up the wrong tree, Edouard,” Amman advised. “You can’t tease Chrissy. You’ll never get a rise out of her. Believe me, I’ve tried since the day I got here.”

“That’s right. And if you try to roast Mr. T, I might roast all of you,” Chrissy said, sticking her tongue out.

“Okay, everyone—relax,” Amman said. “We just want to look him over. Do we have your permission?”

“Yes, of course.” Chrissy stepped back from the cage.

Amman stepped forward to watch Mr. T for a while. He took him out of the cage and checked him over. He seemed satisfied. “As soon as he poops we’ll be looking at that. He’s been eating a lot, right?”

“For sure,” Chrissy answered. “Don’t worry, he’s gonna have some little pellets for you sometime soon.”

“And we’ll draw blood now. I also want to hook him up and see that EEG again. We’ll do a few more tests, too. Say about one p.m., okay?”

“So what do you think of him, Amman, now that he’s been with us for a day?” Kate asked.

“Well, I definitely think he’s a guinea pig, just not as cold as before. That I’m pretty confident of. So he was on that TV show in the 1980s, right? The A-Team? I’ve never seen it, though. What other animals were on that show?”

“Very funny, Amman, very funny!”

“Kate, do you have a minute?” Amman asked, stopping by her office later that afternoon.

“Sure, what is it?”

“We’re running a full battery of bloodwork tests. Also, our guy pooped. We’ll be able to look at his blood chemistry, enzyme levels, and lots more. Now it’s our turn to digest things, sift through the info he’s giving us. Lots of good stuff going on. So, you’ve got the old charts and info on this animal, right? Cause of death back in 1987? Can you pull all those files back out for me? Also, bring me all the documentation Chrissy made—especially the X-rays she took right before we revived him. I think maybe what your charts say about this guinea pig and what I just noticed when I examined him don’t match up.” Edouard was passing by and popped into the room to join them.

“Here, Amman, here’s everything. It’s been on my desk all week.” Kate waved the binder that held everything they had on Mr. T.

“That’s everything? Right there? And you’re sure it’s this animal, correct?”

“Yes, it’s him. Here’s a photo. His markings are pretty unique and it’s his gosh darn file, I’m sure. It’s all right here. What on earth are you up to?”

“There’s film here, right?” Amman asked. “X-rays of tumors? Let’s look at them again.”

Kate dug into the file and pulled out six X-rays taken a day before Mr. T’s cryo procedure in 1987. They walked into the lab and threw the first one up on the illuminator.

“Okay, look, tumors, a bunch of them as described in the file in that horrible scrawly handwriting,” Amman said. “Look at them—big, little—scattered all over the abdomen.”

“Yes, so what?” Edouard asked.

“Throw the next one up, Kate,” Amman said impatiently. “Okay, now here is the best view of the tumors on the spine, see? Also described in the file. Look—one, two, three in a row. Then a gap and then that large one there, see?” he asked, pointing them out for Kate.

“And the other X-rays?” Edouard asked.

“They’re just slightly different views of the two you just saw,” Kate said. “These are the two best views of the tumors. I’m not a doctor, but believe me, I’ve looked at these a lot. Don’t forget, I’ve been here months longer than you guys.”

“Kate, hand me the X-rays that Chrissy just did. Let’s look at them.” Kate gave Amman the X-rays and he threw them up on the illuminator. “See here? Nothing! He looks totally normal. All the tumors are gone. Every single one of them. Do you see?”

“That can’t be,” Kate protested. “I know this is Mr. T and these are his files. Can either of you detect anything that would tell you that we’re looking at the wrong X-rays from the past? That the old film is a different animal?”

“Actually, comparing them I would say without a doubt that it is the same animal,” Edouard said. 

“Look here, Amman. He had a broken tibia at some point. Agreed?” Amman nodded. “It’s the same on both sets of film. It healed kind of weird, notice? It’s clearly the same animal.”

Amman scurried toward the lab with Kate and Edouard following. “Good timing. He’s asleep. All right, Dr. Radelet, gently palpate this patient and please update the status of the tumors we just looked at. These tumors right here,” he said, shaking the film from 1987 and jabbing at it with his index finger.

Kate unhooked the top of the cage and lifted it off, which allowed Edouard access with both hands to the drowsy guinea pig. He methodically felt Mr. T’s abdomen, attempting to find the tumors they had seen on the X-ray.

