NOVEL WEB Chapter 26, Day 45 – 47: Complication
[Journal Entry]
Day 45,
Fathom said that he would normally eat two lizards of the size I hunted yesterday, but it was difficult for him to eat even one with a fever reducing his appetite.
Today was fairly similar to the day before, I gave Fathom his medication and hunted down some food – this time a smaller but still sizeable brown lizard one meter long, perhaps 40 kilograms.
I felt no ill effects from the nibble of blue lizard meat I had yesterday, so I ate the rest of the haunch after reheating it.
Vitals signs, sunrise of Day 45:
Respiratory rate: 6 bpm
Temperature: 32.18 degrees[1]
Major HR: 38 bpm
Upper minor HR: 6 bpm
Lower minor HR: 6 bpm
Hydrogen HR: 5 bpm
Pupil dilation: Responsive
Vitals signs, noon of Day 45:
Respiratory rate: 6 bpm
Temperature: 31.84 degrees[2]
Major HR: 40 bpm
Upper minor HR: 6.5 bpm
Lower minor HR: 6.5 bpm
Hydrogen HR: 5 bpm
Pupil dilation: Responsive
Vitals signs, sunset of Day 45:
Respiratory rate: 6.5 bpm
Temperature: 31.62 degrees[3]
Major HR: 41 bpm
Upper minor HR: 6.5 bpm
Lower minor HR: 6.5 bpm
Hydrogen HR: 5 bpm
Pupil dilation: Responsive
Fathom’s temperature continues to go down, but some of his other vitals slightly rose. He also said that he does not feel better, despite his fading fever, which is concerning. His wounds are warm and feel infected, but I do not have the means to treat them except with oral antibiotics, and those should be kicking in soon, if Fathom does not feel better by tomorrow morning, I’ll double the dosage for him every day until he feels better.
Day 46,
Fathom is feeling worse, he's started to cough and has been complaining of headaches, dizziness, and weakness despite the fact that his body temperature is still returning to ‘normal’. I’ve started giving him 40 grams/dose, hopefully we see some changes by tomorrow.
Vitals signs, sunrise of Day 46:
Respiratory rate: 6.5 bpm
Temperature: 31.60 degrees[4]
Major HR: 42 bpm
Upper minor HR: 7 bpm
Lower minor HR: 7 bpm
Hydrogen HR: 5 bpm
Pupil dilation: Responsive
Vitals signs, noon of Day 46:
Respiratory rate: 7.5 bpm
Temperature: 31.55 degrees[5]
Major HR: 43 bpm
Upper minor HR: 7.5 bpm
Lower minor HR: 7.5 bpm
Hydrogen HR: 5 bpm
Pupil dilation: Responsive
Vitals signs, sunset of Day 46:
Respiratory rate: 8 bpm
Temperature: 31.49 degrees[6]
Major HR: 43 bpm
Upper minor HR: 7.5 bpm
Lower minor HR: 7.5 bpm
Hydrogen HR: 5 bpm
Pupil dilation: Responsive
Day 47,
Vitals signs, sunrise of Day 47:
Respiratory rate: 8 bpm
Temperature: 31.41 degrees[4]
Major HR: 42 bpm
Upper minor HR: 7 bpm
Lower minor HR: 7 bpm
Hydrogen HR: 5 bpm
Pupil dilation: Responsive
Fathom’s condition continues to deteriorate despite the temperature of his fever hitting an all-time low.
I’m worried that the antibiotics aren’t working for some reason. It could be anything, but I have no way to diagnose the problem. Either the body is destroying the drug before it can be absorbed, or it’s not being absorbed at all for some reason. The latter is possible, but there’s nothing I can do in that case. If it’s the former, then the most likely cause is stomach acid. Fathom ate those pigs that had been dead for several days, and he was perfectly fine afterwards. I can safely assume his digestive system is quite robust, and that means having some powerful stomach acid.
Should I ask Fathom to drink a lot of water? I don’t have any chemical bases with me to neutralize the stomach acid, and it’s not like I can just find any just lying around
Pryce abruptly stopped writing to look up at the stalactites on the cave ceiling.
Stalactites were often made of limestone…otherwise known as calcium carbonate, a base.
Pryce quickly got to work breaking off a small stalagmite. He wrapped the broken tip in some rags and smashed it with a rock, then he used the rags as a filter as he poured water onto the bits of dust and rock, leaving behind a milky white filtrate in a metal cup.
Pryce repeated this step to concentrate calcium carbonate solution several times. He didn’t bother trying to calculate how much he’d need to neutralize the acid in the dragon’s stomach; there were so many unknowns that the result would be completely meaningless.
