ways_infirmary | Getting the Lead Out

Doc carefully peels out of the long duster he's been wearing and then the vest, then unbuttons the love sleeved shirt he's been wearing as well. He manages to get the right arm off himself, but the left is giving him a bit of trouble.

"Guy got a lucky shot," he explains.

With patience and delicacy, Zhaan pulls the left sleeve off Scurlock's arm. She takes a look at the bloodstained dressing with an expression of concern. "What were you shot with? And have you done anything other than bandaging your wound?"

"No, ma'am. Didn't have the time."

The bandage is bloodstained and thin, with a day's ride of sweat and dirt rubbed into it. 1800's medicine really wasn't that great, even if Doc did study it a bit before he started his life as an outlaw.

Doc peers at the bandage. "Most likely a thirty-eight or a fourty-five, if it was a rifle it would've torn out the other side." A pause. "Revolver. I didn't get a look at where it came from."

Fortunately, Zhaan's learned a little about guns (or at least bullets and bullet wounds) during her time here. "Then the projectile is still in the wound," she says. She goes to the sink and washes her hands thoroughly, then puts a pair of gloves on.

When she's done, she gets some gauze and one of her own antiseptic solutions. She carries these to the exam bed where Scurlock is sitting and puts them down before carefully unwrapping his bandage and looking at the wound. "No sign of infection," she says. She picks up the antiseptic and some of the gauze, then applies the one to the other. "This will sting a bit, and it will make the wound bleed again. But that will get it clean," she informs her patient.

Doc nods. He's a good patient, even if he does flinch a bit at the sting of the antiseptic being applied to the torn skin. He looks less like the outlaw and more like the young twenty-one year old kid as he sits there, face scrunched in mild discomfort.

(Points to him for not swearing around the gentle sex, however.)

"Appreciate it," he tells Zhaan, with the barest hint of a smile as she cleans the wound. His voice is a little tight, from the pain, but he's been hurt worse and lived.

Zhaan could feel the sting as well, when she touched him. And more than that, she could feel the torn blood vessels, muscle and other tissue in his wounded shoulder, and the foreign object there. She can see how it throws off the flow of things, and it almost sets her teeth on edge.

Once she has finished cleaning the wound, she puts the rest of the gauze over it. "Hold this, please. To remove the bullet, I will have to put you under general anesthesia, and I would rather not do that without one of the other doctors here." Leaving Scurlock to hold the gauze to his wounded shoulder, she goes to the call button by the door and presses it. If Guppy or Simon is on the premises, one of them should be here soon.

Doc holds the gauze to his shoulder and glances around the infirmary. There is a lot of stuff here he's not used to seeing, and the idea of general anesthesia is something that they were still working on perfecting in 1878. He remembers putting a rat to sleep in one of his classes when he was studying medicine in New Orleans.

It didn't wake up.

Doc would like to wake up when this is done. Or just have someone tie him to a table and yank it out when he's busy clenching a strap of leather between his teeth. But he sits and waits patiently, if not nervously.

[OOC: Sounds good. :)]

It's slightly under two minutes later that Simon Tam steps into the infirmary, looking around alertly.

"Pa'u Zhaan," he says. "Do you need assistance?"

Zhaan dips a quick bow to him. "Doctor Tam," she says, "This is Josiah Scurlock. He prefers to be called Doc." She turns to Scurlock. "This is Simon Tam, head of the infirmary."

Addressing Simon again, she says, "Doc just came in here with a bullet wound in his shoulder. Fortunately it pierced no vital organs or major blood vessels, and there is no sign of infection. But the bullet is still lodged there. I thought it best to seek assistance in removing it and closing the wound." After all, getting it out will involve administering anesthetic or sedatives, and it's better not to put someone under by yourself.

Put someone under?

Doc looks just the slightest bit concerned about this. But he continues to hold the gauze to the freshly-cleaned wound and eyes it from time to time as they discuss.

"Ah," he finally starts. "If I may so inquire just what putting someone 'under' entails? I'm afraid...in my time...how do I say this...we hadn't quite perfected it just yet."

"It's quite safe, sir," says Simon reassuringly. "I've administered anaesthetic literally hundreds of times, both as primary surgeon and as assistant."

He studies the patient's face a moment longer, registering the unease, and adds, "A general anaesthetic will render you unconscious for the duration of the surgery, and you'll wake afterwards feeling more or less as though you've been asleep."

"We both have considerable experience with anesthetic and surgical procedures," Zhaan says, "and I think what we have is considerably more advanced than what exists in your time." She tilts her head curiously. "What time do you come from, by the way?" It would be a good idea to pin down his frame of reference.

Doc swallows.

