Chapter 3: Recovering
A day-and-a-half-later after hours of grueling surgery, Major Sheppard was still in recovery status. He hadn't awakened, yet, which concerned Dr. Beckett somewhat, but was considered normal under the circumstances.
When he finally did wake up, he was keenly aware of bright light. He gingerly opened his eyes to a stark white landscape.
He slowly became aware of a soft voice calling his name. "Major Sheppard? How do you feel?" He slowly turned his head towards the voice and through slitted eyes, recognized it as belonging to the nurse that had attended him after the bug incident.
The Major paled even more than he already was. "I think I'm going to thr...," and before he could finish his comment, he emptied what little contents still remained in his stomach.
The nurse was ready for him with a bed pan having seen hundreds of recoveries throughout her career and knowing what to expect. "That's quite normal and to be expected, Major. It's brought on by the anesthesia," she explained as she wiped the Major's mouth and helped him get situated.
"Anasthesia?" the Major inquired. Hadn't he dated someone by that name?
"Yes. You had surgery. I'll get Dr. Beckett and let him explain," she replied in a friendly, melodic tone.
Major Sheppard racked his brain, but he couldn't remember much of what may have brought him to the infirmary. All of a sudden, the pain came crashing back like an ocean wave enveloping him completely from head to toe. Oh, God. He felt nauseous, again but managed to keep the heaves at bay.
A few seconds later, Dr. Beckett was by his side. "Are you in pain, Major?" he questioned seeing him thrashing about, moaning and hissing in pain. He assumed the obvious.
"Let me show you something, John." Dr. Beckett carefully took the Major's right hand and led it up an IV tube to a lever.
"I have you hooked up to a drip that releases pain medication every two hours. All you have to do when you feel the pain getting unbearable is to squeeze this lever and a predetermined dosage will be released."
The Major weakly nodded his head in understanding and looked at the Doctor with thankful eyes.
"Now its going to take a wee bit of time to work so I'm going to ask you to be patient," the Doctor good naturedly admonished. "We had to do surgery for internal bleeding and injuries," he explained more seriously. "Do you remember what happened to you?"
The Major took a few seconds to try to recall the previous events but drew a complete blank. He shook his head "no." "I can't remember anything right now," he croaked out realizing for the first time how dry his mouth felt.
"That's fine. We'll worry about it later. Right now, you will be needing your rest. I'll be by to check on you later." With that, the Doctor turned on his heels after a quick once over of the Major to make sure all of the monitors and IV's were still hooked up and operating to his satisfaction.
The pain was slowly subsiding, however; the Major couldn't understand why he felt so sore still not remembering his last mission. He finally drifted back to a restless, drug induced sleep.