“They’re gone, I think, Amman,” Edouard declared, shaking his head in disbelief. “I can’t find a single one of them, and from the film it looks like they should be easy to find. Some of them near the skin surface should even be easy to see.”

“Right!” Amman said. “They’ve vanished. They’re all gone!”

Kate whistled, and Amman shot her a look. “Don’t whistle near the patient, Kate. Remember the Preyer reflex?”

“Sorry, couldn’t help it.”

“What’s going on, you guys?” Chrissy asked, approaching the group. “Is there something wrong?”

“Chrissy, something is right, but it makes no sense. Watch,” Amman said. “Now, Edouard, the spinal tumors. Those you should easily be able to feel since there’s no fat there to get in the way of locating them, right? That big one we saw on the film—if that’s not there I’m going to faint.”

“Right.” Edouard began probing along Mr. T’s spine. Mr. T kept slumbering through all the pushing and prodding. “Lord in heaven, Amman, there’s nothing there, absolutely nothing,” he said, dumbfounded. “All the tumors are gone. Amazing! But how?”

Thawing A.C. Nielsen--Sharing Ch. 22

Today I'm sharing chapter 22 of "Thawing A.C. Nielsen". I hope you'll read it. I'm trying to share a chapter or two a day, although at some point I will have to take them all down as the book starts to go to press.

 Very excited! My new novel, Thawing A.C. Nielsen, is now up and available for "pre-sale" (just $2.99 for Kindle or other ebook format, then price goes up before the holidays) on Kindle here:

http://amzn.to/2bULRD1
  
Selling like crazy- please go to that link and consider ordering the ebook or at least sharing the info with other book enthusiasts! It's already hitting top 100 various genre lists on Amazon!

Newly posted there-- a 5-star review from one of the top reviewing companies! Until it goes "live for sale" there won't be any customer reviews or samples-- that happens Oct. 18th. There will also be a paperback version up soon. Check it out and please spread the word. I need all the publicity help I can get since I am not giving away my book to a mainstream publishing house!

I am wondering if any of you would consider reviewing the book. It will be released on Amazon/Kindle on October 18th. I need reviews from regular folks posted to amazon on the release day, if possible. You get a FREE pdf, word.doc or .mobi (Kindle ebook file) copy and plenty of time between now and mid-October to read it. Let me know, friends! 



Today I'm sharing chapter 22 of "Thawing A.C. Nielsen". I hope you'll read it. I'm trying to share a chapter a day, although at some point I will have to take them all down as the book starts to go to press.

I am wondering if any of you would consider reviewing the book. It will be released on Amazon/Kindle on October 18th. I need reviews from regular folks posted to amazon on the release day, if possible. You get a FREE pdf, word.doc or .mobi (Kindle ebook file) copy  and plenty of time between now and mid-October to read it. Let me know, friends!

The saga of Mr. T, the guinea pig, continues!!

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“Okay, everyone, it’s almost time to proceed. I’m excited about how things are going so far,” Kate said. “Right now, I’d like to introduce you to two new people in the room. First we have Dr. Ritika Pandey, Amman’s surgical assistant from his practice in Boston. If you’ve seen the famous elephant C-section video, that’s Ritika as his chief assistant.” Ritika smiled shyly and waved her hand at Kate, Mike, Norm, Chrissy, Deirdre, and two lab assistants present, Nick Costas and Jeremy Palvar.

“Let me tell you that Ritika did as much or more than I did that day. It was a team effort,” Amman said, smiling proudly at Ritika.

“Also,” Kate continued, “I am thrilled to introduce my friend and research associate Dr. Edouard Radelet, with whom I have worked in designing new cancer cryoprocedures. As you know, Edouard will be our MD, working with me to develop a protocol for human revivification. Edouard is from Haiti and he’s been leading a multinational initiative to close the enormous gap in health care between the have and have-not nations in the Caribbean. His passion for medicine and that winning smile of his has generated millions of dollars of donations for the cause from Fortune 500 corporations with Caribbean interests. He’s finishing up that work and soon will be the health minister of Trinidad and Tobago. All this and he’s still under forty! We’ll have him for a few months while he is between those two jobs. Please welcome Edouard.”