"1878. And...Earth, I guess I should say, Ma'am."

He looks about. This is certainly more advanced than anything he's ever seen, and while it does make him a bit nervous, he's more relaxed now that he has been given a bit more information. So he dares a hint of a smile.

"I'm used to either leaving the lead in or just holding still and trying not to scream, so this will be a welcome change, I reckon."

Between the year and the description, Simon's able to make a fairly accurate guess at the medical conditions Scurlock would be used to: roughly analogous to those on the poorest Rim colonies.

To Zhaan, he says "I'm more than happy to assist you, doctor." The honorific is automatic given the context, but he's also thinking that this will be a good opportunity to watch her work.

Zhaan smiles at Simon and bows her head, then turns to Scurlock. "If you are comfortable with being given general anesthetic - outs is perfectly safe - then Dr. Tam and I shall prepare to get that bullet out of your shoulder. It should not take very long." She wants to make sure he agrees with this course: it would be bad to treat him in a way that he does not consent with, even if it makes things easier for her to deal with.

Doc looks at the gauze, and the blood on it, and he knows that if he does indeed get out of the Bar, it will be good to have the wound properly treated.

So he nods his consent.

He trusts the two doctors.

"What...what do you need me to do?"

Simon has crossed behind Zhaan to the counter with the sink in, and starts to wash his hands.

He's going to let the primary physician answer.

"Just relax," Zhaan says. "We will get the equipment ready, and then I shall administer some anesthetic vapor." She goes through the cupboards, getting out the tools and medicines she needs, wiping them - and the tray she puts them on - with an antiseptic solution. Zhaan also gets from her own cupboard a small tube with a twist-cap at one end, containing the anesthetic she plans to use.

When she is done with her preparations and Simon's done scrubbing up, she follows suit, and puts on a pair of gloves. Her own body doesn't carry viruses or bacteria, but it's best to be safe.

She steps up to Scurlock's bedside with the little tube in her hand. "I'm going to twist the top of this," she says, "and some vapor will emerge. You should fall asleep a few moments after smelling it. Are you ready?" Scurlock still seems a bit nervous to her, and even if he's going to be unconscious for the operation, she'd like him to go into it as calmly as possible.

Doc figures that at this point, when he's been transported, somehow, into a magic bar, somewhere on a place that's on no map and full of people from other planets, other times, that if he's not ready for this, he's not ready for anything.

So he answers honestly.

"Ready as I'll ever be, ma'am."

A slight tip of his head to tell her that it's alright to go ahead. And when she does, it takes a second for Doc to resist the urge to hold his breath, but soon enough he gives in, and between the exhaustion of the gunbattle, the wound, the pain, and the confusion of being in a new place, it doesn't take long for the vapor to take hold and to put him out slowly.

Just like falling asleep.

Zhaan gives him a quick shot of the vapor before twisting the cap on the tube closed again. She puts it on the tray, activates the scanner above the bed, and then gets to work.

The wound isn't bleeding a lot now, although that may change once the bullet is out. Zhaan carefully repositions and rotates Scurlock's arm, removing the gauze he put on it. There's only a small seepage of blood from the ragged wound. And she can see the black lump of the bullet within.

She holds out a hand. "I need one of the retractors, please." She has to hold the wound open to get the bullet out.

Simon passes it to her, watching silently.

Once she's applied the retractor to the wound to hold and widen it a little, she sees that it will be much easier to remove the bullet. She asks Simon to pass her the tweezers - long, thin-nosed things meant for getting bits of debris and such out of places in the body where they shouldn't be - and uses those to remove the bullet. She drops the bloodied bit of lead into a small metal box Simon holds out for her.

As she suspected, this makes the wound start bleeding more. "I need the little cup of powder," she says. "It's a short-term coagulant." Once she has the powder, she sprinkles some of it into the wound. The flow of blood slows to a trickle: she gets some sterile gauze from Simon and cleans out what remains there, looking for any other foreign objects. She doesn't find anything.

"The coagulant will dissolve in a little more than a hundred microts...I mean, two minutes," Zhaan corrects herself. "All that remains is to stitch up the wound."

He's been watching, and come to the conclusion that she knows what she's doing. The coagulant powder is extremely interesting; he'd like to find out more about that. Later.

"Microts?" he asks, handing her the threaded needle.

"Equivalent to seconds," Zhaan says. She feels a little embarrassed, but her hand is steady as she stitches up the tissue inside Scurlock's wound. The particular kind of material she's using is similar to flax: strong but organic, able to be broken down by the body as it heals itself. "We do not have anything like minutes, though." The stitches she makes are small and even.

"I see."

Simon waits, and stands ready if she needs anything else, and watches her finish.

