Chapter Title: Twilight
Chapter Rating: PG-13 (gruesome medical procedures)
Iris turned to Frodo as she loaded supplies into her leather medical bag. "Frodo, would you write up a notice of where I am going and post it on the front door?" As she completed filling her bag, Frodo readied the note and was posting it as she and Farmer Wyncot came out the door. Iris lead them next door into the Apothecary. Tandy Bolger was in, hanging more herb bunches to dry.
"Tandy," Iris said, "I need an arm splint and an extra box of sulfur powder." Tandy quickly retrieved the splint and handed it to Frodo while Iris helped herself to the powder.
"Iris," Frodo asked, "do you mind if I come along?"
"I could use an assistant as long as you do exactly what I say and don't speak unless spoken to," Iris sternly said as she closed the bag. "Come, let's hurry."
Farmer Wyncot led them out of Hobbiton and down a country lane. After a fast march of twenty minutes, they arrived at the family farm. All three were dusty and sweating as they walked into the cool farmhouse. The house was a combination of smial burrowed into a shallow hillside, and a low single-story addition out the back side of the hill. The farmer led them back through the smial and into a bedroom off the back of the house. They could hear a loud female voice snapping orders.
A young hobbit in appearance of thirty years was lying on the small bed, a bloody cloth covering his right arm which lay strapped to a board. The farm wife, evidently the source of all the loud talking, was attending him, mopping his brow. She was barking orders at servants to bring water and towels and build a fire. Another sunburned-brown farm lad stood at the foot of the bed, hands gripping the posts and the muscles in his jaw flexing with concern. It was obvious the two lads were brothers, they so resembled each other.
"I've brought Doctor, Mirabell," Farmer Wyncot said as they entered the room.
Iris immediately went over to the injured lad, handing Frodo her medical bag. "Hello. You must be Ted. I'm Doctor Proudfoot and this is Mister Baggins, my assistant."
The lad looked up with concern on his pallid brown face. "Hello," he softly said. "Can you save me arm, Doc? Ma says you may have to take it. She says it don't look too good. I don't want it cut off! Please, can you help me?" The lad became more agitated as he talked.
Iris smoothed the damp brown curls from his pale forehead, simultaneously soothing her patient and checking his temperature. Iris noted that a small pool of blood was forming under the bed.
"I'll see," she smiled. "I can't promise you anything. Let's stay calm and let me take a look. Lie still and take slow, even breaths. I might not be doing anything for awhile yet. You concentrate on steady breathing, Ted."
Mrs. Wyncot stormed over to Iris's side.
"Well. what are you standin' round for?" she snapped at the doctor. "Ain't ya goin' ta do sommat? He's been lying there fer an hour or more."
Iris glanced at Frodo, who set down her bag and the splint on a nearby table and gently slid over to be behind the agitated goodwife.
"Is this your lad, 'mam?" Iris inquired.
"Yes, yes. Ain't it plain enough?" Mrs. Wyncot practically shouted. "I want you to take care o' him right away. What are ye waiting on? Do sommat!"
"Ma, don't yell at the doc," the lad at the foot of the bed said.
"Now, Mother," Farmer Wyncot cooed at his wife, "leave Doctor be. Let her do what's right for the lad." He placed his arm on his wife's shoulders and she violently shrugged him away.
"Don't you be tell' me what to do!" Mrs. Wyncot practically shrieked. "Were you what got 'im into this mess in the first place!"
"Ma, don't." the injured lad managed to whisper.
Iris stepped up and took the husband and wife by the arm. "I'll not be having a family argument here which would further upset my patient." She turned to the young lad at the end of the bed. "You."
He looked up. "Yes Mam? I'm Jack."
"Take your parents out of the room while I examine Ted," Iris commanded. "Frodo? Help them out and come back in as soon as you may. Bring plenty of water and towels and have them put a kettle of water on to boil for medicine."
Iris turned to comfort her patient as Frodo, Jack and his father managed to drag the now-hysterical Mrs. Wyncot out of the room. Jack and Frodo located the water and towels prepared by the servants, while Farmer Wyncot stood guard over his distraught wife.
A brief cry of pain issued from the bedroom. As Frodo and Jack returned to the sick room, they could hear Ted's mother weeping uncontrollably.
Iris had removed the board under the injured arm and had cut away his bloody shirt sleeve. She was holding his upper arm above the injury, attempting to slow down the steady blood loss. Frodo heard her softly talking to Ted as they re-entered the room and set the basins of water down on the floor.
"Well, what were you doing up so high?" Frodo overheard Iris asking.
