Chapter Seven: Final Tests
More nearly pain-free than he had been in weeks, Matt lay drifting in and out of sleep, quite willing to obey the doctor's instructions to lie still. He hadn't been sleeping well since the pain became constant, and had been pushing himself to keep going through his pain and fatigue. Now, too, the knowledge that this doctor knew what to do to help him let him fully relax for the first time he could remember.
"Matt?" came the doctor's low call from the door. "Are you awake?" The voice grew louder as he approached the bed, and Matt opened his eyes to discover to his horror that it made no difference. "Doc — I can't see!" he cried, groping desperately. His reaching hand was quickly enfolded in the doctor's warm, reassuring clasp.
"Easy," he soothed. "You said this has happened before."
"I know…and I'm always afraid this is the time it's permanent."
He felt Bashir's hand cupping his jaw, and dimly saw the light as the doctor checked his eyes. "It doesn't look any worse than before," he assured him. "The accretions have shifted so they're blocking more of your vision, but there don't seem to be any more of them. You're going to be fine." Matt heard the smile he couldn't see, and relaxed once more.
"I'm sorry, Doctor."
"That's all right," Bashir assured him. "Now, I have a grav stretcher here to take you down to the medbay for surgery."
Matt started slightly. "You mean you're doing it here…now?"
"That was the idea, yes; I really don't think you can afford to wait much longer."
"All right…I guess the sooner you do it, the sooner I'll feel better."
"Well, not quite," Bashir cautioned. "The surgery can only keep it from getting worse; you won't start to feel better until we can get you on chelation therapy at the hospital on Earth — I don't have the equipment here."
"Not worse is better than nothing," Matt acknowledged. "But you don't need the stretcher; I can walk."
"I'm sure you could if you had to," Bashir agreed. "Since you don't, I'm not about to allow it. Here, let me help." With his arm guiding Matt, he was soon settled on the grav stretcher, and the doctor pulled a light blanket over him. He paused long enough to sling his medkit over his shoulder before pushing the stretcher from the room.
Matt blinked repeatedly, trying to clear his vision, and at last made out Bashir as a cloudy shape beside him. "I can see a little now, Doc," he said, relief in his voice. Despite Bashir's assurance, he hadn't been able to help fearing as always that this time the blindness would be permanent.
"Good," Bashir replied cheerily.
"You said I wouldn't go completely blind…but am I always going to be unable to see when I first wake up?"
"Until we get you to the hospital for chelation, yes. Afterwards you might still experience some cloudiness from time to time, but it should be much improved. And a Slovian doctor experienced in treating thollanine toxicity might even be able to get rid of any lingering problems — the texts I read were general medicine, so they didn't go into all the details of treatment for every condition. Well, here we are," he announced, turning the grav stretcher into the medbay as the doors slid open. "This is an emergency medical hologram; he's going to be assisting me. Doctor, let's get the patient on the biobed."
Matt found himself lifted before he could once again protest his ability to walk, and wished he didn't know that one of the pairs of arms supporting him belonged to a hologram. They felt just as real and solid as Bashir's, but still he felt a sense of relief when he lay on the real, firm surface of the biobed. "You'll be doing the surgery, though…?"
"Yes," Bashir assured him, grinning to himself at the slight distrust of holograms apparent in Matt's voice. He recalled that hologram technology on the Chitrans' homeworld was nowhere near as advanced as that in the Federation; holograms were unsubstantial ghosts incapable of interacting with real objects. He could well understand why Matt preferred to know that a flesh and blood hand would be holding the scalpel.
"Keep your head still for a moment," he ordered. "I want to run a scan and make sure I'm right about your anatomy." The tricorder combined with his knowledge of the three species had allowed him to make a decent guess that he would have trusted if he had to, but it couldn't compare with a detailed imagining scan.
"Good," Bashir murmured as the images appeared on the screen. "A clear pathway through the nasal cavity…we'll be able to do this minimally invasively. I'm still going to have to anesthetize you, though," he added more loudly, "since I don't want to risk having you sneeze while I'm in there. And that means full ventilation; Slovians are notorious for stopping breathing under anesthesia."
Matt appeared slightly alarmed. "This surgery — it is safe?"
"There's no hundred-percent guarantee, if that's what you mean — no surgery has that. But it's a lot safer than not doing it, and I'm an excellent surgeon; you'll be fine." He purposely overplayed his arrogance, and Matt relaxed again.
"Actually, stopping breathing might be better than living like this…"
Bashir frowned, but knew Matt wasn't actually suicidal yet. "You'll be fine," he repeated gently. "And then we'll get you to Earth and see about getting the poison cleared from your system, and you won't believe how much better you'll feel."
He turned and adjusted several settings on the respirator. "I need to find out exactly what gases your body is using so I know the best mixture to give you; I want you to empty your lungs, take a slow, deep breath through the mask, then breathe out slowly until either your lungs are empty or you have to take a breath. Understand?"
"I think so," Matt said a little doubtfully.
"Good. Exhale…now breathe in." He pressed the mask over Matt's mouth and nose. "And out, slowly." He watched the numbers change on the machine as it analyzed the chemical content of Matt's breath.
Matt breathed out until he was forced to inhale with a slight gasp; Bashir set aside the mask and pressed a button on the machine to calculate the best mixture for Matt's species. He idly did the calculation mentally while he waited, and grinned in satisfaction when the machine's result was only a few percentage points different from his.
Next chapter coming next week!
I proofread all my stories at least once before posting, but if you see any mistakes I might have missed, please let me know!
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