From: V. Rahul Chandra (vrccan_at_gmail.com)
Date: Sun Jul 01 2007 - 03:59:32 PDT
========= "Tick.Tock.Tick.Tock" Con't from Steve's "Alone" ========= Location: GS-2 Stardate: 2422 [2.7] 0701.0521 Scene: Delivery Room "Try again." Roke glanced over at Gorman briefly, before nodding and attempting the close again. He held the auto-suture over Kat's limp and unmoving body, attempting to insert it into the cut he'd made while slowly looking at the monitors on the screens for an indication as to whether or not he was having any success. A few warning klaxons and minutes later, he shook his head, removing the instrument from the fray. "It's no good, she's losing more blood than we can get into her," he said, looking over at Jeff with a harried look on his face. Jeff nodded his head. "How far as the DIC reached?" he asked. "It's affecting the whole body sir," one of the circulating nurses replied. "The blood coagulates, she loses her platelets and clotting doesn't occur." Jeff nodded again, his mind racing around the alternatives that were available to them at the current moment. "What are her vitals like?" he asked. "At the moment, they are very erratic," Roke replied. "The sooner we can get her stabilized, the better at this point." Jeff sighed, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the wrist of his gloved hand. "Okay," he said. "The only way we're going to solve this is by putting her completely on machine life support, fixing everything manually and then reviving her after that." Roke frowned. "That's not a very high percentage play," he remarked. "Compared to our other options?" Jeff retorted, keeping his emotions in check. It didn't escape the back of his mind that a couple of years ago he wouldn't have had the mental maturity to keep his composure when his wife was close to dying, but the thought was gone as quickly as it appeared and he looked at Roke expectantly. "I guess not," Roke admitted grudgingly. "Well then, it's seems our only choice is." Jeff's attention was distracted by someone tapping on his arm. "Excuse me sir," Angie said. "But there's a Mr. Beran here to see you.he says it's urgent." "Angie, we're sort of in the middle of something here," Jeff replied, an annoyed look on his face. "I know sir, but it did seem like it was important," Angie said, unsure of her decision to disturb the scene. Jeff sighed. "Fine," he grumbled, looking over at Roke. "Transfer all of her functions to the biobed," he ordered. "I'll be back in a few minutes." =========== Scene: Waiting Room Jeff walked out into the waiting room quickly, his eyes sweeping around the room and narrowing as he noticed the man getting up. It hadn't registered to him until just now exactly who Beran was. "Doctor Gorman.so good to see you again," Beran said, smiling. "How are you?" "I'm in the middle of an operation, make it quick," Jeff said, glaring daggers across at the other man. A lot of Kat's dislike for the Dominion had brushed off onto Jeff; perhaps more so than normal due to the mental link the two shared. "I know, how are mother and baby?" Beran asked. "What do you want?" Jeff asked, ignoring Beran's question. "Well.I want to offer you my help," Beran answered. "And how is that exactly?" Jeff asked. Beran, smiling, began to illustrate what he was talking about. "No, absolutely not" Jeff answered, shaking his head. "I could help her," Beran said. "Manipulate the Founder DNA in her to help stabilize her condition.' "And you could also control her," Jeff commented. "Why would I want to do such a thing?" Beran asked. "Well, the only Starfleet Executive Officer on this side of the wormhole would undoubtedly be a catch, wouldn't they?" Jeff suggested. Just for a fraction of a moment, there was a twitch in Beran's facial expression that suggested to Jeff that the comment might have hit home. Instead of replying to Jeff's question, Beran increased the size of his smile. "So there is nothing I can do to convince you to accept my help?" he asked. "Nothing," Jeff said. "Very well," Beran said. "I will wait here in case you change your mind." "I appreciate that," Jeff answered sarcastically, before turning on his heel and heading back towards the delivery room. ========== Scene: Delivery Room "I've transferred all of her vitals to the biobed," Roke reported, noticing that Jeff had re-scrubbed and entered the room again. "Her physiology is currently not responsible for any of her vital functions." "Okay," Jeff said. He closed his eyes for a moment, muttering a silent prayer that this would work. "Here's what we are going to do. Fixing a disseminated intravascular coagulation is difficult to do under the best of circumstances and these are clearly not the best of circumstances." He took a breath to calm himself down, before continuing. "The problem that led to the DIC initially was the placental abruption; which we've now taken care of. The problem is that the blood supply that was flowing through her has to a large degree been degraded of its clotting mechanisms and because her vitals were being physiologically carried out, the new blood we were giving her was becoming coagulated as well." "So what we are going to do," he said. "Is transfuse new blood with the appropriate levels of platelets to the different areas of her body one by one. As we do this, we will slowly return vital functions to her body from the biobed. If everything goes well, we should have her condition stabilized in a few hours." "That's a big if," Roke muttered under his breath as they began to start the process. ========= Scene: Waiting Room Beran was pacing back and forth in the waiting room, when he noticed the curtain being pulled apart and a man entering with four kids in tow. The man's name was Geoffrey and he walked up to the receptionist, asking if Doctor Gorman was available. "I'm afraid he's still in surgery," the receptionist said. "You can have a seat and wait for him if you want," she added, pointing for emphasis. "Thank you," Geoffrey said, before taking her advice and herding the children over to the chairs that had been provided expressly for that purpose. ========= Time Index: 2 hours later Scene: Delivery Room "Okay," Roke said, tiredly mopping sweat from his head with a cloth as he straightened up and felt his back pop from the sudden change in position. "I think the biobed supports are getting to the level where they can't even fight the coagulation quickly enough." "Well, I think we're ready to begin the full phase of the operation," Jeff said, taking the