Lt Commander Foster - Pray

[Alora DeVeau]

(( Trauma Center Eight, Main Medical Facility, Starbase 118 ))

There was a lot that Wyn simply wasn’t thinking about right now.

He wasn’t thinking about exhaustion, or political ramifications if they failed, or how many people just died in the bomb set off in trauma bay eight and how many injuries his staff had sustained.  Or how close he had come to being killed by an assassin or that Praetor died and then time reversed, and even with how things were going Arys still might kill him anyways and at this point he probably deserved it.

Nope.  None of that right now.  This would be the thoughts that haunted his mental breakdown tonight, alone in his quarters.  Or maybe alone in a recovery bay because he collapsed in sickbay and someone dragged him to a bed.

Right now the only thing he was thinking about was vital signed, lung capacity and fixing a Vulcanoid heart.

Foster: Right.  Whoever created shrapnel exploding slugs can go fall into a plasma coil.  

His tone was bitter and dry, aimed at the cosmos not pointed at anyone in particular.

Because he wasn’t going to yell at the crazed assassin and he was the only one who deserved it.

Zumagi: ::muttered darkly:: I’ll help them fall into it.

Well, at least they were on the same page.

Foster: Alright, left lung is stabilized.  Good work.  Focus on the right lung and I’m clearing any shrapnel out of the chest cavity.

It was like a sadistic game – pull the shards out from the body cavity without shredding more precious tissue.  His blue gloved hands were already stained green.  His surgical smock was drenched in green.  All he would see for the next few days was green.

It felt like it was hours of work, when in reality it was minutes as they pulled out the critical shards and doublechecked for any other major bleed damage.

Zumagi: Alright, it’s just little pieces from here on out for me, I can do that with his heart beating. Either that or they are non-critical enough another surgeon could do it.

He tipped both antennae forward.

Foster: Little pieces but a lot of pieces.  ::He drew in a short tense breath:: Starting the critical bleed scan now.

Usually, when he was fresh and not spent from an adrenaline surge and an assassination attempt he would be able to very competently guess the outcome of the scan merely from what he could take in from his antennae.

But tonight he was leaning on the scanner to be his eyes because all of his perception was focused on fixing the critical damage areas.

How long had they been in surgery? 

It felt like days.

It felt like minutes.

The heightened spike of the fight with the assassin was minutes.  Way too many minutes, lived twice.

But the surgery?  That was hours.  Not minutes, not days.

But it took over an hour to get Praetor stabilized to be able to stop his heart and once Zumagi returned it took over two hours – mostly silent work – to fix the heart and remove the critical shrapnel from the primary damage location.

Wyn was assuming another hour, minimum, to get Praetor stabilized to the point where he trusted another surgeon could take over and finish the small stuff.

And he was gauging that he had two and a half hours in him left.  Three at most.

This was doable.  They could do this.

Zumagi: There’s so much of it… ::pause for a beat:: When your scan is done, we should be ready to restart his heart?

He tipped both antennae forward again.

Foster: Yes.  Another five minutes.  Life support holding steady.

Zumagi: ?

He sucked in a breath and his eyes narrowed at the gaping hole still in the chest.

Foster: Now that the critical shrapnel is removed, we can focus on repairing the damaged tissue and organ tears.  

Zumagi: ?

Foster: I lost track of time.  But I know we’ve been at it for over three hours and I’m guessing at minimum there’s one more hour that we need to focus on.

But Praetor would need to still be in surgery for another two to four hours to make sure every offensive piece of shrapnel and every non-critical bit of damage was repaired.

But if vitals were stabilized at the cardiovascular system was at baseline repair, Wyn could trust that work to someone else.

Arys might still kill him, but she’s kill him faster if his hand slipped through sheer exhaustion.

Zumagi: ?

He drew in a breath.

Foster: I don’t know if you pray to anyone or anything, but if you do… I’m starting the heart in thirty seconds.

Wyn didn’t know if he believed in a higher power.  Somedays he barely believed that he existed let alone something guiding everything.

Zumagi: ?

~*~
tags/tbc
~*~

Lt Commander Shar’Wyn Foster
Chief Surgeon

StarBase 118 Ops