| General Fiction posted August 24, 2024 | Chapters: |
...28 29 -30- 31... 
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An accident in the lab
A chapter in the book DUEL with the DEVIL
DUEL with the DEVIL - Chapter 30
by Jim Wile
| Background A brilliant young chemist creates a new painkilling drug with unknown benefits and pitfalls. |
Recap of Chapter 29: Brian is taken to the hospital following his gym accident and given a steroid injection in his spine. Once the anesthetic portion of it wears off, he is in great pain again, waiting for the steroid portion to kick in. He is distracted from his studies and begins skipping both meals and classes due to the painful effort to get there. He also does poorly on exams, and he fears failing his courses.
Although he promises both Fran and Julia that he won’t relapse into taking Oxy, he decides to buy some illegally after he concludes the steroid injection didn’t work for him. He seeks out a drug dealer named Scorch, from whom he purchases 10 pills.
Chapter 30
An 80-milligram Oxy pill is a strong dose. Doctors usually start you at 5-10 mg, but I knew from experience that wouldn’t be enough. Using a pocket knife, I cut one of the pills into four pieces. I swallowed one piece with water from a bottle, put the remainder plus all the other whole pills into an envelope, and stuck it in the back of one of my desk drawers.
Relief started coming within 15 minutes, and within an hour, I felt much like my old self again—maybe not my old, old self—but incomparably better than I’d been feeling lately. God, what welcome relief! This dosage did a lot to ease the pain but gave me only a mild high. But I wasn’t taking it for the high, just the relief. Still, that high was kind of nice. I had to banish that kind of thinking, though!
I decided it would be a good time to catch up on my work that had been falling behind, so I pulled out my organic chemistry textbook and began reading. I got so absorbed in it, that I hardly heard him when Daniel returned from Bible study.
“Look at you, Brian. It is good to see you at your desk rather than lying down. Are you feeling better?”
“I am, actually. I think I may have turned the corner on this.”
“That is very good to hear. I have been worrying about you.”
“How was Bible study?”
“It was interesting tonight. We were discussing some of the well-known stories, such as the story of David and Goliath. Perhaps you are like David, and you have begun slaying the beast of pain.”
“I hope you’re right.” But he got me wondering if it might not be the other way around, and a different beast had just begun slaying me.
I was determined not to let that happen and decided I would limit myself to 40 mg per day. It wouldn’t be enough to control the pain for the entire day, but it would have to suffice. More than that could lead to trouble again, which I sincerely wanted to avoid. Plus, I wasn’t made of money, and they would last longer that way. I had enough to last me 20 days. I wouldn’t have to dip too far into my trust account to pay for them at that rate.
There were 12 weeks left in the semester, so three refills should get me through the end of the school year and into summer, when I can maybe get that electrical device implanted. I had a plan now; I just had to stick to it.
With the benefit of hindsight, I can see the flaws in that plan I had so carefully concocted to get me through the semester. To paraphrase Robert Burns in his poem, “To a Mouse,” the best-laid plans of mice and men often go astray.
I had not remembered or counted on three things:
1) I began developing a tolerance for Oxy much quicker than I had anticipated, such that two 20-mg pills a day would no longer adequately control my pain. To get the same effect as when I started taking it, I needed it more frequently and a stronger dose.
2) With the dosage increase came the bonus of an increased high, and, as I had learned from Raffi, this confused the issue. The high was so delightful that I could no longer tell which was the stronger motivation for taking the pills—that wonderful high or the pain reduction.
3) Oxy would occasionally be laced with extra ingredients that increased the strength of its effect.
All of these factors contributed to the series of events that followed, which came to be a prime mover towards a new direction for my life.
On Wednesday at 1:00 pm I had organic chem lab with Dr. Rieke. Oxy began to quickly lose effectiveness for me after five or six hours, and I had taken the first dose when I awoke at 8:00 that morning. I would be on my feet the entire two hours of lab and knew I would be in a lot of pain by the end, so I decided to take my next dose around noon.
This was the last pill I had, and it appeared larger than most. I don’t always cut them too evenly with the pill cutter I bought. Because I was taking it earlier than usual, and it was a larger pill than usual, the resulting high was considerably higher than the “normal” high I would get. The languorous feeling it created in me was not conducive to being very sharp in the lab.
Kimi and I were working together on an experiment. While she was busy titrating a solution, I was tasked with producing a sodium hydroxide solution to add to it in a later step. I measured out the proper amount of sodium hydroxide and the proper amount of water, but instead of pouring the sodium hydroxide slowly into the water, I poured the water slowly into the sodium hydroxide.
Doing it in this way resulted in a violent reaction, quickly forming hydrogen gas and heat. As soon as I realized what I’d done, I quickly pulled my hand away and backed up, but Kimi was oblivious to what I’d been doing. In the resultant small explosion, some of the substance splashed out onto her hand, causing her to drop the pipette she’d been holding. It subsequently fell to the floor and broke, and the hydrochloric acid it contained splashed up and burned her ankle.
I felt terrible for causing this to happen. I knew better than to mix the sodium hydroxide and the water the way I did it, and this momentary lapse resulted in burns to Kimi’s hand and ankle, while I was unharmed. Dr. Rieke came rushing over and told me to escort her to the student medical center. He also asked me to come see him later that afternoon, and I promised I would. I was not looking forward to that meeting.