transfusion apparatus and wheeling it back over to the bed. "This is going to take some slick timing Dr. Roke. You extract and I'll transfuse. The going's gonna be slow, but we also need to cover the whole body to ensure that this works." "Yes sir," Roke answered, before going to it. ========= Time Index: 5 hours later Scene: Waiting Room The children were all asleep, having been curled up in their own individual chairs. Geoffrey himself found it difficult to stay awake, but worry for his adopted daughter had kept him awake for a very long time now. While Ely and the twins were each asleep in a chair, Dahlia was snoozing comfortably in his arms. Geoffrey had been almost unconsciously rocking her back and forth to keep her sleeping and even as he noticed he was doing it now, he continued to do so. "Would you like someone to take the children back to your quarters while you wait?" the receptionist asked him. Geoff shook his head and smiled slightly. "They would just want to come back here," he said. "Dahlia's too young to be left unsupervised, and the other three miss their parents." ========= Time Index: Hours later Scene: Delivery Room "Okay," Roke said. "I think we've done everything we can." Jeff nodded. "Yes," he said. "It's time to take her off machine support and try closing again." "What if she doesn't respond again?" Roke asked. "We'll deal with that if we come to it," Jeff answered tersely. "Aye sir," Roke said. Bit by agonizingly slow bit, they pulled Kat off of the biobed support and as they did so her vital functions began being taken over again by her body. Grabbing the auto-suture again, Roke slowly started to close and found that this time there wasn't as much resistance to it this time. "I think I can close all the way," Roke reported. "Good," Jeff said. "We're probably going to need to give her a few more transfusions later on, but I don't think her body can take much more at the moment. We need to give her time to recuperate." "Her condition's stabilized, but it's still critical," the nurse reported. Jeff nodded; he'd expected as much. "We're not out of the woods yet," he said. "But the end is in sight." He sighed, glancing a look at the wall chronometer and doing a double take. By his own estimate, Kat had been unconscious and being operated on for the last fifteen hours. ========= Time Index: 15 minutes later Scene: Intensive Care -> Waiting Room "How's he doing?" Jeff asked, getting a good look at the baby (albeit from the other side of the glass) for the first time since everything hit the fan. "Not well," Angie informed him quietly. "But he's a trooper. He's fighting for his life right now." Jeff smiled slightly. "Of course he is," he said. "He's his mother's son." "Did you two settle on a name for him?" Angie asked. "Yeah we did," Jeff nodded. "John; after Kat's biological father." "John Gorman," Angie said. "It has a nice flow to it." Jeff smiled. "I'll be stopping in frequently in between monitoring Kat," he said. "But right now, there's something else I need to do." He turned and walked out into the waiting room and he looked down at the sleeping forms of his three children, Dahlia and Kat's adoptive father and shook his head. Geoff must have been a light sleeper, because upon hearing his son-in-law approach he opened his eyes and looked up at him expectantly. "How's she doing?" Geoff asked, his voice a whisper so as not to wake the children. "She's in critical condition, but at least she's stable," Jeff answered. "The same goes for the baby. They both have a long way to go to recovery." "Do you want me to stay here?" Geoff asked. Jeff shook his head. "If you could take the kids back to our quarters, that would be great," he said. "I want to be here when Kat wakes up." "Of course," working together, the two of them managed to gently wake Ely and the twins and after Jeff had a moment alone with the three children, he stood and watch them depart with Geoff once again carrying a sleeping Dahlia in his arms. Just as the doors closed behind them, Roke emerged from the room. He spotted Jeff's standing figure and walked over to him. "Her condition's been stable long enough that we can be reasonably sure she'll hold," he said. Jeff nodded. "Finally, some good news," he said. "I'll stay with her and monitor her," he added to Roke. "I need you to do something else right now." "And what's that sir?" Roke asked. "I need you to get in touch with all of the private medical facilities on the station and get a list of their inventories," he said. "If GS-2 is truly stranded, then Starfleet and the private practices are going to have to work together." "I can try scheduling a meeting with all of them," Roke added. "That would be a good idea," Jeff agreed. "If Kat's still unconscious by the time the meeting rolls around, you're going to have to go in my stead though." "I understand sir," Roke replied. =========== Scene: Delivery Room Jeff walked back into the delivery room; the biobed had been rigged to give off a loud piercing klaxon if something went wrong in Kat's vitals, so the room had been vacated. The nurses had been sent home for the most part and the others were tending to the baby. Kat was breathing of her own volition; her chest rising and falling with each breath she took in. Her eyes were closed and she was unconscious, but the positive from Jeff's perspective was that she looked closer to being asleep than being unconscious. He sighed, taking one of her limp hands into his and squeezing it gently. Still holding the hand, he leaned over and gently kissed her forehead, drawing a chair up next to the bed and sitting down. His trained eye quickly traced across all of the readings and noticing that nothing much was different since the last time he had looked, he gave his wife's hand another squeeze before letting go and grabbing a PADD. He pulled up the inventory list from the sickbay and began to go through it, making notations as he monitored his wife's vital signs and waited for her to regain consciousness. =========== NRPG: Woooooo, this one got extremely rambly by the middle, but oh well that's what I get for writing this at the end of an all nighter. In any case, the long story made short here is that both the baby and Kat are critical but stable. Shawn -> Welcome! Joy -> That's what you wanted right? Re-tag back at ya! =========== Rahul Chandra <vrccan_at_gmail.com> Lieutenant Commander Jeffrey Gorman, MD Chief Medical Officer GS-2 From HyperNews_at_youth.net
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