JDL | CMDR Marcus Carrol M.D. & LTCMDR Candice Lenshini | "Flesh and Bone" (Part Two)

Posted on 241708.07 @ 1:44am by Fleet Admiral Blyx Red & Commander Marcus Carrol M.D.

Mission: Hush [BQ Plot]
Location: Medical | Cold Station Theta

The monitor peaked then the slow cardiac rhythm began again. There was no time to enjoy the victory, however. Marcus went back to work sealing the aorta where the weapon had nicked it. This was a small wound and amounted to a pin hole leak in the massive artery running down the center of the body. Had it been much worse the Admiral would have been dead before she had even been transported.

Using his auto-sutures, Marcus quickly sealed the smaller veins and arteries until he came to the ruined lung. The bottom lobe had been nearly severed and the entire thing had collapsed like a deflated balloon. "Nurse, I'm going to need suction. This lung is a mess. I can't tell what I'm looking at." Marcus said as he peered into the chest cavity.

Thankful for the small miracle, Candy nodded and brought about the device, working quietly to remove bits of tissue floating in a sea of blood and sterile saline used to irrigate the areas being patched. Now it was just a mess. The nozzle clogged, choking on a bit of what was probably lung and the nurse quickly removed it with a piece of gauze before continuing the morbid task. All the while she watched the woman's heart and compared it with the monitor. "Can it be saved?" She asked as the organ appeared, shriveled, wrinkled, and bleeding. Each breath the Admiral drew was supported solely by an oxygen tube and her one good lung that had inhaled a good bit of blood. Candy could hear the wheeze. It was a wet, gurgling noise that came with every inhalation, but at least it was there.

"The upper lobe is undamaged but we are going to have to take out the bottom lobe and seal it off. When she is stable and has had a chance to heal, we may be able to replace the lung. For now, let's get this one closed up and operable." Marcus was using a laser scalpel to cut away the shredded lower lobe of her right lung. "She is fortunate her attacker angled the blade as he pulled across her body. Had he drug it sideways she would have had no chance of survival." With the proto-phaser, Marcus rapidly closed the bottom of the lung. "Okay, we should see the lung begin to inflate. Keep the suction up on that intubation. I don't want any fluid buildup." The deflated lung began to move slightly. It reminded Marcus of nothing less than bacon on a hot skillet for the first few seconds then suddenly it inflated and filled the cavity under her ribs.

The last item on the internal damage list Marcus had been keeping were the ribs. The blade had cut through, bent and shattered four of them. Many of the pieces were salvageable and with any luck, the use of a bone-knitting laser and osteo-regenerator would have her pieced back together within the hour. The cartilage would be tricky near the bottom of her sternum as it had been shredded by the serrated blade. Once the ribs had been pieced back together, the surgical frame would do the hard work of healing the bone, muscle, and epidermis. "Nurse, we need to clean that good lung out now that she can use this one." Marcus said as he pointed to the previously ruined right lung.

The wheezing was less, still there, but less. The right lung was working and doing what it was supposed to... She could start to try and relax. "Yes, Doctor." Candy nodded as she readied a long needle attached to a tube and began the task of threading it into the spaces she needed to be, drawing fluid the simplest way she could. It was a good bit of blood and fluid that had built up, the Admiral's body trying to fight off the perversion of the attack's results. "She's lucky to be alive. Strong" She said to herself, watching for the sign that she was done with that task. A flicker of light and the change of sound told her she'd achieved her goal and that it wasn't going to get any better than this. Once free of the additional inhibition, the Admiral was still breathing and the wheezing was gone. New blood was being pumped into her veins and her color began to look rosier... More alive. No longer did the woman look like a corpse even though her lips were still stained with blood and her body pried open by surgical necessity. There was a chance she was going to live after all. "Half her lung must have been full." Candy's head shook as she observed the product of her work. It would need to be officially measured before it could be entered in the full report.

Marcus continued to work on the placement of bone and mending the shattered ribs for the next hour finishing with the refusing of her xiphoid process. Sweat dripped down Marcus's forehead and threatened to run into his eyes but he dared not wipe at it for fear of contaminating the patient's chest cavity. Infection was rare with the steri-field but not impossible. "Nurse, could you dab my forehead, please? We are almost ready to close and bring her back up to temperature. I will need more cellular sutures before we begin as well." Marcus was well into his fourth hour of surgery and knew fatigue would begin to plague him. He looked over at one of the two security officers. "Could one of you replicate me an electrolyte shake. It's programmed to come out in a sealed cup with a flex straw. I'm a bit parched." Had this been anyone else there would have been a team of surgeons and nurses pouring in and out of the room attending to Marcus's every need, but the Code Blue Alpha had prevented excess personnel and reduced the chances of contamination.

Nodding, Candy was quick to pat the moisture away from the doctor's forehead with a bit of gauze. Anywhere she could see beads of sweat, she was there to remove them before they could cause more of an issue than they were worth. Next, someone off to her right handed her his offered shake and, disposing of the gauze, she took it and brought the straw to his lips. "You're almost there, doctor." She offered, leaving only long enough to obtain the cellular sutures for him, "It's looking like a success so far." Four hours was a long long time, but they'd gone through it second by second together. The Admiral was still breathing, her heart still beating steadily in her chest. There was hope. She kept thinking it, but it was true. Hope. Maybe, just maybe, fortune would smile down on that tragic soul and raise her from the pit of despair.

Almost another full hour passed as Marcus worked to repair damaged muscle and shredded skin. Due to the nature of wound with its jagged edges, he would be unable to completely and properly align the skin for dermal regeneration. There would be some scarring without a doubt. How much, would depend on her bodies ability to heal. "We are going to bring her temperature back up slowly. I am going to keep her in an induced coma for the next twenty-four hours to make sure her body has the time it needs to repair its self." He made the adjustments to the controls of the surgical framework. He turned back to the security officers, "She is going to need a secure recovery room. No one in or out without my authorization. Is that understood?"

Marcus had been so involved with trying to save the Admiral, he had forgotten about the embryo she carried. While the nurse was taking instruments to the sterilizer, he slid the internal scanner down to look at his patient's uterus. When it had happened, Marcus had no way of knowing. He suspected the period of cardiac arrest followed by the electrical current of the defibrillator had terminated the pregnancy. The small cellular mass showed no sign of life. The Admiral would not have even known she was carrying at this point and Marcus knew she would pass the embryo without pain or incident during her menses. This meant that the part responsible was guilty of feticide as well as attempted murder. He made the appropriate entry in his log, and shut down the scanner.

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Commander Marcus Carrol M.D. (NPC APB Neil)
Chief of Surgery
Cold Station Theta

Lieutenant Commander Candice Leshini P.A. (NPC APB Bandit)
Surgical Assistant
Cold Station Theta