"Stacking hay bales," Ted whispered. "I didn't watch my footing. I thought the bale was secure. Well, it weren't. I would have been all right 'cept I fell atop the water trough. I don't remember after that, save for wakin' up here wid Ma all weepy-like. They won't let me look. It must be bad or Ma would have just set it and not called you. Am I gon' ta loose me arm?" The young lad's thin voice was becoming frantic again at the thought of amputation.
"Calm down," Iris instructed as she continued to try to control the heavy bleeding. "Do as I said and slow your breathing. I have not fully examined the injury yet. I'll do so now. It will hurt some more, I promise that, but you're a brave lad."
Iris turned to Jack. "Are you in the least bit squeamish at the sight of blood?"
"No mam," he replied. He stood there with a load of clean towels, awaiting instruction.
"Wonderful. I've two steady, strong assistants," Iris continued. She beckoned Frodo over to her side and whispered, "Stay between me and the patient's head. I don't want him to see the injury until I'm through." Frodo nodded and positioned himself by the young hobbit's right shoulder. He smiled encouragingly at Ted, but it didn't look good to him. There was an awful lot of blood seeping through Iris's fingers and dripping onto the already-large puddle on the floor.
Iris turned to Jack and had him arrange the towels atop his brother's legs. She then moved him to his brother's left shoulder. "Hold his shoulder down and watch his face," she instructed. Iris had positioned herself on the right side so as to limit Jack's view of his brother's terrible injury.
She then turned her attention to the bloody towel covering Ted's right arm. Iris carefully removed the towel, revealing a sickening sight underneath. The upper arm was broken in two and part of the bone was protruding through the muscle and skin. Blood was everywhere and already-dead tissue hung in strips off the jagged edges of the bone. The entire arm was covered with clotted bits of hay, dust and manure.
Frodo swallowed hard at the sight, but kept his outward composure steady. He placed his hand on Ted's right shoulder to keep the lad from moving.
Iris checked the lower arm. It was cool and blue-tinged, which was never a good sign. The bone might have severed the artery supplying blood to the rest of the arm. But was the lower arm still useful? Would it be worth saving? Iris turned back to Ted.
"Ted?" she asked, "it may hurt, but can you wiggle the fingers on your right hand for me?"
There was no movement. Iris took out a needle and pricked each fingertip, trying to elicit a response, but Ted was unable to feel anything. The nerves were evidently severed. The arm would be useless, but perhaps she could save it so he would not appear so disfigured. At least she could try. But how could she get blood back into the arm?
She motioned for Frodo to take over applying pressure on the arm for her. As she relaxed her grip before positioning Frodo's hand, a sudden warm spurt of crimson shot across the arm, spattering Ted's chest and Frodo's vest and left sleeve. Jack noticeably paled at the sight, but managed to swallow and hold onto his distraught brother's shoulder.
"All right Ted," Iris crooned, covering the injury with a fresh towel. "Looks like you'll have to keep that old arm of yours a while longer. But I'll need to clean and reset the broken bone. That will be far too painful for you to bear while awake. I'm going to give you a tea which will put you to sleep while I reset your arm and try to fix things. Do you understand?"
Ted nodded, his face ashen. He smiled weakly at his brother, who patted his shoulder in encouragement.
Iris rummaged through her medical bag and produced a pouch of her special sedative tea and an infuser. She started the tea to steeping while she arranged the splint, needles and medical tools on the bed atop Ted's legs. The room took on a strange, sharp smell.
Ted screwed up his face at the smell. "What's in that stuff?" he whispered to Frodo.
Frodo bent down to whisper back to Ted. "I have no idea, but I had to drink it when I was injured. It tastes horrible, but if you can gulp it down all at once it is not too bad. It certainly works though. I do not remember a thing about my surgery after taking some of that tea."
"What kind of injury did you have, Mister Baggins?" Jack innocently inquired.
Before Frodo could answer Iris came back over with the tea. "Frodo. Jack. Please lift Ted up a little so he can drink this. Ted - try to drink it all at one time. I want you to drink every last drop too."
Ted couldn't suppress a grunt of pain as Frodo and Jack lifted his shoulders slightly. After catching his breath, he managed to gulp the strange tea down. He didn't quite manage all the tea, but Iris was satisfied with the amount he had swallowed. She helped support his injured arm as he was laid back down on the bed.
The injured arm began bleeding again. Ted blanched and gasped in pain as Iris resumed pressure to the wound to slow the bleeding. Frodo moved back to his shoulder, blocking the view.
