Medical Mayhem

or

Doctor's Difficulties

Dedicated to

Mr. Montgomery Scott,

the best engineer in the universe

I've never been much of one to write stories, but at the suggestion of my very dear friend Montgomery Scott, I thought I'd give it a try. Mr. Scott - or Scotty, as I usually call him - writes many stories himself, rather interesting ones too. He has been begging me for quite awhile to write something, which is why I'm sitting in my quarters late at night when I should be getting some sleep and typing away about how I'm not one for writing stories.

Now Scotty, bless his heart, always likes to write about our friendship and how we manage to keep it from Jim. Well, that's nice and all, and I'm pretty sure he expects me to write about that too, so he can hear about it from my perspective, but I don't intend to write about that.

Instead of writing about friendship and secrecy, I think I'll write about the worst day of my entire life so far, which was last Tuesday. I'm sure everyone would like to hear about that.

I really suppose I ought to introduce myself to you now. Hello, my name is Leonard H. McCoy, called Bones by Jim. He thinks its funny because I'm a doctor. What's your name? Oh wait, never mind. I don't suppose you can tell me. It's a shame, I always like to know who I'm talking to when I tell a story. Anyway, you can call me Bones if you want, or you can just call me Doctor McCoy. It's all the same to me.

So, the worst day of my life was last Tuesday - the day the inertial dampeners were non-functional. Now I'm a doctor, not an engineer, so I usually don't know what people mean when they say things like "inertial dampeners," but I learned last Tuesday what that was. I still don't know how it works, but I know what it is: it's the thing that keeps the ship from shaking around.

I'd better start at the beginning. I woke up in a better mood than usual last Tuesday. There are days I love being a Doctor, and I had a feeling that was going to be one of them. After getting dressed I went to get breakfast - and I was feeling indulgent, so I ordered bacon, eggs, French toast, orange juice, hash browns and a muffin. Not surprisingly, I wasn't able to eat the whole thing, but I just gave the rest to Scotty, and went on my way.

When I got to sick bay I said a cheerful "Good-morning!" to the patients, which surprised them so much they almost fell out of their beds. Well, I couldn't help it if I was usually not that cheerful.

Just as I had begun to treat the first patient (an ensign with a rather common case of postprandial gastrointestinal dyspepsia), there was a huge lurch of the ship, which threw me to the floor. At first I thought we must have bumped into something very hard, since that's what usually made the ship lurch like that, so I didn't think too much of it at first - but then I saw that the motion had unfortunately triggered the patient's ailment, which wasn't good for the sheets, the floor, or my coat. Feeling slightly less cheerful, I stripped off my coat and went to the medical closet for another, while one of the nurses cleaned up the results of the ensign's illness.

I went back to the patient and administered a dose of a peptic antacid of magnesium bicarbonate, then told him to go rest for awhile. Then I washed my hands and moved on to the next patient, which proved to be a yeoman afflicted with the highly painful subluxation of the upper femur, as well as various bruises and a sprained ankle. I gritted my teeth as I examined him. "What have you been doing, yeoman? Jumping off of cliffs?"

"No," was his indignant and rather strained answer. "I just fell from the fourth story of engineering."

"That'd do it alright." I reached for my instruments when the ship shook quite violently again, causing the yeoman to screech loudly.

My cheerfulness was almost all gone by this point. While the nurses picked up themselves, the patients, and anything else that had fallen to the floor, I stomped over to the communicator that hung on the wall a few feet away and spoke into it.

"Jim, what do you think you're doing up there? You're injuring and re-injuring these poor people just as fast as I can heal them."

I waited, fuming, for an answer.

When his voice came over the speaker, it didn't sound too concerned. "It's not my fault. The inertial dampeners are non-functional, so every motion of the ship is going to be felt a little more than usual."

"A little more than usual?" I spluttered.

"We can't avoid it until Mr. Scott readjusts the engines to compensate for the inertial impacts of motion at warp speed…"

"Doggone it Jim, I'm a doctor, not an astrophysicist. Tell Scotty to hurry up, we've got people trying to work down here."

"I'll try to be careful."

Grumbling, I stomped back to the patient, who was being put under cyclopropane general anesthetic. "Hold still," I ordered, and began the orthopedic reduction of his injured joint. It wasn't a difficult operation, but was still unpleasant, and I was about halfway through when the ship shook violently again. The nurse who was assisting me grabbed onto my arm, and we were both thrown to the floor.

