The Cost of Saving a Life Part 2

Posted on Thu Sep 26th, 2024 @ 4:37pm by Lieutenant Commander Toulaine & Lieutenant Muffy Harrington

1,503 words; about a 8 minute read

The Cost of Saving a Life Part 2
Joint Log
Lieutenant Commander Doctor Toulaine
Lieutenant Muffy Harrington\

On the Farm -

Muffy and Ian secured the farm and set the dogs out to roam and protect the area. They also let the donkeys and pigs out. Nothing was more protective and territorial than those animals. Then Muffy put together a care package for Alice for when she woke up and got some clothing for Touliane to change into when she was done. Alice’s Uncle promised to keep an eye on the farm and make sure no one else tried to get into the house or anywhere else on the farm.

Then Ian took himself and Muffy to the hospital to wait for Toulaine to have finished with Alice. When they walked in, the hospital was buzzing, and looking around, everyone on the staff seemed to be in some kind of private conversation with other staff. The patients were all eavesdropping and talking about it themselves.

“I wonder what that is all about?” Ian asked.

Muffy shrugged. “It’s about Toulaine. Let’s go.”

In the Hospital -

The OR doors closed behind Toulaine and the small staff she had in there to assist her. She had scrubbed up and was in the traditional scrubs for an operation. On the table, Alice was asleep and prepped for surgery. Toulaine looked at the latest scans and then took her own tricorder and used that to scan her. She took a skin pen and made marks on the skin of where she had to work. She then had her tricorder images blown up on the screen and kept the tricorder running over Alice on the overhead “arms” that were made for such items.

The staff watched her do the pre-surgery checks and were shocked that she put the scanner on those arms, they had never used them, not knowing what they were there for. Then again, they hadn’t been trained by Starfleet Medical as this woman had been and this operating room had been set up by Starfleet Medical as state of the art. This room wasn’t used as often as the other operating rooms because it didn't seem to have what was needed. Now they were learning it was better than the other rooms by leaps and bounds. As they assisted, they learned.

Toulaine wasn’t aware that this staff weren’t up to her normal staff when it came to using the latest in Medical procedures. She soon learned her mistake and decided to use this as a teaching opportunity as well as saving the life of her friend and sister.

She didn’t notice when the observation deck above the theater filled up, but there were as many hospital staff as possible crowded up there watching and listening as well. Toulaine’s voice was easily heard, but it wasn’t loud.

“If you look at the scans, you will see that the injuries that crushed her spinal cord were not handled correctly and that has caused compression to most of her internal organs, thus causing her current condition. Her lung capacity is now at 5 percent as the lungs have been slowly crushed. Her heart has also been compressed, thus causing the issues with the blood flow and supply. Her digestive tract from the esophagus to the kidneys and bowels are so compacted, it’s amazing she is able to eat and produce waste. Thus why she has gone septic.”

Toulaine picked up the laser cutter. “We will begin by fixing the spinal cord as much as we are able. Then we will move to each of the organs and do our best to correct the years of compression damage to them.” She opened up Alice and asked for clamps to hold the skin away from the open incision and suction to remove the blood and then told them how to gather that blood and send it through the cell saver and then return it to her body clean and without infection or damaged cells.

She gently moved aside the crushed organs, keeping a tight hold on her emotions and exposed the spinal cord. She used the regenerator over the destroyed intervertebral discs. Then she had two of the nurses double check to make sure she hadn’t missed any of them. They asked her why two had to double check and why double check at all?

“When you are doing any surgery, you need to have as many eyes as possible on each stage. You need to make sure that nothing was overlooked or missed or left behind or left undone. Leaving items inside a patient causes them to get sick. Overlooking or missing something that needs to be fixed could make them worse and even kill them. It is far better to take a few seconds while the patient is open to do this, than it is to have to open them back up because we failed to take that precaution.” Toulaine said and a few more looked and checked and one pointed to a shadow and asked what that was. Toulaine looked and then smiled. “And this is why I have more than one person look at it, so that nothing is missed. Good eye, nurse. That is a nick in the disc and it needs to be fixed or the whole structure will collapse again.” Toulaine ran the regenerator over the shadow and the disc plumped a bit more and revealed a few more places that had been missed in that slight sag. “Again, please take a look and make sure I got everything.” She said and most of those with her took a look and nodded that it looked good. Then she ran a scanner over just the discs and nodded. “Okay, the scans verify what our eyes have told us, the invertebrate discs are all repaired and we didn’t miss anything.”

Toulaine then set the regenerator aside and pulled out the bone reconstructor. “Now, we will deal with the vertebrae and the cord itself.” Toulaine was quiet for several moments as she carefully ran the bone reconstructor over each and every vertebrae and made sure she didn’t miss a single nook or cranny. Those around her watched as the spinal cord seemed to rebuild itself under her slow and steady moves with the reconstructor. “Dry my brow.” She said softly as she pulled away. One of the nurses mopped dry Toulaine’s brow and found it covered with sweat. “Okay, please, check my work.” Toulaine said and took a moment to take several deep breaths to deal with the pain in her leg.

No one was able to find anything and she ran the scanner over the spinal cord and it came back that it was completely whole again. “Okay, now comes the really hard part. We have to see how many of the nerve clusters we can reattach or entice to return to the spine.” Toulaine said softly and took an even smaller instrument that none of them even knew what it was, let alone what it did. “This is a nerve splicer. You have to have an extremely delicate touch with this. Most people have too heavy of a hand with it and it causes more problems.”

She was silent as once again, she went in. Her hands were steady as she worked, but this was a long process. To those who watched, it appeared she was taking single strands of hair and weaving them back into the spine. The nurse who mopped her brow before kept watch and carefully mopped her brow over and over as she worked on this step. So far, the total surgery time was three hours. This stage was already taking two hours, and it wasn’t even half done yet. After four hours of making tiny movements and moving hair like filaments and adjusting them, Toulaine stood back from the table. “Please look to make sure I haven’t undo anything with the vertebrae and the invertebrate discs. You won’t be able to see the nerves unless your eyesight is exceptionally good and rated in the top .001 percent. Most doctors who do this all the time wear enhancing gear.” She said, “I need to sit down for a few minutes and then I will scrub up again and complete the surgery.”

Toulaine sat down in the chair in the operating room and hung her hands and head between her head and breathed deeply. She also tucked her hands into her pockets and gave herself a double dose of the pain meds she kept there and started to feel better. Then she got up and went back into the washroom and scrubbed up and changed the scrubs she had been wearing for a fresh set and put on new gloves and returned to the table and looked at Alice’s open body and nodded at the spine. “Okay, now, we begin the second stage.”

End Part 2

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