“I am so sorry, Kimi. That was really dumb of me. I know I should have poured the sodium hydroxide into the water, but my mind wandered. I should have been the one to get burned, not you.”
“Don’t worry about it, Brian. Lots of people have probably made that mistake. It may not be so bad.”
I couldn’t believe how nice she was being about it. She must have been in great pain, but here she was telling me not to worry. It was just so unfair for her to suffer for my laxity.
Kimi ended up with second-degree burns on her right hand, where she had been splashed by my small explosion, as well as on her right ankle, where her own chemical splashed her. I felt sick about it and kept apologizing until she finally told me to stop.
The physician’s assistant cleaned and disinfected her burns, wrapped both with bandages, and told her to take Tylenol for the pain. Following that, I escorted her back to the dorm and apologized a final time before heading back to the chem lab to speak with Dr. Rieke.
When I got back to the lab, the class had just left, and he was alone cleaning up. “Brian, how’s Kimiko?”
“She’s going to be fine. She had second-degree burns, but they should heal quickly. There won’t be any scarring.”
“That’s good to hear. Now, I need you to tell me exactly what happened this afternoon for the safety report I have to fill out whenever an accident occurs. These reports help us decide if further safety training is needed.”
“This was totally my fault, Dr. Rieke, and I knew better than to do what I did.” I related to him the exact circumstances and didn’t try to gloss over or diminish anything. I owed him the truth, no matter how painful and embarrassing it was to admit it.
When the story of the accident was out there, he looked at me contemplatively for a few seconds before he said, “I can’t help but think there’s something going on with you, Brian. You are not a careless person, and have always struck me as very bright. I’ve enjoyed your many questions, both in class and afterwards, when you helped me in the lab. But your test and quiz scores have fallen lately, and now there’s this accident in the lab. I don’t understand it.”
I looked him right in the eye while he said this, but then I looked down and considered whether or not I should tell him. The two of us just stood there for about 10 seconds while I made up my mind.
 Recognized |
CHARACTERS
Brian Kendrick: The narrator of the story. At the beginning of the story, he is 12 years old and in 6th grade in Kernersville, North Carolina.
Francine (Fran) Kendrick: Brian's older sister. She is 18 at the beginning of the story and goes to junior college, where she studies law enforcement.
Chloe: Brian and Fran's cat.
Sandi MacReady: She is a pretty blond and Brian's crush in high school.
Derek Shafer: Brian's best friend and lawn mowing partner.
Josh Bennett: Sandi's boyfriend. He's the center on the high school basketball team.
Don Robbins: A high school acquaintance of Brian's. He is a rich kid who throws a summer rave party when his parents are away.
Rafael Ortiz (Raffi): Youth therapy group leader at the rehab facility.
Julia Entwistle: One of the six members of the youth therapy group at rehab. She is 16 when we first meet her, plays the violin, and is addicted to barbiturates.
Alphonse: One of the boys in the youth therapy group. He is a cutup.
Henry: Another boy in the youth therapy group. He is also a cutup.
Alex: One of the girls in the youth therapy group.
Robert Entwistle: Julia's father.
Dr. Marie Schmidt: Julia's mother.
Helen Landry: A friend of Julia's mother. Julia stays with her during her audition at Juilliard in NY.
Mike Pekarsky: Fran's boyfriend who she met on her Caribbean cruise.
Daniel Molebatsi: Brian's undergrad college roommate. He is from Botswana and is a business major.
Dr. Paul Rieke: Brian's organic chemistry professor.
Kimiko Yamada (Kimi): Brian's organic chemistry lab partner. She is from Japan and also resides in his and Daniel's dorm.
Jerry Avery (Scorch): Brian's resident drug dealer from whom he buys Oxy.
Pays
one point
and 2 member cents. Brian Kendrick: The narrator of the story. At the beginning of the story, he is 12 years old and in 6th grade in Kernersville, North Carolina.
Francine (Fran) Kendrick: Brian's older sister. She is 18 at the beginning of the story and goes to junior college, where she studies law enforcement.
Chloe: Brian and Fran's cat.
Sandi MacReady: She is a pretty blond and Brian's crush in high school.
Derek Shafer: Brian's best friend and lawn mowing partner.
Josh Bennett: Sandi's boyfriend. He's the center on the high school basketball team.
Don Robbins: A high school acquaintance of Brian's. He is a rich kid who throws a summer rave party when his parents are away.
Rafael Ortiz (Raffi): Youth therapy group leader at the rehab facility.
Julia Entwistle: One of the six members of the youth therapy group at rehab. She is 16 when we first meet her, plays the violin, and is addicted to barbiturates.
Alphonse: One of the boys in the youth therapy group. He is a cutup.
Henry: Another boy in the youth therapy group. He is also a cutup.
Alex: One of the girls in the youth therapy group.
Robert Entwistle: Julia's father.
Dr. Marie Schmidt: Julia's mother.
Helen Landry: A friend of Julia's mother. Julia stays with her during her audition at Juilliard in NY.
Mike Pekarsky: Fran's boyfriend who she met on her Caribbean cruise.
Daniel Molebatsi: Brian's undergrad college roommate. He is from Botswana and is a business major.
Dr. Paul Rieke: Brian's organic chemistry professor.
Kimiko Yamada (Kimi): Brian's organic chemistry lab partner. She is from Japan and also resides in his and Daniel's dorm.
Jerry Avery (Scorch): Brian's resident drug dealer from whom he buys Oxy.
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