Author's Note: You can sort of think of this chapter as a late Christmas present. Though if you ask me, I don't think it's appropriate to call this a Christmas present anyway. I didn't want to ruin the Christmas mood my uploading this chapter, but I also didn't want to make you all wait too long like most of my other chapters. Also, I'm so anxious to write chapter 15 that I just had to finished this as quickly as possible.
Chapter 14: Look Sonic, One Handed!
Dr. Carbana reviewed over the results from the tests. The rate of fluid build-up in Amy's body has almost doubled! But since she now has a new kidney, this should slow it down a bit and hopefully buy her some time. The next day, Dr. Carbana was in his office while talking to Dr. Yulevski, a well-known bio-geneticist. He agreed to clone a new heart for Amy.
"Her heart needs to be removed ASAP," Dr. Carbana was rather tense at the moment, "if we remove that, then it will cut off the fluid build-up. Of course she'll obviously need a new heart."
"Agreed, I'll get to it right away," they shook hands and Dr. Yulevski got up to leave, "but you do realize that cloning any body part will take a while."
"Yeah, I know," Dr. Carbana was all too familiar with cloned body parts. He nearly lost his job because of it and he knew that cloning could take months! "But, can you tell me exactly how long it will take? I need to make some plans based on that."
Dr. Yulevski replied almost without hesitation, "based on the size and shape of her heart, the process should take four to five months." He then left to get started on the procedure.
"Oh great, just great," he said to himself sarcastically. He then reread over the test results and came up with an estimated conclusion, "even with a new kidney, Amy only has less than a months to live if her heart isn't removed!"
He paced around in his office for a while and came up with a plan, though it was a bit risky. He then spoke to his assistants and a few other doctors including Dr. Renoltis. Most of the doctors and assistants agreed with his plan, but Dr. Renoltis was a bit uncomfortable.
"Wait a minute," Dr. Renoltis protested, "you plan on removing her heart and replacing it with an artificial one?"
Dr. Carbana nodded, "of course, I can't just leave Amy's heart alone. I can't wait for her cloned heart to arrive, she'll be dead long before then."
Dr. Renoltis still continued to disagree, "but . . . but we don't know what design to use. Obviously we can't use an artificial heart that's designed for humans."
"I know that!" Dr. Carbana was starting to get irritated, "but I see no other option." He calmed down slightly, "we're going to do a 3-D CAT scan on her heart. We'll also do the same for Sonic and Shadow since they're also hedgehogs. Hopefully with the data we collect will be enough to create an artificial heart that compatible enough."
Dr. Renoltis finally agreed reluctantly, "okay, I just hope that it will be good enough. Well, good luck then." Dr. Carbana gave a simple nod and all of the doctors and assistants continued with their current tasks. Some went to the bioengineering lab to assist Dr. Yulevski with the cloning process.
Dr. Carbana visited some doctors that were busy studying Amy's physiology and compiling the data. "So how's it going? Are you done?"
One of the assistants replied, "not quite yet, we're almost done. I'd say about one or two more weeks and it should be complete."
"All right, excellent," Dr. Carbana was actually quite disappointed, but he didn't want to show it and end up discouraging the doctors. He left the room and gave a frustrated groan, "this just isn't my day. I don't want do prolong Amy's heart trouble, this could cause some unforeseen complications."
He anxiously wanted to start on creating Amy's artificial heart, but he reluctantly decided to wait until her physiological data is complete. He then went to check on his other patients.
Meanwhile, Dr. Renoltis was walking down a hallway on the first floor. He planned to check on one more of his patients, then take a short break. "I can't believe Dr. Carbana plans on going along with this. But I guess I have no choice but to agree with him. I can't really think of another option myself."
Rouge was in the lobby at the moment since visiting hours was still a few minutes away. She still couldn't get her mind off of Amy's current condition, seeing her all swollen. She also couldn't stop thinking Dr. Carbana's story yesterday and how uncannily similar Emily's injuries were to Amy's. Just as the doctor requested, she told his story to Sonic and the others and needless to say, they would never view the doctor the same way again. Rouge wanted to do something to get her mind off of what's happening. She spotted Dr. Renoltis as he passed by and he seemed to be in a hurry since he didn't even notice her. She decided to have a talk with him since she had a very curious question to ask. She decided to follow him so that she wouldn't lose him. He walked into a patient's room, but Rouge didn't want to disturb his work, so she waited by the door.