Jack reassured his brother and patted him as the sedative began to take effect. After only a minute, Ted sighed and closed his heavy eyelids. In another minute he was unconscious. Iris was concerned. Ted shouldn't have dropped off to sleep that quickly. Something was wrong.
It was difficult to see anything in the room, as dusk had fallen during their stay. Evening had arrived as the cloudless skies seen through the bedroom window very gradually took on a rust and green hue, finally surrendering to twilight blue. Tiny golden stars shimmer in the heated atmosphere, twinkling on and off like ghosts of long-gone summer fireflies.
"Jack?" Iris didn't look up from her patient. "Would you please bring in as many candles as you can?" He left and quickly returned with two large candelabras which were lighted and set up on either side of the bed. Iris then dismissed the young hobbit.
After washing the entire arm, she carefully went back over the broken upper arm with a second, more thorough washing, paying careful attention to removing bits of dead skin, tissue, and the more obvious bone fragments. The bleeding never stopped. Ted's skin began to resemble the candles.
Frodo assisted the doctor as best he could. The young lad was bleeding profusely through the gash, blood spurting with each heartbeat. Iris directed Frodo to reposition his fingers above the wound, asking him to press hard on the leaking artery. But it was doing little good.
Frodo had trouble compressing the flattened artery against the bone since the bone was dislocated and splintered. Blood covered his arms and hands and splattered up across his white shirt and vest. Ted groaned and writhed in his unconsciousness.
"Hold him down," Iris commanded as she reached for a tourniquet. "I've got to control his bleeding or we're going to loose him." Frodo abandoned his futile attempt to compress the artery and practically lay across Ted's upper chest, trying to still the patient. Iris tied the tourniquet around Ted's upper arm amid a torrent of blood.
Iris quickly moved down to Ted's blue hand and frantically pulled the broken lower arm, forcing the bone back into its cavity with a sickening wet noise. The wound produced another gush of bright scarlet blood. It spattered her face and went into her hair. She ignored it and quickly wrapped the arm in a towel, trying direct pressure. The towel blossomed crimson beneath her hands.
Ted suddenly stopped his thrashing, sighed, and lay still.
"No! Ted! Breathe!" Iris cried.
Frodo released his hold on the farm lad and took over compression on the wound as Iris rushed to Ted's face. He was not breathing. His face was completely white and his eyes closed. Iris checked for a pulse, but there was none. She checked for any signs of life, but it was over. Ted had died from blood loss.
Iris turned to Frodo as she loaded supplies into her leather medical bag. "Frodo, would you write up a notice of where I am going and post it on the front door?" As she completed filling her bag, Frodo readied the note and was posting it as she and Farmer Wyncot came out the door. Iris lead them next door into the Apothecary. Tandy Bolger was in, hanging more herb bunches to dry.
"Tandy," Iris said, "I need an arm splint and an extra box of sulfur powder." Tandy quickly retrieved the splint and handed it to Frodo while Iris helped herself to the powder.
"Iris," Frodo asked, "do you mind if I come along?"
"I could use an assistant as long as you do exactly what I say and don't speak unless spoken to," Iris sternly said as she closed the bag. "Come, let's hurry."
Farmer Wyncot led them out of Hobbiton and down a country lane. After a fast march of twenty minutes, they arrived at the family farm. All three were dusty and sweating as they walked into the cool farmhouse. The house was a combination of smial burrowed into a shallow hillside, and a low single-story addition out the back side of the hill. The farmer led them back through the smial and into a bedroom off the back of the house. They could hear a loud female voice snapping orders.
A young hobbit in appearance of thirty years was lying on the small bed, a bloody cloth covering his right arm which lay strapped to a board. The farm wife, evidently the source of all the loud talking, was attending him, mopping his brow. She was barking orders at servants to bring water and towels and build a fire. Another sunburned-brown farm lad stood at the foot of the bed, hands gripping the posts and the muscles in his jaw flexing with concern. It was obvious the two lads were brothers, they so resembled each other.
"I've brought Doctor, Mirabell," Farmer Wyncot said as they entered the room.
Iris immediately went over to the injured lad, handing Frodo her medical bag. "Hello. You must be Ted. I'm Doctor Proudfoot and this is Mister Baggins, my assistant."
The lad looked up with concern on his pallid brown face. "Hello," he softly said. "Can you save me arm, Doc? Ma says you may have to take it. She says it don't look too good. I don't want it cut off! Please, can you help me?" The lad became more agitated as he talked.
Iris smoothed the damp brown curls from his pale forehead, simultaneously soothing her patient and checking his temperature. Iris noted that a small pool of blood was forming under the bed.
