ArchivedLogs:Hemothorax

Hemothorax
Dramatis Personae Iolaus, Ross	2013-07-10 Ross comes to Iolaus with a problem. A breathing problem.
Location <XS> Medical Lab - B1
Gleaming and sterile, the school's medical facility is all cool science in contrast to the mansion's old-world old-fashion. All stainless steel and antiseptic tinge, the room is filled with the quiet whir-click of the various implements that comprise its medical equipment -- all state-of the art. The hospital beds are curtained off for privacy when they have patients, and in one of the alcoves there is a small operating theatre visible. More heavy-duty equipment is visible in the lab in the back, where the securely locked cabinets keep sensitive equipment out of the reach of teenage fingers. As evening sets on Xavier's, most of the faculty of the school have turned to their individual work - correcting papers, making assignments, reviewing exams, and generally avoiding much of the student body in the lounge or in their offices or rooms. Iolaus, it seems, has only partially succeeded - though he still is in a room with a student, they are sleeping, quite soundly, on one of the hospital beds, curtain securely wrapped around. Dressed in a crisp white dress shirt and a pair of grey slacks, Iolaus looks every inch at home surrounded by the bright white and steel of a hospital room. Papers are scattered across one of the tables in front of him - student work, neatly typed, with notes strewn across them in a messy but still (mostly) readable script. 'While your statement is correct, your evidence is weak and mostly off-point. If you are having problems finding something to cite, try a journal search.' The doctor writes across the bottom of the last page, before adding a grade below - B-. A strange loud violent hacking sound can be heard from down the halls, followed by sprinting. The doors swing open, two people standing in the door way. One of them is a student who isn't really important, wearing generic student things like shirt, shoes, and pants. More prominently is the one he's keeping from falling over. Over his shoulder is Ross, her face covered in blood. She hacks up another small bit onto the floor, and if you were to see behind, there's a trail. Ross is simply wearing some pajamas, yes, during the day, and slippers, most likely planning on spending the day, or as much as possible, in her dorm. Her light brown hair is not highlighted, which is pretty strange for her. The student waits with her until she is in safe hands, but with a concerned face, mainly because he was the one to find her coughing herself to death. As soon as she's safe, he runs out. Iolaus looks up at the sound of coughing, and when he sees Ross and the other student entering the room, he stands quickly to his feet. "What happened?" he asks, grabbing two gloves off of the desk and sweeping over towards Ross. The gloves are securely in place by the time he is wrapping an arm underneath Ross' shoulders and leading her gently over towards one of the hospital beds. "Easy, easy," he says, voice soothing and perfectly calm. "Take deep breaths." As soon as Ross is seated, Iolaus is turning to open a drawer and pull out a plastic mask and some tubing which he swiftly connects to a green valve on the wall. A twist later, and he is pressing it gently to Ross' face - oxygen. "What happened?" In Ross's perspective, everything is a blur. She can barely hear the doctor, but this quickly changes as she begins getting oxygen. "I...I don't feel so good. Blood..everywhere...". She's still quite woozy due to the loss of blood, but is better mentally. "I..just started coughing..couldn't stop...". She almost begins to cough again, but luckily, it's a false alarm this time. She looks around the room, noticing that she's never seen Iolaus before. "Where's...uh...". She then realizes she forgot the doctor's name. "Doctor Smurf...?". She coughs again, but no blood. "Doctor S-- Oh, Doctor McCoy's not in. My name is Doctor Saavedro." Iolaus grabs a otoscope off of the wall and lowers the mask for a moment. "Open wide," he instructs, peering - briefly - into her throat, before he replaces the oxygen mask. "When did this start?" he asks, replacing the instrument on the wall and pressing two fingers against her throat, feeling at her lymph nodes, down her throat, gently probing. As Iolaus askes, she opens her mouth. She quickly closes it shut again when he begins replacing her masks, taking a deep breath. She twitches as he begins to touch against her throat, and speaks slowly. "J..just about ten minutes ago...I think...I think my door was bust open, but the rest is a blur...last thing I consistently remember is seeing your face, r-really....". She takes another breath, and, proving she didn't have brain damage, begins self contemplating how much that door cost. However, this is quickly stopped when she convulses, having a massive pain spike in her chest, and she begins gasping from pain. Iolaus frowns and takes a step back. "Lie down," he instructs, as he turns and vanishes off past the curtain. He returns a few moments later with something that looks rather out of place - a tool box, and two small vials of liquid. He places them both down on a side table and reaches for a pair of trauma shears. "Sorry," he apologizes, as he places the edge of the scissors at the bottom of Ross' shirt. "But your shirt can be replaced." He gives her a brief smile before he begins cutting, the metal easily snipping through the cloth, cold against Ross' skin. It doesn't take him long to divest Ross of her shirt and for his fingers to begin probing, gently, along her skin. "Did you get hit, recently, in the chest, or neck?" Ross anxiously waits as Iolaus walks past the curtain, the pain getting slightly worse. She doesn't even have the time to react before he begins cutting her shirt off. Normally she'd smack someone for that, but, she had much bigger issues at the moment. She pants heavily, even though that's probably a stupid idea. She tries to respond to Iolaus's comment, but is at a lost of words, and just silently nods her head, getting more anxious every moment. "Alright. Lie back and try to relax." Iolaus says. "We're going to figure out what's going on, alright? Just keep taking deep breaths and let the oxygen do its job." The doctor turns and vanishes once more, coming back pushing a cart with a white contraption on the top - an ultrasound. He removes a bottle of gel from the drawer and squirts it onto the plastic covering over the ultrasound wand and rubs it gently into the side