A few minutes later, Dr. Renoltis exited the room and was startled to see Rouge waiting for him. "Hey, what are you doing here? Visiting hours haven't started yet."
"Well sorry," Rouge felt slightly offended, "I just wanted to talk to you that's all. Of course that's assuming that you're not busy. If you are I can just come back later."
"No, never mind," Dr. Renoltis replied indifferently, "I just so happened to be on my break right now. Anyways, where's Sonic and the others. Usually they're in the lobby waiting for visiting hours to start. Sonic has probably overslept, he should be here soon. Knuckles should be here any minute, he was right behind me earlier, but I guess he wanted to buy something for Amy. I think I should have done the same. Tails decided to visit the industry that builds the medical technology for this hospital."
"Oh, is that so," the doctor was surprised to hear this, "I wonder why he would do that."
Rouge replied, "Tails said that he felt very useless by just standing around and watching Amy on her hospital bed. So he decided to use his mechanical and technological know-how to assist the industry in any way possible. He figured that he might be able to help Amy in this manner. Also, Shadow decided to go with him, sort of as a bodyguard I guess. Though I think Tails can take care of himself, but Shadow insisted."
"Ah, that great," the doctor replied with some surprise, "it's good to see them volunteer in any way to help out. Anyway, you said that you wanted to talk to me about something?" They walked back down the hall towards his office.
"Oh yeah," Rouge replied, "it's about this hospital, I'd like to know more about it."
The doctor looked a bit puzzled, "that's a strange request. Normally I shouldn't tell anyone about the hospital, but I guess I can tell you the basics." They arrived at an elevator and the doctor pushed the third floor button while Rouge listened contently.
The doctor continued, "if I remember correctly, you have all been staying at an apartment a few blocks from this building, correct?" Rouge gave a simple nod. "In that case, would you believe that you've been living in the hospital premises the whole time? That apartment is actually part of this hospital!"
"Huh, what!?" Rouge was quite surprised to hear this.
"I'm serious," the doctor continued, "also, this building isn't even the entire hospital. This is just the trauma center and it's only a small piece of the entire medical center. Actually, I prefer thinking of this place as more like a medical compound." They arrived at the floor and they proceeded towards his office.
Rouge was still quite curious, "just how big is this hospital?"
"This medical compound covers about 550 acres," the doctor replied, "currently there's over 9,000 patients, but that's nothing. It's capable of holding 40,000 to 50,000 patients, though we try not to get near that number, as taking care of them becomes a huge hassle. As you may remember, there's another hospital at the other side of the country that uses the same technology that we do, but it's nowhere near as big. It only holds about 2,000 patients at the most, but we still work together."
"So how many buildings does this place have, . . . and how do you handle so many patients?" Rouge was still quite curious. At least she's taking her mind off of Amy's problems for the moment. They finally arrived at his office. The doctor opened the door and they both entered.
"Let's see," the doctor thought for a moment, "that's sort of depends. If you're referring to just the hospital buildings themselves, then there are 38. If the peripheral building are included, such as the hospital-owned apartments and parking structures, then it totals to 59. We also have a pretty substantial staff in this place. There are currently about 18,000 doctors, nurses, and assistants, though they're not always here at once."
Rouge thought of another question, "so how much did this place cost?"
"Oh, that," the doctor rubbed his chin, "this medical compound was actually relatively cheap. I believe it was around 600 million dollars."
Rouge interrupted, "you call that cheap!"
"Actually, yes," the doctor replied, "if this place was built from the ground up, it would've cost between 10 to 12 billion dollars! But you see this place wasn't originally a hospital, it used to be some kind of military base or installation. It was abandoned more than thirty years ago and was converted to a medical compound."
"Wow! That's impressive," Rouge replied in an amazed tone, "I thought this was the only building in this place. I mean when I was flying around, I did notice many building nearby, but I never expected them all to be part of the same structure!" Rouge was done asking questions, "I'd better get going now. Visiting hours are about to start."
Before she left, the doctor stopped her for a moment, "wait, there's one more thing about this hospital."
Rouge stopped at the door and turned around, "oh, what is it?"
The doctor continued, "you see, this hospital and our counterpart are the government's pride and joy. Because of this, this hospital is basically used as a sort of guinea pig for medical technology."
Rouge was puzzled by that, "what's that supposed to mean?"