"I'll see," she smiled. "I can't promise you anything. Let's stay calm and let me take a look. Lie still and take slow, even breaths. I might not be doing anything for awhile yet. You concentrate on steady breathing, Ted."
Mrs. Wyncot stormed over to Iris's side.
"Well. what are you standin' round for?" she snapped at the doctor. "Ain't ya goin' ta do sommat? He's been lying there fer an hour or more."
Iris glanced at Frodo, who set down her bag and the splint on a nearby table and gently slid over to be behind the agitated goodwife.
"Is this your lad, 'mam?" Iris inquired.
"Yes, yes. Ain't it plain enough?" Mrs. Wyncot practically shouted. "I want you to take care o' him right away. What are ye waiting on? Do sommat!"
"Ma, don't yell at the doc," the lad at the foot of the bed said.
"Now, Mother," Farmer Wyncot cooed at his wife, "leave Doctor be. Let her do what's right for the lad." He placed his arm on his wife's shoulders and she violently shrugged him away.
"Don't you be tell' me what to do!" Mrs. Wyncot practically shrieked. "Were you what got 'im into this mess in the first place!"
"Ma, don't." the injured lad managed to whisper.
Iris stepped up and took the husband and wife by the arm. "I'll not be having a family argument here which would further upset my patient." She turned to the young lad at the end of the bed. "You."
He looked up. "Yes Mam? I'm Jack."
"Take your parents out of the room while I examine Ted," Iris commanded. "Frodo? Help them out and come back in as soon as you may. Bring plenty of water and towels and have them put a kettle of water on to boil for medicine."
Iris turned to comfort her patient as Frodo, Jack and his father managed to drag the now-hysterical Mrs. Wyncot out of the room. Jack and Frodo located the water and towels prepared by the servants, while Farmer Wyncot stood guard over his distraught wife.
A brief cry of pain issued from the bedroom. As Frodo and Jack returned to the sick room, they could hear Ted's mother weeping uncontrollably.
Iris had removed the board under the injured arm and had cut away his bloody shirt sleeve. She was holding his upper arm above the injury, attempting to slow down the steady blood loss. Frodo heard her softly talking to Ted as they re-entered the room and set the basins of water down on the floor.
"Well, what were you doing up so high?" Frodo overheard Iris asking.
"Stacking hay bales," Ted whispered. "I didn't watch my footing. I thought the bale was secure. Well, it weren't. I would have been all right 'cept I fell atop the water trough. I don't remember after that, save for wakin' up here wid Ma all weepy-like. They won't let me look. It must be bad or Ma would have just set it and not called you. Am I gon' ta loose me arm?" The young lad's thin voice was becoming frantic again at the thought of amputation.
"Calm down," Iris instructed as she continued to try to control the heavy bleeding. "Do as I said and slow your breathing. I have not fully examined the injury yet. I'll do so now. It will hurt some more, I promise that, but you're a brave lad."
Iris turned to Jack. "Are you in the least bit squeamish at the sight of blood?"
"No mam," he replied. He stood there with a load of clean towels, awaiting instruction.
"Wonderful. I've two steady, strong assistants," Iris continued. She beckoned Frodo over to her side and whispered, "Stay between me and the patient's head. I don't want him to see the injury until I'm through." Frodo nodded and positioned himself by the young hobbit's right shoulder. He smiled encouragingly at Ted, but it didn't look good to him. There was an awful lot of blood seeping through Iris's fingers and dripping onto the already-large puddle on the floor.
Iris turned to Jack and had him arrange the towels atop his brother's legs. She then moved him to his brother's left shoulder. "Hold his shoulder down and watch his face," she instructed. Iris had positioned herself on the right side so as to limit Jack's view of his brother's terrible injury.
She then turned her attention to the bloody towel covering Ted's right arm. Iris carefully removed the towel, revealing a sickening sight underneath. The upper arm was broken in two and part of the bone was protruding through the muscle and skin. Blood was everywhere and already-dead tissue hung in strips off the jagged edges of the bone. The entire arm was covered with clotted bits of hay, dust and manure.
Frodo swallowed hard at the sight, but kept his outward composure steady. He placed his hand on Ted's right shoulder to keep the lad from moving.
Iris checked the lower arm. It was cool and blue-tinged, which was never a good sign. The bone might have severed the artery supplying blood to the rest of the arm. But was the lower arm still useful? Would it be worth saving? Iris turned back to Ted.
"Ted?" she asked, "it may hurt, but can you wiggle the fingers on your right hand for me?"
