The next morning they transferred him from the post-op ICU ward and down to the regular orthopedic ward. He could never remember staying that long in post-op, but then again his leg injury was a little out of the ordinary.
He was greeted by a tall, slender, local looking nurse. In heavily accented English she informed him that the nurse assigned to him would be by in a moment. He nodded.
The nurse that entered his room a few minutes later was the visual opposite of the nurse who had met him as the orderly rolled him into his new room.
Tall was replaced by short, slender by stocky. She looked more like she belonged in the suburbs of LA than in a hospital in the middle east. Instead of a wrap around her head, she had long brown hair tossed up in a messy bun on top of her head, but the friendly smile was just as warm.
"Hi Mr, Carter, I'm Emily. I'll be the nurse you're going to see the most of this shift." She smiled at him as she stepped closer with a machine to measure his blood pressure and other vital signs in tow, "How are you feeling? I read they gave you some morphine before moving you from post-op…"
"Just call me Scott…" He smiled back at her, "And yeah, they did."
"And it's got a good effect on the pain you was in?"
He nodded, "Yeah, right now I can't complain."
"That's great!" she nodded a little, then she looked over at Full Metal's legs.
He followed her gaze.
"I read that it was a pretty bad set of injuries you sustained."
He nodded, "Yeah. I probably outdid myself this time."
She nodded, then she pulled the blood pressure machine a bit closer. "So, you've probably met this machine before."
He nodded and stretched out his left arm so securing the BP cuff would be easier for her. "Yeah. Not my first time in a hospital bed."
She nodded as she wrapped the cuff around his upper arm. Then she found a small gadget and put it on one of the fingers on Full Metal's opposite hand.
She quickly did the whole assessment and jotted down some notes on a piece of paper she pulled out of her pocket. Then she looked back at where his legs laid covered. "Okay, Scott… I have to check your bandages as well. I promise to be as careful as possible, but just let me know if I cause you any discomfort. Okay?"
He nodded.
"Have you seen your leg after the surgery?"
"No. I haven't." he shook his head, "Didn't feel ready for it yesterday."
She nodded, "If you want to look away that's completely fine."
He nodded again, "Yeah, but I have to see it sometime, don't I?"
She shrugged, "Yeah, but you don't have to right now, if you don't want to."
He shrugged a little, "I think I'm ready for it."
"Okay, but if it becomes too much and you need to look away, that's very understandable."
He nodded.
She stepped closer to his legs. She grabbed a hold of the duvet. Slowly and carefully she lifted it up and over his left leg, revealing it.
There was pins sticking into the top of his thigh and shin, connected by a metal rod. Most of the bandages were partially soaked through, one or two of them were almost dry. The parts of his shin that wasn't covered by bandages had a deep bruised color.
He sucked a breath, "Looks nasty."
She shrugged, "But considering what you went through, it's looking better than expected."
"Yeah?"
"Looks as healthy as it can get in this state." She nodded and looked at his foot. "I'm sorry, I have to check for a pulse. It'll probably not be a pleasant experience for you."
He nodded, "Go ahead."
She apologized when he flinched a muttered a curse word, "At least you've got a good and strong pulse there."
"Yeah?"
She nodded, "-and none of your bandages need changing."
"That's good."
She nodded, as she gently packed the duvet back over his leg. "Any questions you think I might be able to answer?"
"I heard something about a second surgery…?"
She nodded, "Yeah, that's the plan. We don't know yet if that is going to happen here or after you ship home stateside, but they want to put you in a larger ex-fix system."
"Ex-fix?"
"External Fixation. Those metal pins that goes into your leg to secure your bones." She nodded along, "But they wanted to wait a bit since the risk of infection is pretty high with all of those wounds you've got. But they couldn't put you in a cast because of the swelling and because we need to check on your bandages every now and then. And they couldn't do nothing about it either, so they decided on fixating your leg with the bare minimum of pins at first."
He nodded, "Figured those four pins seemed a bit scarce to fix all of the breaks in my leg."
She nodded, "Anything else?"
"No, ma'am." He shook his head, and sighed. "Well, actually… Visitors are allowed here, right?"
She nodded, "And your teammates have already called to make sure it's okay that they come."
"Yeah?"
She chuckled, "Yeah. We told them that it's okay, as long as you feel well enough to have visitors, and that due to your injuries you might need more peace and quiet than normally."
He flashed a grin, "Good."
"They said they would come by later, unless you requested that they didn't."
"No, I want them here." Full Metal shrugged a little, "Hopefully they'll bring something to pass the time with as well."
She nodded, "If not, then maybe they can bring something the next time they stop by."
He nodded.
She offered up a soft smile, "Now, breakfast is just around the corner. Are you hungry?"
"Yeah." he nodded, "Very."
"What would you like, we have…" she stalled a bit as she tried to remember this morning's specialties.
"Just pick something for me, I can eat just about anything." He chuckled a little, "But coffee, that's the important part. Black, no sugar."
She chuckled, "Alright. Any milk or juice to drink?"
"A glass of milk would be good. And a glass of water if that's possible."
She nodded, "I'll come by with that as soon as the kitchen is ready. Might take a few minutes."
He nodded, "Thank you."