The doctor replied, "half the equipment that's used here doesn't even exist in other hospitals. We're basically five to ten years ahead of other hospital in terms of technology. This place is used to test these new equipment before it's distributed to other hospitals. The good thing is that all of this equipment is free to the hospital. Unfortunately, in exchange for that, we have to kiss the government's butt and follow their rules. This includes the time that we tried to clone some body part several years ago and we were in big trouble. The government forbids cloning since it was considered very unethical."
"I see," Rouge replied, finding it sort of hard to comprehend why this is so.
She waved goodbye to Dr. Renoltis and made her way back to the lobby. When she arrived there, she saw Sonic and Knuckles just sitting down on the lobby benches while chilling out. She waved hello and when she got to them visiting hours started and they made their way to Amy's room. They were starting to get very worried for Amy because she's starting to swell up worse than a bee sting victim. They also noticed that her belly was starting to swell.
"Man, I hope they hurry up," Sonic said to himself, "this is really starting to freak me out."
Later that day, after visiting hours were over, Dr. Yulevski and his team of doctors entered Amy's room and used a special experimental long flexible needle and pierced it through her chest. Using a simple body scanner to look inside her body, they carefully maneuvered the needle between her ribs and behind her breastbone. After only half an hour, they successfully extracted some heart cells without any problems. They didn't want to use surgery and cut her chest open just to get some heart cells since this was considered faster and simpler. Although this is a much more delicate procedure, the doctors were well trained on using the experimental equipment.
"Okay, we got," Dr. Yulevski said, feeling relieved, "let's start cloning her heart right away, every second counts."
Over the next ten days, Amy's anatomical data was just about complete and the heart cloning procedure was well underway. Sonic, Knuckles, and Rouge were starting to feel sick to their stomachs. Watching Amy was like watching a time bomb that could explode at any time. Half the time, Sonic couldn't even bear to look. Her arms, legs, and neck have swollen to almost four times their normal size and stretch mark were becoming visible. Her belly had swollen so much that she almost look pregnant, except that's no baby she's holding, it's all excess fluid. Dr. Carbana walked in the room to check up on Amy.
Sonic quickly went up to the doctor, "hey doc, what's taking so long? Amy's starting to look like a balloon! Isn't that new kidney even working at all?"
"Hey, try not to worry so much right now," the doctor spoke reassuringly, "if she didn't have a new kidney she would be almost twice as swollen right now and probably dead by now. Besides, as soon as her heart is removed and replaced with an artificial one, her new kidney will naturally remove most of the excess fluid. We'll then remove the rest after that."
"How much longer will that take?" Sonic was starting to get very irritated and frustrated.
"That depend on how much longer before the other doctors are done studying her anatomy," the doctor replied, trying to calm him down, " as soon as it's complete, we'll get started on her artificial heart right away. It shouldn't be much longer, in fact I-"
One of the doctor's assistants entered the room, "Dr. Carbana, you're needed at the study lab. Something about Amy's anatomy and physiology."
"Is that so," Dr. Carbana spoke with some anticipation in his voice, "I'll be there right away." The doctor turned to Sonic, "I'll be right back. I should have some answers by then." He quickly made his way towards the study lab.
Sonic, Knuckles, and Rouge just stared at the door where the doctor exited. They looked back and Amy and hoped that her ordeal will be over right away. So far her body weight had more than doubled due to excess fluid.
"At least Amy is still asleep from the sedatives," Knuckles said, trying to look at the bright side, "I'd hate to imagine what she'd feel like if she saw herself right now."
The study lab was in an uproar, "all right! We've finally done it!" All of the doctors and assistants were very ecstatic. "Dr. Carbana will freak when he finds out!"
Dr. Carbana arrived at the lab as quick as possible, "what's going on? Have you finally done it?"
"You bet!" One of the assistants replied cheerfully, "we've finally completed studying and compiling Amy's physiological data. Now that we know everything about what makes her tick, this should give us a huge lead in helping her."
All of the doctors and assistants gave each other high fives and pats on the back. "Congratulations," Dr. Carbana spoke cheerfully, "it took the human race hundreds if not thousands of years to learn everything about its own anatomy. We've learned the anatomy of a completely new life form in only two months!"
They all felt very proud of their hard work and achievements. "Now let's not waste any time," Dr. Carbana spoke with a serious tone, "Amy's cloned heart will not arrive for at least four months. So it's up to us to design an artificial heart that will support her until then. Now let's put our new knowledge to work."