Everyone applauded. Mike walked over to give him an ultrafirm Cold Smokey Burgess handshake. Edouard was handsome and athletic, with a warm chestnut complexion and dark, piercing eyes.

“While most of you were sleeping,” Kate said, “Amman, Ritika, and Chrissy were here getting Mr. T ready for the final step. I was here to observe and record. The internal data and warming leads are in place and the computer has been raising the heat of the solution in the tank. We are ready to go, right now.”

Mike stood up and cleared his throat. “I want to thank everyone in this room and wish you good fortune, not good luck. I’m not a medical guy, but if there’s anything I can do, let me know. I don’t mind being a go-fer today for any of you!” Everyone smiled, then exited Kate’s office and reconvened in the operating room, donning surgical gowns and masks before they entered.

“Okay, have we got our cameras on, Norm?” Kate asked.

“Yup, ready to go.”

“Okay, Amman you are in charge. Everyone take your cue from Amman and Ritika, okay? Amman, we’ve got Dr. Radelet here plus lots of extra hands here if you need anything.”

Amman took over. He spoke in a firm voice, narrating as he went through the procedure, cameras rolling. “All right, people. Mr. T is now up to thirty-five degrees Celsius. We’ve matched up his outer and core temps over the last few hours. I’m removing him now from the tank. Here we go. And now we’ll place him on these towels to dry him. There we go—thank you, Dr. Pandey. Now fresh towels and the heating pads, please. Dr. Pandey, please remove the internal heating devices and sensors and let’s recheck all the traditional leads: EEG, EKG, blood pressure, everything.”

Ritika sprang into action. Kate had never seen anyone move so quickly. “Chrissy, are you getting standby readings on your equipment?” Ritika asked after a few moments.

“Yes, Ritika. Everything’s good,” Chrissy answered.

“Okay,” Amman continued. “All we need is about two more degrees of warmth. He looks good, I see no visible problems or damage. First we will insert a breathing tube to ventilate the lungs, supplying oxygen when the time comes. Once we’ve got the centrifugal pump going we’ll be removing cryosolution, and then we’ll be creating normal flow of oxygenated blood. Later, once we’ve established a pulse, the pump will assist removal of carbon dioxide until we’re certain he can breathe on his own. We will now make incisions to access his femoral arteries. The pumping cycle will begin on the left side and force the cryosolution out of the right artery. Dr. Saltieri’s glycol-mix cryosolution has hopefully minimized damage to Mr. T during his years in cryo. By the time we’ve got that exchange completed, Mr. T will be at thirty-eight degrees and ready for chest compressions followed by defib. Got it?” Amman made sure that everyone was with him. He looked up at the camera and smiled, appearing cool and confident.

Kate was trying her best to emulate Amman’s calm demeanor as he and Ritika started the procedure, but in truth her heart was pounding. She tried to breathe more deeply to see if that would help. Her tendency to let negative thoughts creep in got the better of her. What if the effort to revive Mr. T was an utter failure? Would a negative outcome that day be proof that the universe quite often loved to thumb its nose at human imagination and daring? Kate feared with all her soul the possibility that absolutely nothing would happen during the revival process, that Mr. T would just lie there like a blob or roadkill, or even worse, like some fuzzy stuffed toy mocking them. But, she thought, what if they at least got a spark? A heartbeat, some EEG activity, anything that would give them hope.

“Okay, we are ready to go to our final stage,” Amman announced about twenty minutes later. “All leads attached, body temperature is thirty-eight degrees, cryosolution out and blood already circulating via the centrifugal pump. His lungs and all passageways are clear. Dr. Radelet, would you free Dr. Pandey and me up a little and call out vitals for us when we get them. Do you mind? And now, Mr. Burgess and Miss Pearson, I am now going to bring your Mr. T back to you. I hope you like pets!”

“You bet!” Mike said, smiling broadly.

Amman began with chest compressions, about two per second, using his fingertips on the tiny animal. After about two minutes, he traded off with Ritika, in order to avoid fatigue in his hands.

“What’s going on, Amman?” Mike asked, concerned that nothing seemed to be happening.

“Standard procedure, Mike. Don’t worry. This is just our starting point.”

Ritika kept pumping away, her compressions intended to simulate the natural coughing mechanism and its effect on the heart. “That’s two minutes,” she announced.

“Okay, I’m taking back over, get the small dose epinephrine ready,” Amman said.