Fathom cracked an eye open from his place in the pool, twitching his spines in irritation at the loud noises Pryce made as he smashed the rocks.
“What…are you doing?” He asked drowsily.
“Medicine is not working for you like it does for humans,” Pryce said excitedly. “I think I know why. When you eat food, food goes into stomach, stomach breaks food using thing that is like fire called ‘acid’. I think your acid is breaking penicillin, so if I make your acid weaker, your body can use penicillin!”
“You…make my stomach weaker…is good?” Fathom asked weakly.
“This won’t make it weak long, only a little bit. Like how cold water makes your body cold, but your body will be warm soon,” Pryce reassured. “It is bitter though, like medicine.”
“All human medicine makes pain or is bitter,” Fathom huffed.
Pryce ignored this complaint as he dipped a piece of litmus paper into the solution and measured a pH level of approximately 8.5, excellent. Calcium carbonate had a pH level of 9 or 10, but he couldn’t expect to reach that just by smashing and filtering rocks.
“You did not answer my question, why are you breaking rocks?”
“Oh, right, I’m breaking rocks because these rocks neutralize the acid, that means it makes acid water. Things that make acid weaker are called ‘bases’,” Pryce explained.
“You…want me to eat rocks?” Fathom asked, looking as if Pryce had grown another set of arms.
“Salt is a rock, and you eat salt.”
“Salt is not a rock, salt is salt,” Fathom insisted, rousing from his stupor to defend this point.
“Salt is a soft rock.”
“I…am tired,” Fathom sighed, giving up on this argument as he lowered his head back into the shallow river.
“Rest, I’ll go and boil this,” Pryce said, leaving the cave to start a fire. He returned ten minutes later to cool the boiling water, then added 40 grams of antibiotics to the solution.
Pryce told Fathom to drink as much water as he could before giving him the medicine, hoping this would dilute the stomach acid. The entire length of Fathom’s body shuddered as he drank this concoction, and he dropped the empty cup with a clang to go back to sleep.
“You should get well soon, let me know how you feel later.”
Fathom’s only response was to grumble miserably.
Vitals signs, noon of Day 47:
Respiratory rate: 9 bpm
Temperature: 31.21 degrees[5]
Major HR: 44 bpm
Upper minor HR: 7 bpm
Lower minor HR: 7 bpm
Hydrogen HR: 5 bpm
Pupil dilation: Responsive
Vitals signs, sunset of Day 47:
Respiratory rate: 9 bpm
Temperature: 31.10 degrees[6]
Major HR: 45 bpm
Upper minor HR: 7 bpm
Lower minor HR: 7 bpm
Hydrogen HR: 5 bpm
Pupil dilation: Responsive
Pryce repeated this treatment two more times before sunset, but Fathom’s condition only continued to worsen. The dragon was slow to wake even with Pryce podding at him, and now nearly spent all his time asleep. Whenever he did wake, he was sure to mention how his head hurt, or how weak he felt, or how he felt hot and cold at the same time.
He was so confident that weakening the stomach acid would’ve helped, but maybe he didn’t use enough limestone? But he didn’t want to make Fathom sick either. Calcium carbonate was used as a mineral supplement, but all drugs had adverse effects if they were overdosed.
He had nothing better to do anyway, so he did some napkin math to determine how much would be too much for a dragon:
Calcium carbonate was usually sold in quantities of 500 mg per tablet for a person of about 70 kg, scaled up to Fathom, that meant a dose of 32.78 grams.
But this was almost useless to know, he could boil the filtrate down until it was a thick slush, but he had no way of determining the concentration of the calcium carbonate in his solution.
An even bigger problem was his dwindling supply of antibiotics. He only had one kilogram with him, and he’d used 500 grams already. He had two more kilograms on the ship that he didn’t bring, because he had somehow convinced himself that was a bad idea.
At the rate of 40 grams/dose, he would run out of antibiotics after 12.5 more doses, or a little over 3 days.
To make matters worse, Pryce wanted to double that dosage, but doing so meant he had 6.25 doses left, or around one and a half days.
He didn’t like burning through his stock, but the answer was clear. Fathom wasn’t showing any signs of recovering even after 2 days; his fever had gone down, but that was probably because of him sitting in the river. All of his other symptoms had gotten much worse.
He would have to start giving him 80 grams/dose tomorrow morning, and if the dragon did not begin to show signs of recovery soon…Pryce would have to retrieve more from the ship on his own.