Call Me Lefty
Author's Note and disclaimer: The copyrighted characters of MASH aren't mine, but this story idea and a few characters you've never seen before are. Special thanks go out to Kreative Kerri for her help and encouragement while this story was in its editing stages.
Call Me Lefty
Chapter 1 – Meatball Surgery
It was a typical day of endless meatball surgery at the 4077th. One patient after another had taken his turn on the operating tables while three surgeons worked feverishly to repair their wounds – even save their lives! It didn't help that they were short their chief surgeon; Captain Benjamin Franklin, familiarly known as Hawkeye, Pierce had volunteered to help out in a nearby aid station when their desperate pleas for a doctor came through to the camp. The remaining trio of doctors worked diligently until all their patients were either in beds hoping to recover, or they were being loaded onto choppers so they could receive more advanced care in Tokyo.
"Colonel Potter!" Corporal Maxwell Q. Klinger, the company clerk/orderly burst into the OR with a terrified look on his darkened face, desperate to gain his commander's attention. "They just brought in one more! They're getting him off the chopper now."
Within a few heart stopping minutes, the operating room was filled with organized chaos as the screaming patient was brought in on a stretcher and laid on Major Charles Emerson Winchester III's table.
"Oh my God!" The man cried out in pain and out right panic. "I feel like I'm on fire! I'm full of shrapnel! I see my arm but can't feel it! Oh God! OH MY GOD it feels like IT'S detached! IT FEELS LIKE MY ARM'S GONE!"
"It's gonna be all right, son," Colonel Sherman T. Potter tried to convince the distraught soldier that his badly wounded right arm was still attached to his body.
"Aren't you gonna sew it back on? It blew off, and it's lying next to me; that's why I can't feel it!" the patient bellowed, his sooty and mildly burned cheeks growing an even brighter shade of red with the exertion of his frantic cries of mortal terror.
"You may have suffered some trauma to that extremity; don't worry; I intend to do everything I can to save it – with the colonel's help of course." Charles attempted to assure the broken man who lay before him that everything was going to be all right.
Captain BJ Hunnicutt had just donned new scrubs and reentered the operating room when he took one look at this new wounded case. Something about this guy stood out; his eyes, the blue eyes that brought little pricks of color to the darkened face that was smudged up with dirt and bruised from minor injuries. With no warning, he felt his stomach lurch like a row boat on a stormy sea, and he couldn't stop his heart from racing! He had seen many patients who were worse off than this one, but something was different about him. Instead of diving in to help, he stood frozen, feeling the floor swaying like an unstable foot bridge. He then clutched at his nervous stomach and feared he would faint, something he, an Army doctor should avoid at all costs, for it wouldn't do for a surgeon to pass out at the sight of a patient.
"Excuse me, Colonel; I think I'm going to be sick." BJ groaned, not sure if he was going to pass out or throw up. He had seen many patients with wounds more horrible than this; however, this sight was worse than all others that he had beheld since he performed his first surgery in medical school.
"No doubt you've been swilling too much of that homemade bilge that comes out of your and Pierce's distillery," Charles sniffed haughtily.
"Cork it, Winchester; we've got work to do!" Potter snarled, clearly losing patience with his staff members. "Father Mulcahy, take Hunnicutt out for some fresh air before he upchucks or passes out!" the colonel ordered the priest, who had just entered the room, to spring into action before turning to Major Margaret Houlihan. "Margaret, put him under; if we're gonna save that arm, we have to get started now."
While Father John Francis Patrick Mulcahy, who hadn't caught sight of the patient on the table, offered BJ a supportive shoulder to lean on as they filed outside, Margaret slipped the gas mask over the frightened fellow's face, muffling his screams and sending him into a peaceful sleep so he could undergo the treatment he so desperately needed.
"If I'm gonna barf all over Uijeongbu, let's get it over with" BJ moaned as he nearly fell over an oil drum.
"Are you coming down with something, BJ?" Father Mulcahy queried with gentle tones accenting his voice.
"It can't be the flu; I don't have a fever. Guess it's just nerves. I wasn't ready for what I saw in there," the Californian doctor grunted as he stumbled on his wobbly feet. "That poor guy…"
"Colonel Potter and Majors Houlihan and Winchester are taking care of him, my son, I'm sure he'll be fine."
"I'd better get back in there and see if they need my help," BJ declared as he slipped away from Padre, returned to the OR, and approached the operating table.
"Rest assured, Captain Hunnicutt, Winchester doctors have never failed to save a patient's limb," Charles, who had caught BJ's steely gaze, smoothly boasted as he surveyed the area that needed the most immediate attention – his charge's arm, which was impaled with a large chunk of shrapnel.
The unfortunate man who lay on the operating table had apparently been too close to a shell when it exploded, and many shards of shrapnel had lodged themselves into his right side. The bits of debris ranged in size from splinters like the one that made a home for itself just behind his earlobe to the large pieces of projectile that had caused mild and severe damage to his right knee and arm respectively. Minor cuts littered his body, but they were no major concern at this moment; and some mild burns would render him pink faced for a little while before his skin would return to its normal healthy color. Swelling of his right limbs was a tell tale sign that a few bones had been broken, probably when the military man had fallen during the shelling. A slight swelling marked a possible fracture in the right foot while a more hideous inflammation served as another red flag that the right arm needed the most attention from the meatball surgeons who were caring for him.