Kate couldn’t help herself, her whole body was becoming more and more tense. She found herself trying to breathe for Mr. T as Amman and Ritika did their work.

“All right, dose number one epinephrine administered,” Ritika announced. Amman continued his compressions. “Recheck the breathing tube, Amman.”

Amman stopped for a moment to double-check everything. “We’re good. No problem there. Moving on. Okay, Mike, now we bring out the artillery.” Amman tweaked the knobs of his favorite veterinary defibrillator, a bright yellow state-of-the-art machine he knew inside and out. He had brought it with him all the way from Boston. He picked up the small defib paddles, then turned and locked eyes with each person in the room, one by one, gaining their full attention. Kate’s maternal heartbeat sound waves continued to fill the air.

“All right, here we go. Three joules to start.” After Ritika applied gel to Mr. T’s chest, Amman picked up the paddles and positioned them, then simultaneously pressed the start buttons on each paddle with his thumbs. Zap. And… nothing… nothing. Everyone studied Amman. He was breathing deeply, almost as if he was willing his patient to copy him. To have a heartbeat, to fill his lungs, to live again. Amman didn’t look up, his focus was only on Mr. T. “Moving up to five joules. Here we go.” He repeated the process and everyone in the room held their breath. Zap. And… nothing… nothing… nothing again.

“Dr. Pandey, inject the second dose of epinephrine,” Amman instructed. “He’s a stubborn little guy, but I know he can do it. He’s coming back, people. Lord Dhanvantari and I can feel it.”

Ritika injected the stimulant, an amount so small a person would hardly even notice it, but for the little guinea pig this was a healthy dose, much bigger than the dose they had first administered.

“Here we go. Seven joules.” Amman once again centered his breathing. He placed the paddles and applied the shock again. Zap.

Beep… beep… beep….

Then nothing.

“You had it!” Radelet yelled. “Those were heartbeats. They were. I know it.”

“You’re right,” Ritika said. “Amman, you almost got him back. Ten joules?”

“Too high, Ritika, we’ll fry him. Maybe eight? And we can’t give him any more epinephrine. So now the joules are the only chance we have. Ready, everyone?” They all nodded, some staring intently at Amman, the others at the motionless Mr. T.

“Okay, double-check that cart. Is everything there? Lidocaine, yes? Okay, we’re going to get him this time. Here goes.” While Ritika applied more gel to Mr. T, Amman reached for a different set of paddles, then moved the dial on the machine one more notch to eight joules. He brought the paddles to Mr. T’s chest. Then zap. Still nothing. Kate’s heart was sinking.

“Again, Amman, again, Come on, do it!” Mike yelled.

“This is it, people. One more try. Here we go!” Amman declared.

Zap! The blast of eight joules of hair-raising electricity jolted the body into the air. Everyone gasped. Then they heard it—the magic sound.

Beep… beep… …beep… beep… beep-beep… …beep… …beep… beep… beep-beep… beep… beep… beep… beep… beep… beep… beep…

“We’ve got him! He’s alive! Listen, he’s trying to breathe,” Kate yelled, noticing the little snuffles and gasps the pig was emitting. Amman and Ritika swung into warp speed, while Edouard yelled out blood pressure and heart rate numbers. Mr. T’s heart and lungs were struggling to coordinate—to establish a rhythm, to live again. Amman, not satisfied with the halting breaths, administered chest compressions, far more gentle this time, while Ritika double-checked the blood gas monitors. Oxygen was going in and carbon dioxide out, everything as it should be. Soon Mr. T’s breathing became fairly regular.

“Dr. Pandey, be ready with that lidocaine. I don’t want him to lose this rhythm. Sure it’s fluttering a lot but for now it’s damn good, huh?” Amman said to Edouard, a huge grin on his face.

“Damn straight,” Edouard answered. “So, eight joules on that little body? That’s interesting. I’m glad you didn’t go wild and give him eighty!”

“Blood pressure now?” Amman asked Ritika, who had taken over reading the data.

“It’s up and down, but nothing too crazy. Maybe it will stabilize soon. Not sure. Do we need the lidocaine?”

“No, he’s fine for now, at least. The flutter is going away, see? We’ll just keep watching. And we’ve definitely got ROSC.”

“All that epinephrine and he’s still just lying there? What do you think of that?” Kate asked. “Oh I’m sorry, I should shut up, right?”