There was no movement. Iris took out a needle and pricked each fingertip, trying to elicit a response, but Ted was unable to feel anything. The nerves were evidently severed. The arm would be useless, but perhaps she could save it so he would not appear so disfigured. At least she could try. But how could she get blood back into the arm?
She motioned for Frodo to take over applying pressure on the arm for her. As she relaxed her grip before positioning Frodo's hand, a sudden warm spurt of crimson shot across the arm, spattering Ted's chest and Frodo's vest and left sleeve. Jack noticeably paled at the sight, but managed to swallow and hold onto his distraught brother's shoulder.
"All right Ted," Iris crooned, covering the injury with a fresh towel. "Looks like you'll have to keep that old arm of yours a while longer. But I'll need to clean and reset the broken bone. That will be far too painful for you to bear while awake. I'm going to give you a tea which will put you to sleep while I reset your arm and try to fix things. Do you understand?"
Ted nodded, his face ashen. He smiled weakly at his brother, who patted his shoulder in encouragement.
Iris rummaged through her medical bag and produced a pouch of her special sedative tea and an infuser. She started the tea to steeping while she arranged the splint, needles and medical tools on the bed atop Ted's legs. The room took on a strange, sharp smell.
Ted screwed up his face at the smell. "What's in that stuff?" he whispered to Frodo.
Frodo bent down to whisper back to Ted. "I have no idea, but I had to drink it when I was injured. It tastes horrible, but if you can gulp it down all at once it is not too bad. It certainly works though. I do not remember a thing about my surgery after taking some of that tea."
"What kind of injury did you have, Mister Baggins?" Jack innocently inquired.
Before Frodo could answer Iris came back over with the tea. "Frodo. Jack. Please lift Ted up a little so he can drink this. Ted - try to drink it all at one time. I want you to drink every last drop too."
Ted couldn't suppress a grunt of pain as Frodo and Jack lifted his shoulders slightly. After catching his breath, he managed to gulp the strange tea down. He didn't quite manage all the tea, but Iris was satisfied with the amount he had swallowed. She helped support his injured arm as he was laid back down on the bed.
The injured arm began bleeding again. Ted blanched and gasped in pain as Iris resumed pressure to the wound to slow the bleeding. Frodo moved back to his shoulder, blocking the view.
Jack reassured his brother and patted him as the sedative began to take effect. After only a minute, Ted sighed and closed his heavy eyelids. In another minute he was unconscious. Iris was concerned. Ted shouldn't have dropped off to sleep that quickly. Something was wrong.
It was difficult to see anything in the room, as dusk had fallen during their stay. Evening had arrived as the cloudless skies seen through the bedroom window very gradually took on a rust and green hue, finally surrendering to twilight blue. Tiny golden stars shimmer in the heated atmosphere, twinkling on and off like ghosts of long-gone summer fireflies.
"Jack?" Iris didn't look up from her patient. "Would you please bring in as many candles as you can?" He left and quickly returned with two large candelabras which were lighted and set up on either side of the bed. Iris then dismissed the young hobbit.
After washing the entire arm, she carefully went back over the broken upper arm with a second, more thorough washing, paying careful attention to removing bits of dead skin, tissue, and the more obvious bone fragments. The bleeding never stopped. Ted's skin began to resemble the candles.
Frodo assisted the doctor as best he could. The young lad was bleeding profusely through the gash, blood spurting with each heartbeat. Iris directed Frodo to reposition his fingers above the wound, asking him to press hard on the leaking artery. But it was doing little good.
Frodo had trouble compressing the flattened artery against the bone since the bone was dislocated and splintered. Blood covered his arms and hands and splattered up across his white shirt and vest. Ted groaned and writhed in his unconsciousness.
"Hold him down," Iris commanded as she reached for a tourniquet. "I've got to control his bleeding or we're going to loose him." Frodo abandoned his futile attempt to compress the artery and practically lay across Ted's upper chest, trying to still the patient. Iris tied the tourniquet around Ted's upper arm amid a torrent of blood.
Iris quickly moved down to Ted's blue hand and frantically pulled the broken lower arm, forcing the bone back into its cavity with a sickening wet noise. The wound produced another gush of bright scarlet blood. It spattered her face and went into her hair. She ignored it and quickly wrapped the arm in a towel, trying direct pressure. The towel blossomed crimson beneath her hands.
Ted suddenly stopped his thrashing, sighed, and lay still.
"No! Ted! Breathe!" Iris cried.
Frodo released his hold on the farm lad and took over compression on the wound as Iris rushed to Ted's face. He was not breathing. His face was completely white and his eyes closed. Iris checked for a pulse, but there was none. She checked for any signs of life, but it was over. Ted had died from blood loss.