of Ross' chest. "This may be a little bit cold. Just keep taking deep breaths," he says, as he places the wand and begins moving it, slowly, up and down as he watches the screen intently. Every word Iolaus says seems to have a calming effect on Ross. She slowly goes back to the deep breaths, as she tries to relax, in pain and very anxious. She slowly thinks to herself that this, probably, would be the most painful way to die. She notices the gel, and, unlike herself, doesn't even THINK of a dirty joke. As the wand moves across her body, she twitches from the cold. "W...will I die...?", she says, completely unaware that this makes doctors feel worse. Or completely aware, and she's just a jerk even when in bad condition. It's always possible. Iolaus smiles down at Ross, a quick glance, before he looks back to his machine. He turns the screen briefly to her and points at a dark patch. "See that? That's blood. It shouldn't be there," he explains, before he lifts the wand and puts it back on the cart. "You have what we call a hemothorax - blood where it doesn't belong." He pushes the cart away with a hand. "I'm going to start an IV and give you some medication that will make you feel a little bit tired and then we're going to get this fixed up, alright? Doctor McCoy will be my next phone call." Iolaus says, smiling. "Let me go get the medication." With that, Iolaus turns and marches towards the back. When he returns, there is a cell phone pressed against his ear. "Yes, a hemothorax, verified by FAST. I'm starting an IV and standing by for airway support, if necessary. Alright. Call me when you're here." He looks down at Ross, a warm look, as he turns back to the drawers. "An ambulance is on the way to take us to the hospital, alright? Now. A little bit of a pinch is coming, I'm afraid," he says, as he turns around with a needle in his hand. "Just a quick one, in and out, before you know it." A reassuring look, before the doctor turns and lines the needle up with Ross' arm. "And... now." he says, inserting it smoothly into the vein. A moment later, the needle is coming out, and he's taping down the IV line. "There we go. Not so bad." Ross doesn't understand some of these big words. Hemothorax? Great supervillain name, like really. She doesn't respond to the IV comment, and just begins thinking about her, maybe week living here? Yes, retrospection, oddly unfitting. However, this gets cut quickly when she hears about the ambulance and hospital. She thought this WAS the hospital, for some reason. She doesn't get to say anything about needles, before, prick. She moves her arm to protest it, but it's already been removed. Her breathing deepens as she nods to him. She may be the nicest doctor she ever met. Well, Hank was nice, but she was a bitch to him, so, eh. She looks down at her chest, and begins to slowly panic as she notices something strange. I mean, this could just be the drugs on her mind...but has her chest been flattened all of a sudden? "Alright. I'm going to give you some medication which is going to help a little bit with the pain and make it a little bit easier for you to breathe," Iolaus says, as he uncaps a syringe full of clear liquid. "Just a mild pain killer, but it should take the edge off." The needle goes into a small line that comes out of the IV, and then withdraws a few moments later, with only a faint burning sensation as the liquid rushes into her. "There you go," he says, placing it in the sharps container on the wall. "Just sit there and relax. You may get sleepy - that's fine, go ahead and rest. You're in good hands." Ross isn't even paying attention to him anymore. She's shaking at the sight that her chest has obviously got smaller. I mean, to someone who's never seen her bare chest, there's no difference, but, it's her body and she knows when something's happened. Maybe he'll hear her, or her statements will go completely unheard. The painkiller begins to take effect, however, and she stops her cries, becoming much more relaxed. She still keeps her hand on her chest, as she just watches him, waiting for what to happen. "There you go," Iolaus soothes, quietly, and he places one hand on her shoulder to squeeze it gently. "I'm going to call Doctor McCoy, then I'm going to take you out to the front in a wheelchair to wait for the ambulance." Iolaus says, a smile on his face. He turns and takes a few steps away as he strips off his gloves and removes his cell phone from his pocket. His conversation is hushed, too quiet to hear easily, and after he hangs up, he makes a second phone call. "Daniel - it's Iolaus. I'm going to be going to the hospital with a patient. I'll be at the front door in five minutes or so. Sorry for the late notice." He hangs up and slips over to fetch a wheelchair. He disappears into the back and comes out with a small oxygen bottle - a black and green thing, which he places in a handy holder on the back. "Just going to reconnect you, here," he says, removing the oxygen from the spike on the wall and placing it on the regulator on the portable tank. "There you go." He smiles at Ross and turns the wheelchair towards her. "Alright. Just slide over this way," he instructs, holding out hands to support her. Slowly, Ross lifts herself up. She quietly points to her chest, and tries to speak about what's going on, but there's little chance of hearing. She sits in the chair, and a few minutes later, just gives up all hope on telling him. She gets relaxed instead, slowly drifting to sleep. Inside her dreams is basically a white blank slate, just calm and serene and relaxing. Maybe this is what it's like to the people she persuades, just a calm place where they remain until the trance is snapped. She slowly wakes up maybe ten minutes later, opening her eyes slowly, and once again, peering at her chest. This time, she doesn't react. Ten minutes later, the surroundings are a little bit different. Ross is strapped into a stretcher in the back of an ambulance, with Iolaus and an unfamiliar man sitting on a bench next to her. Iolaus is talking to someone behind Ross' head - a paramedic, buckled into a seat facing the wrong direction. "I didn't get a chance to get a copy of the ultrasound, but the hemothorax was clear as day. I didn't want to do a decompression there, just in case we ran into clotting problems." He has to speak very loudly to be heard over the wail of the siren and the sound of an engine. "Still. We'll see more when we get to the hospital." The rest of the ride, only the wail of the siren and the blare of talk on the radio speaks.