“He’s okay. Look at those vitals,” Amman said, nodding his head toward the monitors. “ROSC is return of spontaneous circulation, Kate. It’s a very good thing. His heart and lungs are ready to do all the work now. There are some crazy swings in the readings but there’s nothing there that says we’re going to lose him in the next few minutes. He may be close to normal soon. The epinephrine dosage was normal, Kate. The joules were a different story, but, hey, sometimes you do what you gotta do, right? Anyway, Mr. T will wake up when he’s ready, my dear Miss Pearson. Guinea pigs sleep a lot. Trust your friendly veterinarian, okay?”

“For sure, Amman,” Kate said. “I wasn’t doubting you. I study cells of creatures, you operate on them. What do I know?”

“Look at that EEG, people. Pretty damn nice. He’s got brain function. Oh my! Look, his heartbeat is synching with Kate’s synthesized mommy guinea pig beat, what do you know?” Amman grinned at Kate as he removed the breathing tube. Everyone stood and watched the EEG and all the other screens, readouts, blips and bleeps. This little piggy was alive and looking good—no big bad wolf was lurking close by. “Put a little blanket on him. I want to keep him nice and warm. Twenty-some years—that’s a long time to be chillaxing, right?” Everyone laughed, then realized that they could relax now, shake hands and congratulate each other. Mike pulled out his cell phone to call Franklin with the good news.

Amman put on his stethoscope and listened to Mr. T’s heart. Finding nothing wrong, he entertained his audience with guinea pig trivia. “Some of you don’t know much about these little fuzzballs, but I am here to tell you that they are wondrous creatures. They share a lot of design with humans, and that’s why they’re such a valuable lab animal. And of course, nowadays, lab animals don’t have the awful life they used to have. We vets were instrumental in pushing for reforms, but hardly anyone knows. Vitamin C was discovered through research on guinea pigs. Working on them helped further the development of a whole bunch of vaccines. Even such amazing things like replacement heart valves, and our modern anticoagulants and asthma medicine were brought to you by these guys. So anyway, I’m really pleased with everything I’m seeing here. He looks great. And you all are a great team. Thank you so much. But Kate is scared of how sleepy he is. How about we check for some reflexes to prove he’s really got the brain function the EEG equipment says he has. And maybe he’ll wake up and play with you, right, Kate?”

“Yes, right, Amman,” Kate said, feeling a bit picked on.

“Okay, let’s see… how about you, Mike? You can do an easy reflex test that will probably even work on a sleeping guinea pig. Wanna try it, big guy?”

Mike stepped forward. “Sure. What do I do?”

“Well, guinea pigs have awesome ears, inside and out. Great hearing and very sensitive to the touch. And they are really similar to human ear design and function. The first success in regrowing stereocilia, that’s inner-ear hair cells, was in guinea pigs a few years ago, meaning we might have a way to reverse hearing damage if we can develop it for humans. Just pinch the edge of his outer ear for a second. Give it a good pinch.” Mike did. Mr. T jerked a little, then went back to snoozing.

“There you go. Classic pig response. He’s awesome.” Amman beamed at Ritika as he removed all the leads attached to Mr. T.

“But still asleep,” Deirdre said mock-glumly, giving Kate a funny look as she said it.

“Okay, then, Kate, your turn. Next is the Preyer reflex, a test for deafness. Give a little whistle right by his ear and you’ll probably see his outer ear move, like maybe even wiggle. It’s a fun reflex to watch.” Kate stepped forward and bent down. She gave a soft whistle and sure enough, even though Mr. T sure looked totally asleep, the ears wiggled.

“That’s cool!” she said and stepped back.

“No, Kate, I don’t think we got the full response. Whistle louder,” said Amman. She whistled louder and got the same response.

“Hmm, that doesn’t seem right.” Amman appeared concerned. He hovered over the animal, checking him over again. Kate began to worry. Was there something wrong with Mr. T?

A few minutes went by as Amman continued to check the animal. Now everyone was looking worried. “Let’s try the whistle with something added and see what happens,” Amman said.

Clap! went Amman, slapping his palms together loudly while giving a shrieking whistle. Simultaneously the whole team jumped in surprise as Mr. T leaped into the air, opened his eyes, and started running wildly around the table. Everyone yelled and laughed.

“Catch him, catch him!” Nick yelled.