"Just putcher ego aside and save the guy!" BJ snapped angrily, wanting to go for the Bostonian's throat but holding back when Father Mulcahy quickly approached and kept a firm grip on him.
"Hunnicutt, you need to calm down!" Colonel Potter retorted sharply as he noted a key location where the shrapnel had become halfway embedded in the patient's right arm. "I don't like the look of this, Winchester; it could be tricky if we wanna save that arm."
"I see. The shrapnel's sitting right in a vital area. I'm afraid that when we remove it, we'll either damage some of the nerves or nick an artery."
"His arm was numb when he came in here, so there's already been nerve damage. If we nick that artery, that arm's gone. If it were me, I would go for the numbness."
"Agreed, Colonel."
"What's the matter with you two?" BJ interrupted again. "Can't you remove it without hitting the nerves or the artery?"
"Not the way this arm has been impaled," Charles sadly concluded, resolving that lack of sensation was far better than amputation.
Suddenly, BJ's frayed nerves got the better of him, and he certainly knew that he couldn't stay in the surgery this time, not unless he wanted to show the personnel firsthand what he had for lunch that day. "Oooooooohhhhhhhhhhh, the volcano's about to erupt!" With that, he bolted from the building and reunited with his old friend, the oil drum. His mind would not stop its rampage as every possible imagination roared through it like a freight train: was amputation better? If the arm stayed numb, wouldn't that cause lifelong worry for the guy? He'd have to spend his life concerned over a limb that no longer functioned and needed to be protected from injuries he'd not be able to feel.
"Padre, go check on Hunnicutt! The last thing we need is to be out another surgeon." Colonel Potter commanded the Chaplin to take the necessary measures in order to check the disturbed doctor's health and rule out the flu.
It only took a few minutes for Father Mulcahy and Klinger to find BJ sprawled over the drum, staring in disgust at the mess he had just made all over the ground before him.
"Aarrgh! I've operated on more soldiers than I can count, and here I am … stone cold sober. And I'm puking out my spleen after seeing one patient! That wouldn't happen to Hawkeye if he were here."
While Father Mulcahy helped the Californian clumsily come to his feet, Klinger quickly darted inside and reemerged with a cup in his right hand.
"Here you go sir, this should get that taste out of your mouth; at least it works for me when I barf up a meal," Klinger bluntly said as he held the cup of ice out to BJ, who gratefully accepted the mouthful of frozen water and nodded his thanks.
"Are you feeling better, BJ?" the man of the cloth felt the need to express his concern for his colleague.
Rather than try to talk through the ice with a freezing cold tongue, Beej shrugged as if to say he didn't know for certain if he was all right. Adrenalin shot through him like a lightning bolt, and he wasn't sure if he could return to surgery at that moment.
"Perhaps you should rest in pre-op, BJ" Father Mulcahy suggested, only getting a brisk shake of the head from the mustached man.
"What's gotten into me?" the highly annoyed surgeon grumbled after his mouthful of ice had melted. "I've seen worse since coming over to Korea, and seeing that last patient in there makes me sick as if I were a first-year med student."
"Although I hadn't seen him myself, I know you must be worried about him, my son. Padre was at a loss; why was the competent BJ so distraught? He knew that Hunnicutt cared for his patients but he'd never witnessed such distress before. His mind raced totally unable to come up with any possible reason for this uncharacteristic physical melt-down.
"I just feel so stinkin' helpless. Even though Charles and Colonel Potter are taking care of him, I just feel like there's gotta be something I can do too."
"Then why don't we pray for him together." The clergyman kept a firm hold on BJ while he began to pray for the injured soldier and Captain Hunnicutt stood laboring to maintain his composure and keep his nerves at bay."
Seconds hung like minutes; minutes hung like hours; and hours hung like days as the intense operation unfolded. Charles and Colonel Potter managed to remove all the shards that were buried within their patient's body, and they had made the bitter sweet conclusion that they did the right thing when they extracted the largest hunk of shrapnel from the arm.
"Alas, it's better to have it and not feel it than not have it at all," Charles sighed after he discarded the offending shard that caused all the damage. "AT least this way, there is the possibility, however remote, that his nerves could reroute and there would be hope of his arm returning to life in the future. However, if the nerves do not awaken, he may wish to opt for amputation at a later time, after all possibilities for recovery have been exhausted."
"Well done, Winchester; you just saved that arm; now it's time to patch up the poor fellow's other wounds and get him ready to go to Tokyo so he can get the treatment we can't give him."
"You're right, sir," Charles sighed as he went to work on the parts that suffered less damage.
When all the unwelcome shards had been disposed of and the patient's other injuries were attended to, Colonel Potter knew the hurt man would remain stabilized and would be safe enough to make the trip to a Tokyo hospital where he would be admitted for more advanced care. Klinger and Charles secured him to a stretcher and carried him out to the chopper that would fly him off to Japan.