A few moments later, Sonic, Knuckles, and Rouge were told about the doctors' progress and they were very relieved. Sonic and Shadow agreed to have a chest scan so that the doctors have more data to help design Amy's heart.
The next day, Dr. Carbana and the doctors were almost done designing Amy's artificial heart. Shadow and Tails returned from the hospital technology factory.
Sonic, Knuckles, and Rouge were sitting in a park bench just outside of the hospital since it wasn't visiting hours yet. They spotted Shadow and Tails and they waved at each other.
"So, how did it go?" Sonic asked, "was there any interesting stuff?"
"It was embarrassing at first," Tails replied, "there was a lot of string involved, but Shadow kept them all in check."
"What did you do there?" Knuckles asked since he was kind of bored at the moment.
"I helped them out a little with their experimental equipment," Tails was slightly disappointed, "though if you ask me, I think their technology is a bit . . . well . . . primitive. I mean I was able to improve most of their technology without even breaking a sweat. Obviously they were all amazed and most asked if I could work with them full time. I simply told them that I'll think about it. So how's Amy, anything happen while I was gone?"
"Oh yes, quite a lot happened," Sonic answered, feeling anxious, "the doctors are cloning a brand new heart for Amy. But they said that cloning would take a long time, so in the meantime they decided to design an artificial heart to help keep her alive until then."
"Hey, you know what? That sounds very interesting," Tails was very happy to hear this, "I think I'll go lend them a hand." Tails quickly rushed into the hospital.
"It's nice to know that things are starting to go up for once," Shadow actually had a small smile on his face, which was a very rare sight, "I was starting to think that my kidney donation would be for nothing."
When Tails arrived at the lobby, Dr. Carbana was just passing by. Tails flagged him down to get his attention.
"Hey, doctor," Tails finally got his attention, "I heard that you're working on a new heart for Amy. Um, am I bothering you?"
"No you're not," the doctor simply answered, "I just finished my lunch break and I'm about to continue in helping the other doctors design a new artificial heart."
"Ooh, can I please help?" Tail was very anxious to do something that will help Amy.
"This is quite unusual," Dr. Carbana replied, "I found out that you visited the industry that provides experimental equipment for this hospital. I guess we could use some of your, I just hope the other doctors don't get jealous." They left to the study lab together.
Dr. Carbana and the other doctors were amazed at how quickly they succeeded. They estimated that designing and building a custom built artificial heart such as Amy's should take at least two or three days. Even though Tails knows little about anatomy, with his help the heart was completed in only twelve hours! Surprisingly, there was no hint of jealousy among the doctors. In fact, just like the factory the Tails visited earlier, the doctors asked if he could work for them. Again, Tails politely turned down the offer and said once again that he'll think about it.
Later that night, Dr. Carbana and a team of nearly a dozen doctors and assistants began the surgery to remove Amy's failing heart and replace it with a temporary artificial one. At the same time, other doctors were busy creating new antibiotics and medications, including a long awaited painkiller that's more compatible with Amy.
Surprisingly, there was no fluid build-up in her chest cavity, so this made the surgery much simpler. It only took about eight hours to remove Amy's heart and attach the artificial one, being careful to connect the proper blood vessels to the right parts of the artificial heart. They also implanted a pacemaker that would help the temporary heart pump properly. To everyone's relief, there were no complications during the procedure. Amy now has a new but temporary heart and just as Dr. Carbana predicted, the fluid build-up completely stopped and her new kidney was slowly removing the excess fluid. He also estimated that based on her physiology, most of the fluid will be gone in about six to eight weeks.
When Sonic and company found out about the surgery, they were completely filled with joy. Now they don't have to worry about Amy looking like a balloon sculpture. Two days later however, everyone hopes came crashing down like a meteor!
Dr. Carbana was checking through Amy body scans, including the chest cavity to make sure that there are no complications from the temporary heart. He then noticed something unusual about her body scans, especially when compared to her older ones.
"What the-, oh no! I need to confirm this," he showed his finding to some other doctors. They extracted some blood samples from Amy and studied them. "Oh please, oh please, oh please, please let me be wrong this time."
A few minutes later, the results arrived and he could tell from the doctor's reactions that it wasn't good. Unfortunately, to his dismay, his predictions were right again. Infections were starting to run rampant all over her body. Her own immune system was nowhere near strong enough to fight off the numerous infections. Some of them threatened her brain and her only one good lung. Luckily, Dr. Carbana and the other doctors were prepared for this situation. They injected some antibiotics into her, though it took a while to have any effect, most of the infections were neutralized. But what happened next caught them all completely off guard.