“He’s gonna run off the table. Quick, keep him from going over!” Norm said.

All Kate could do was laugh at this little circus act. The whole team jabbered away as they tried to catch Mr. T. Finally Chrissy got hold of him and petted him, calming him. The Amman and Mr. T show was a huge hit. Things settled down and then all eyes were on Amman.

“Amman, you could have scared him to death,” Kate accused.

“No, I think you might have that totally backward, Katherine.” Amman winked. “I scared him to life, you might say.”

“How did you know he was okay enough that you could pull off that crazy trick?” Chrissy asked, continuing to stroke a now very relaxed and happy Mr. T.

“Ten minutes ago,” Amman said, “when I first examined him really closely after the defib, I could see he was in REM sleep. His little eyes were moving about under his eyelids. Also, his little nose was twitching a tiny bit. I think he was having a nightmare about how bad your lab smells with some of the chemicals you have in here. He’d rather have sweet dreams about the scents of carrots and lettuce.”

“So all that reflex testing stuff was a big gag at our expense?” Mike asked.

“Yes, sorry. I couldn’t resist it. Didn’t you call any of the personal references I listed? The first thing they, or Ritika for that matter, would have warned you about me is that I am the world’s biggest practical joker!”

Thawing A.C. Nielsen--Sharing Ch. 21

Today I'm sharing chapter 21 of "Thawing A.C. Nielsen". I hope you'll read it. I'm trying to share a chapter a day, although at some point I will have to take them all down as the book starts to go to press.

 Very excited! My new novel, Thawing A.C. Nielsen, is now up and available for "pre-sale" (just $2.99 for Kindle or other ebook format, then price goes up before the holidays) on Kindle here:

http://amzn.to/2bULRD1
  
Selling like crazy- please go to that link and consider ordering the ebook or at least sharing the info with other book enthusiasts! It's already hitting top 100 various genre lists on Amazon!

Newly posted there-- a 5-star review from one of the top reviewing companies! Until it goes "live for sale" there won't be any customer reviews or samples-- that happens Oct. 18th. There will also be a paperback version up soon. Check it out and please spread the word. I need all the publicity help I can get since I am not giving away my book to a mainstream publishing house!

I am wondering if any of you would consider reviewing the book. It will be released on Amazon/Kindle on October 18th. I need reviews from regular folks posted to amazon on the release day, if possible. You get a FREE pdf, word.doc or .mobi (Kindle ebook file) copy and plenty of time between now and mid-October to read it. Let me know, friends! 






Today I'm sharing chapter twenty-one of "Thawing A.C. Nielsen". I hope you'll read it. I'm trying to share a chapter a day, although at some point I will have to take them all down as the book starts to go to press.

I am wondering if any of you would consider reviewing the book. It will be released on Amazon/Kindle on October 18th. I need reviews from regular folks posted to amazon on the release day, if possible. You get a FREE pdf, word.doc or .mobi (Kindle ebook file) copy and plenty of time between now and mid-October to read it. Let me know, friends!

Chapter 21- time to start thawing out MR T- the awesome guinea pig!!!

btw, Lives of a Cell is a really cool book, y'all!

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

October 2013

“What do you think, Amman? How does he look?”

“What you see is what you get, Kate. At least for now,” replied Dr. Amman Vishwanathan, the expert veterinarian Mike and Kate had hired to oversee the animal revivification project. “This Mr. T of yours isn’t quite ready for his next scene on The A-Team. But hey, nice of somebody to have shaved this guinea pig’s head, chest, and abdomen in advance for us, huh?”

“The shaving? That was me—last century!” Chrissy announced as she entered the exam room to join everyone else, put on a hair net, and washed her hands. “I wanted to give him a little Mohawk like his namesake, but Enzo said no.”

“Brownie points for you, Madame!” Amman said, giving a little salute. “Anyway, Kate, not much to tell right now. He’s damn cold and stiff, obviously. I’m used to guinea pigs squirming like crazy when I try to treat them.”

“Okay, Chrissy, document everything, all the usual parameters,” Kate said. “And remember to X-ray him, too. Listen, people, we want to continue to catch everything we do here on tape, so try to not block the cameras with your body as you proceed. Everyone besides Chrissy come back in thirty minutes.”