After the jarring stopped, I jumped up, growling. "Don't touch me," I snapped at the nurse. Then I stepped back to the patient's side, hoping against hope that all my work hadn't just been undone.

But it had, and I grunted as I went through the whole thing again. Then I assigned two crewmen to carry the yeoman to his quarters to rest, and moved on to the next patient. Every hint of my cheerfulness of the morning was gone. More people with sprains, bruises and breaks of all kinds were pouring into sick bay.

Patient number three turned out to be - joy - a lieutenant with a broken arm. Before I could even begin the examination, there was a lurch even greater than the last three, which rolled the lieutenant off the bed. My temper flaring, I leapt over to the communicator again and punched the button fiercely. "Jim!"

"Sorry, Doctor."

"Sorry! Tell that to the broken-armed man who just fell down and probably now has increased upper-arm muscle damage to boot!"

"We're doing the very best we can, Bones, now calm yourself and get back to work."

Angrily, I pulled my finger away and hurried back to help the nurses lift the lieutenant carefully onto a stretcher and back onto the bed. Feverishly, I worked to set his arm, all the time fearing that the lurching of the ship would start up again and maybe injure the arm beyond all possibility of salvation - and I just hated doing amputations.

"Stabilize him," I yelled over my shoulder as I hurried to the next bedside. Nearly every bed in sick bay was full by now, and I was beginning to think that every time I treated one crewman, five more came in injured. I don't think I was too far off the mark, either.

"What's your problem?" I asked, not overly patiently, when I reached the next patient in line.

He looked pale and miserable, but before he could answer, my top nurse shouted from the other side of the room, "Code blue, Doctor McCoy."

I patted the man on the shoulder and said, "Sorry, just relax, and I'll be back to take care of you soon." Then I rushed over to where the nurse stood pointing to the monitor that was flashing blue.

"Sweet Jupiter," I gasped. "Tranquilizers, quick."

The nurse hurried off to get them, first taking the time to toss me the nearest medical tricorder. I used it to examine the conscious but quickly slipping ensign. "How did this happen?"

"Engineering…" he moaned, "panel came loose and fell on top of me."

"Where are those tranquilizers?" I yelled. Then to the ensign, "You're going to be alright, we'll take care of you."

"Here, Doctor," called a nurse, handing me a bottle of diazepam. Before I could administer it, I felt the ship begin to jolt again, and threw my body over that of the ensign, struggling to keep him from moving too much. I heard yells and cries all around me.

As soon as the rolling stopped, I stood up and furiously jumped to the communicator again. "James Kirk, you stop that this instant! Do you have the slightest idea what's going on down here?"

"Doctor, you have to understand…"

"I understand that either you're going to get those inertial dampeners working this instant, or you're going to stop this ship at once and not start again until they are working."

There was silence all throughout sick bay, and everyone was staring at me, but I didn't care one bit.

"What is this, mutiny, Doctor McCoy?"

"Well it just might be if you don't stop the jolting and let us get these people treated in safety."

For a moment, he didn't reply. Then at last he said, "Alright, Bones. We'll stop and get them repaired."

Without even responding, I took my finger off the button and stomped back to the patient. "What's everyone standing around for?" I yelled. "We have work to do!"

The nurses scuttled back to their stations, and I turned to the ensign once again. "Where are those doggone tranquilizers I asked for?"

I grabbed them and began my work again, grumbling under my breath. There were days I loved being a doctor, and this was definitely not one of them.

That was a very long day. By the time I'd gotten the last person cured several hours later, the inertial dampeners were up and running again, and Jim called, "Do I have your permission to go again, Doctor?"

"Tell him he can do whatever he wants, as long as he doesn't hurt anybody but himself," I growled to one of the nurses. She hurried over and communicated, "He says yes."

When I got to bed that night, I went straight to sleep and slept the whole night through. And when I woke up the next morning I was not in a good mood. I'm sure my nurses had a heck of a time with me that day, and my patients probably weren't too happy either. Even my friends stayed clear of me for awhile. I was just so darn upset about the whole thing. I didn't like people getting hurt needlessly.

It took me several days, but I'm pretty much over it now, though it still upsets me a bit to think about it, which makes me wonder why I just took a few hours of my valuable time to write about it. It was for Scotty, really. I don't know if he'll like it or not, if he doesn't, I'm sorry. If he does, that's a whole other problem that we could discuss another time.

After all, I'm a doctor, not an author.