Zhaan quickly finishes up the internal stitches, checks once more for foreign objects, then removes the retractor and passes it to Simon in exchange for another needle to stitch the skin together. She doesn't want to use the fuser, because she may have to open the wound again if something goes wrong.

After that she asks Simon for the little bottle of salve on the tray. She applies some of the contents to the stitched wound, to reduce the pain it will cause and protect it from infection. Zhaan can sense the injury in Scurlock's body when she touches him, although she's been keeping it at the back of her mind. Now she turns her awareness on it, and notes with satisfaction that his shoulder feels less wrong than before. She also checks the scanner, which indicates a minute but expected drop in the patient's blood pressure. It's still within normal limits.

Zhaan then asks for gauze and bandages, which she uses to bind the wound. "He will need a sling as well," Zhaan says. "I'll get that when he wakes up."

The bandage was the last step in the procedure: Zhaan decides to tidy up before bringing Scurlock out of his anesthetic slumber. She and Simon clean and put away the various tools and medicines used in the operation. Zhaan puts the bullet from Scurlock's shoulder in a corked glass tube. "He might want to keep it," she explains. There are some people who do that sort of thing.

Zhaan then gets another tube out of her cupboard, this one a counteragent to the anesthetic vapor she used. She twists it open and holds it under Scurlock's nose for a few seconds, then closes it again. "He'll come to in about a minute," she says, waiting and watching carefully to make sure her patient wakes up without any trouble.

Doc does wake up without any trouble, after a moment or two of slight stirring motions.

He's almost hoping to wake up in a dusty stable or a tiny hotel room back in New Mexico, as his eyes flutter open and he stares up at the ceiling, clean and fresh, the slight hum in his ears from some piece of equipment. Nope. Still in the Bar.

He swallows, mouth feeling dry a bit, as he struggles to sit up, but as soon as he attempts to use his now-banadaged left arm, it hurts, so he nixes that idea and decides that lying on his back is a much better one. Yes. Much better. And he's still slightly sleepy, at least for another few moments.

"Stay as you are for now," Zhaan says, smiling down at Scurlock. "It will be a while before your head clears." She nods at his bandaged shoulder. "The bullet is out, and your wound is stitched. You'll need to wear your arm in a sling for a while. Before that, I should get you a new shirt and coat." Because Scurlock's old things, of course, both have a big and bloodstained hole now. "I've saved the bullet, if you are inclined to keep it."

Doc nods. "I'll take it. Reminds me that Murphy's bastards can't get me that easily," he mutters, head still fuzzy. "I don't...I don't have anything else with me but maybe just a shirt for now would be nice. Don't need a coat."

Not when he's in a bar that never seems to be too hot or too cold for his tastes.

"Dunno where you'll get one though. Maybe...ask the bar...or...something." A pause, as his face scrunches up in thought. "Still ain't sure how that works."

"No one's been able to come up with a better explanation than 'magic,'" Simon tells him. "Which, I'm told, is what it is."

He adds, with a slightly rueful smile, "I recommend not thinking too hard about it, at least not initially."

Zhaan directs a hint of a smirk at Simon before she picks up Scurlock's discarded coat and shirt, excuses herself, and goes into the bar. Two minutes later she returns with a shirt and coat of the same color, size and cut as the ones Scurlock came in with, but cleaner, whole and folded. She places them on the chair next to his bed. "I will help you with the shirt, when the anesthetic has completely worn off. Then you will need a sling, to keep you from straining your shoulder."

Doc nods and slowly rights himself, at least to sitting up. His head is clearing, though it will take some time for the fog to disappear, but he does feel better and appreciates the new clothes.

He looks down at himself and his bare chest, then peers around the infirmary while he gets his bearings and balance back.

"Very much more advanced. When I was studying medicine in New Orleans, we were just beginning to work on putting people under sedation."

Simon can imagine, and manages not to shudder. "By my time we've pretty well perfected it," he offers.

A beat, and he adds: "How are you feeling?"

"So I noticed," Doc says, with a slight smile. "Better. Head's still a bit fuzzy but I think that's gonna stay like that, doesn't feel like it's clearing up very much...least right away."

He's dealt with worse. Try getting shot through the hand and taking care of it yourself!

Zhaan checks the sensor readouts on the scanner. "You should be completely recovered in about twenty minutes," she says before going to a cabinet and fetching a sling. "The anesthetic works fairly quickly, but I'm afraid the counteragent doesn't."

"It's alright, I've had worse, and it's better than riding around with the thing stuck in my shoulder for the rest of my life," Doc says, obviously grateful. He eyes the bandages again and then gingerly runs his fingertips over them.

Getting the Lead Out

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