“So I’m curious.” Amman was eager to chat more with Kate, since they had hardly had any one-on-one time since he had arrived, “I’m sure you had other qualified candidates for this job. I didn’t ask you yet why you picked me.”

“They gave me five names. While I was being a responsible professional and checking you all out the usual way, my goofy roommate just looked for your names on YouTube.”

“Oh, I know where you’re going with this.”

“Yup. Over a million hits of you doing an emergency C-section on an elephant. I said right then and there—I want that guy! Besides, that Bollywood dance you and your assistant did as the credits rolled was awesome.”

“I didn’t post that thing, the Berlin Zoo community relations people did. It still seems weird that it went viral,” Amman said.

“Well, they made it into a heartwarming feel-good story. The mom okay and the baby delivered healthy—a total success. They didn’t show much blood and stuff, but I’m sure you must have been covered in it!”

“Yes, I was. By the way, I stayed a few extra days after the surgery and the mother elephant began recognizing me as a friend. When I went back six months later to see her and her baby, she came up to me and draped her trunk around me, hugging me. It was amazing.”

“Wow. Well, I’m glad you’re here—really glad.”

“Well, Kate, speaking of amazing, your protocol is epic.”

“We can call it epic when it’s proven itself. It won’t be long from now that you’re going to be here bringing our furry friend back to life. The protocol is the prep work to get you and Mr. T. into that final scenario.”

“Yup. I get to bat cleanup—bottom of the ninth.”

“That’s right, Amman. And I’m hoping we’ll have a happy little critter eating, pooping, sleeping, and happily wiggling his nose as he runs around with glee. Chrissy has already spent her own money on a cage, food, some toys. She loves animals.”

“Listen, I have to ask—I’ve been hearing conflicting stories. One guy I met said that your Dr. Saltieri killed himself, that he stepped in front of that truck on purpose. But that’s not right, is it?”

“Where did you hear that, Amman?”

“When I first got here last week I parked in the wrong lot and there was a guy from your neighboring business who pointed me over this way. He’s the one who said it. So he didn’t have the correct story, right? I heard your doc had Alzheimer’s and lung cancer. That’s tough.”

“Yes, he had both. He had been to Mexico looking at alternative cancer treatments. He started getting these ideas—pretty much obsessions—about putting himself in a tank of super-oxygenated water and slowing his heart rate and breathing rate to something like hibernation levels. Then, while he was floating in this tank there would be cancer-curing chemicals in the water solution, also vitamins and other things.”

“That’s wild.”

“You bet. He studied the hibernation of turtles, under the mud at about four degrees Celsius. Well, three point nine to be exact. He was probably going to propose doing all this, but he never got the chance. One night Dr. Saltieri wandered off in the cold, broke through some ice on a lake. These people saw him out there and rescued him. They were getting all his wet clothes off of him, but they turned their back for a second. Right then he started going back over the road, said he was going back to the lake to see his friends he called them, dolphins and turtles apparently. According to the police report I read, he must have been in shock the whole time. He hadn’t spoken a word to his rescuers until just then. A truck doing about sixty miles per hour hit him. He died instantly.”

“The truck driver—was he okay?”

“Yes, thankfully. Poor guy. He had no chance to swerve and avoid hitting Dr. Saltieri, it happened so fast.”

“So you combined some of these crazy ideas Saltieri had with your own, huh? That’s a pretty fantastic mashup, Kate!”

“Well, all along I had been thinking that just thawing someone out and then zapping their heart wasn’t going to work. I mean, it’s too simple. No way could it be as easy as grabbing a pizza out of the freezer and slapping it into the microwave, right? Enzo and Mike, or any cryo lab out there drove so much moisture out of these bodies just to keep ice from expanding and causing damage—how could anyone expect essentially freeze-dried folks to come back to life when the time came? I was stumped. I had literally nothing. Then I had a moment of discovery, an epiphany while my roommate was playing a piece on her violin. I realized that I could adapt one of Enzo’s alternative anticancer ideas—float the patient in a vitamin-enriched liquid environment, gradually hydrating and warming them. Plus a liquid environment can be controlled with more subtlety than what we could do in air, right? And they’re kind of like in their mother’s womb, sort of cradled in amniotic fluid all over again, get it? I started sketching out ideas and it all seemed to make sense. And by aiming initially at four point two degrees Celsius, which is just a little higher than Dr. Saltieri’s hibernating turtles’ body temperature, there’s no chance of any early decomposition. We aim for that temperature and then continue on, quicker at the end.”