After doing another quick body scan to check the final results, Dr. Carbana found a small infection in her left hand that didn't want to leave. After a few hours, the infection began to spread fast.
"What's going on?" Dr. Carbana was very frantic, "why aren't the antibiotics working?"
One of the assistants answered, "I don't understand, we're giving her a maximum dosage. If we increase the dosage any further, she'll overdose!"
One of the other doctors spoke up, "if this infection spreads, we'll be right back where we started!"
Another assistant stated, "if this keeps up, we'll eventually run out of antibiotics and it took a few hours just to make this much!"
Dr. Carbana considered all of his options. Unfortunately, there was only one thing that could be done to help Amy right now. He explained it to the others doctors and off course they were rather surprised that he would make this decision. They decided to go along with it and Dr. Carbana felt like kicking himself a thousand times for making this decision.
When Sonic and the others arrived to visit Amy they saw doctor Carbana standing next to the doorway. His face was slightly pale looking and seemed very nervous and quite sad, "um, . . . I think there's something that you all should know. I can assure that there was no other way to help her."
They can tell that this was a very ominous moment. Before anyone did anything else, Sonic quickly zipped right into the room to find out what the doctor was talking about. Less than two seconds later, they were all startled from what they heard.
"AAAAAAHHHHH!!!! WHAT HAPPENED!!!" Sonic yelled at the top of his lungs. Everyone except Dr. Carbana rushed into the room to see what happened.
"Sonic, what's wrong?" Tails was very startled to hear him yell like this.
Sonic was still yelling, "IT'S HER HAND!!!"
Rouge got a good look at Amy and immediately started to feel light-headed
Knuckles saw it as well, "oh, I just can't believe this!"
Shadow got in last, "what's going on? What about her hand?"
Sonic was totally shocked and speechless for a few seconds, "her hand, it's . . . it's . . . IT'S GONE!! DOC, WHAT DID YOU DO!!"
All eyes were staring at the doctor. Since the doctor was so sad and shocked himself, he replied with absolutely no confidence in his voice. "We were too late. By the time Amy received her artificial heart, she had so much fluid build up all over her body that infections were invading her entire body. We tried giving her antibiotics to stop the infection, but the infection in her left hand was too severe. There . . . there was no choice but to amputate it. If it wasn't done, then the infections could damage or even kill her. I-I'm sorry, there was no other option."
Rouge was so light-headed that she nearly lost her balance and started to stumble. Knuckles held her in case she faints.
Tails just stared wide-eyed in total disbelief. He looked at the doctor and just like what Sonic did to Dr. Renoltis, Tails rushed right at him. This time though, Shadow grabbed him to stop him, but this didn't stop Tails from seeing red.
"How could you do this to her!?" Tails tried to wiggle out of Shadows hold, "Amy's like a big sister to me! How . . . how can you do this her? How can you do this to me?" Tails finally stopped struggling and started to break down completely. Shadow loosened his grip, and surprisingly instead of Tails making another attempt to rush at the doctor, he just turned around and buried his face into Shadow's and started crying his eyes out.
"I . . feel so useless," Tails spoke to himself. He feels that his efforts for helping Amy were completely in vain.
Shadow watched the young fox's reactions and it reminded him of how he felt after losing Maria all those years ago. For once in as long as he could remember, a tear started to form in Shadow's eye.
Sonic was so shocked by what he saw that he was totally oblivious to everything that's happening around him. He gently held onto Amy's left arm and stared at the stump where her left hand used to be.
"I can't believe all the things that's happened to Amy," Sonic said to himself, "I wonder . . . I wonder if death would be a better than experiencing all of this. Should . . . should I tell them to pull the plug?" He slowly and gently brushed his hand across her cheek. "Amy, I'm sorry. I'm . . I'm so very sorry. I don't care whose fault it was the night of the accident. But since you're the one that's been stuck like this for the past nineteen months, I believe you deserve to hear it from me."
Sonic gave a huge sigh of despair, "just like what Knuckles said, I hate to know what would happen if Amy wakes up. I just can't imagine how she'll feel when she wakes up with a missing a hand."
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Don't worry, there's just one more major problem left, then the story will finally make a turn for the better. But believe me, what just happened here is nothing compared to what happens next. I'm sure you'll know when you read it.