“This sounds amazing, Kate. New ideas. Bravo!” Amman declared, scribbling down some notes for himself.

“There’s more. My most radical idea, which I admit may mean nothing—all through the process we pulse sound waves at the rate a maternal heart would be beating. Of course for a guinea pig that will be faster than a human. I have this hunch that cells and organs know they’re alive in a sense. I believe that they are at least partially sentient and can recognize the mother organism, and the most obvious stimulation we can give the cells is sound waves mimicking maternal heartbeats. As we try to revive the patient, that maternal heartbeat will be there constantly, and as we reach the last stages the stimulus will be especially important, uplifting the unconscious brain toward consciousness, awareness, and hopefully, full function. I got that uplift idea from the sci-fi book I showed you that Saltieri was obsessed by. Yes, I know it sounds new-agey crazy, but I’m doing it anyway. And then you enter the stage.”

“It’s brilliant, Kate. You’re quite the free-thinker.”

“Amman, do you know the book Lives of a Cell by Lewis Thomas? It’s a book I read over and over as a teenager. That book inspired me to become a biologist. Living cells, whether you’re exploring their reality or thinking metaphysically, are smarter, more connected to each other, and more aware than we give them credit for.”

“Extremely interesting. I can see why you were hired for this job. And yes, I know the book. If this works you’ll have page one headline news.”

“Thank you, Amman. Of course we won’t be telling anyone just yet. Our real goal is to revive humans, of course. There are some other interesting details. I believe Dr. Saltieri thought he could learn to breathe underwater, that or breathe ultraoxygenated water somehow. There were some scribbles that by doing this, more of the cancer medicine could get into his lungs and effect a cure. Weird.”

“May I join the conversation,” Norm asked, reentering the operating room.

“Sure,” Kate said. “So, Norm, when you opened the pod, the inner one, what the heck was that?”

“That was pressurized helium. Did you like the little whoosh sound, or did it freak you out?”

“Yes, it totally freaked me out,” Kate admitted, “and then the little vapor cloud hanging over Mr. T? For a second I thought it was his soul escaping from us. I’m like ‘Mr. T don’t go, we’re here to save you!’ Yeah, it was weird. Then I said to myself, stop thinking negative thoughts, you dummy.”

Amman laughed. “You remind me of my grandmother back in New Delhi, Kate. She’s so superstitious. When I laugh at her for it, she hits me. She’s a tiny woman, but she packs a wallop!”

“Okay, Chrissy’s done, folks are back. Here we go.” Kate checked her watch, then turned toward the main camera and spoke slowly and clearly, reading from a script she had prepared:

“This is Katherine Pearson at ExitStrategy. The time is 10:43 a.m. October 21, 2013. We shall now proceed with our next step. Dr. Amman Vishwanathan is now placing a flotation device on the subject to keep his head above the water line so that fluid does not enter his lungs. In a moment, he will place the subject into the solution tank. The tank holds one hundred gallons of a special vitamin-enriched solution. The exact chemical composition of this saline solution is recorded in our files. The temperature is four point two degrees Celsius.”

Kate paused while Amman lowered Mr. T. into the tank, adjusting the flotation device. Then she continued reading her script:

“The subject will remain in the tank for roughly seventy-two hours. The body temperature will rise slowly toward the temperature of the tank. Data leads are already attached to the subject’s skin. At the forty-eight-hour mark, assuming we have sufficient warming of the body, special catheter devices will be installed through the urethra. These dual-purpose devices will provide temperature readings as well as deliver small amounts of extra warmth to the kidneys. We expect that proper kidney function may be a challenge, according to Dr. Amman Vishwanathan. We will also make small incisions in the abdomen to place heating devices there. Thus over the final twenty-four hours the conduction warming through the skin will be accompanied by internal warming of the core abdominal organs. Sound waves mimicking the sound in utero of a mother guinea pig’s heartbeat will pulse constantly throughout the revivification process. In addition to the data collected electronically, the subject will be monitored around the clock by a staff member. This is the end of this portion of the procedure.”

Kate folded up her script and everyone came over to shake her hand. There were no hugs yet. That would happen later, assuming success.

“And now we wait,” Chrissy said.

“Yes. And now we wait,” Kate echoed.