"Hello, lov." Carson looked up from his computer at Elizabeth who was standing at the doorway of his office. "May I help you with something?" He got up with chair.
"I was just checking up on our people. How are they doing?" She leaned against the doorway even though Carson offered her his chair.
"Good actually, Drs. Grodin, Blancheflour, Kavanagh, Perez and Raginmar will be released tomorrow morning baring complications. I still would like them to be on light duty tomorrow, but then sore throats from the smoke they inhaled they should be fine."
"What about the others?"
"I will release Dr. Eaton this evening before his shift and he as spoken to Dr. Heightmeyer. He had a panic attack in the duct system. Small wonder, the lad is extremely claustrophobic. He held up extremely well, but I think he feels guilty about fainting."
"How are the other three?"
"Well, Mckay and Zelenka are going to be staying for at least 48 hours, most likely longer. Mckay has several cracked ribs, a concussion, and has some mild electrical burns. Zelenka on the other hand also had a concussion, but also has severe bruising of his legs. Apparently he was stuck in the middle of a table and floor sandwich. I hope both on them will have recovered enough to be released to quarters in a few days. By then the whole shock of the ordeal will have worn off and Mckay will start complaining about the fact I couldn't give him pain medication. Dr. Bec on the other had will hopefully only be in here for two to three weeks."
"That long? I knew the injury was extensive but it was to her arm."
"Even though the cut to her arm was severe cutting several major blood vessels and severing all the finger extender tendons in here right hand. It was the blood loss that caused her to suffer from hypovolaemic shock. As a result we are still monitoring her vital organs for shocked liver and kidney damage. Even if there are no major complications it is going to weeks before her blood chemistry returns to normal. We are also looking at the possibility of neurological damage. She has only woke up once since the evacuation. We will just have to wait and see."
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Dr. Caroline Marks also found Dr. Beckett in front of his computer but he was quietly sleeping on the keyboard. The screen saver slowly flashing pictures of far away Scotland. She saw his jacket on one of the neighboring chairs, picked it up and draped it over his shoulders. She turned to leave when Carson's tired voice stopped her.
"Is there something you needed to report?"
"I just wanted to tell you Dr. Thomason woke up again, and her test came up clear for kidney damage. She is going to be a sick puppy for a while but it looks like she dodged most the severe complications. Now all we need to do is let her rest and the body heal itself."
"You forgot the most difficult challenge of all, keeping Mckay quiet enough to allow her to sleep." Beckett chuckled.
"I believe that would be your job, he is your patient and I am only a lowly surgeon."
Both doctors laughed at that then Caroline went back her watch over her patient and Carson went back to sleep, but this time with a smile on his face.
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Bright and early the next morning there was already a group of scientist waiting for visiting hours. Dr. Beckett knew he was going to have to put some more restrictions on visits, but knew that people would totally ignore them. Proven by the fact Sheppard was already camped out in the chair between Mckay and Zelenka.
"Can you stick to the voodoo that actually works? Like pain medication, I know you said that I have a concussion but that doesn't mean that the best thing you can give me is Tylenol!"
"For goodness sakes Dr. Mckay, you have had enough concussions to know that we can only give you Tylenol for a minimum of 48 hours." A very tired looking Dr. Marks was trying to take a neurological reading while Carson was busy trying to convince Drs. Grodin, Avril, Kavanagh, Perez, and Raginmar to go to their quarters and relax.
"Do you doctor's actually take pleasure in torturing poor injured scientists, or was just something they drilled into you in medical school?"
"Rodney." Sheppard tone was telling Mckay that he was pushing it.
"It is okay Major. Actually Mckay we could make the argument that it is your life's goal to torture innocent medical techs. Now you can go to sleep again."
"But you just woke me up. How do you expect me to go to sleep if you keep waking me up ever hour or so?"
"I don't know? Why don't you tell me? Meanwhile if you don't stop complaining I might start believing your statement about doctors being vampires."
"You wouldn't."
"Oh, Mckay, I think we might need to do a full spectrum blood test on you. Shall I go get the needles?"
"She would." Sheppard added in smiling broadly. Mckay just crossed his arm sulkily across his chest and looked in the other direction.
"And you Major Sheppard. I would appreciate if you would not keep the patients up. The do need all the sleep they can get and yes I do recognize that cracked ribs are very painful." The last part seemed to be pointed directly at Rodney. "Zelenka, your next." Caroline pulled out his pin light and flashed into his eyes.
"Yes, yes, I know the drill." Radek winced against the light, but keep his eyes open. "My name is Dr. Radek Zelenka. I am from the Czech Republic. This is the infirmary at Atlantis; I have been here overnight being woke up every few hours to be checked at because of the concussion. Anything else you want me to say?"
"I think that pretty much covers it. Thank you Radek, we will only have to do this a few more times."
"You should get some sleep too." Zelenka said as he laid back and blinked his eyes.
"Dr. Z has a point. You look like you could use it." Sheppard looked at Dr. Marks.
With a laugh she replied. "I am on call in the ICU until Dr. Ludwig gets back. I will send Carson over when he finishes up with releasing the first group of scientists. I am sure he would like to chat." With that she turned and when back to the nurses' station. Sheppard stared after her listening to the click-click of her heals.
"Please, Sheppard." John turned to see Mckay looking at him. "I know what that look in your eye means. And if you wish to flirt with the dear Miss Dr. Vampire, please do it when I have already been released from the infirmary."
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Through out the day literally half of the science department attempted to get into the infirmary. But the nurses had gotten fairly good at running interference. The trick was keeping the traffic away from the sleeping astronomer in the corner, away from the ICU where Bec was resting during the weaning trials from the ventilator and keeping them from smuggling stuff to Mckay.
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Late in the afternoon of the following day, Mckay continued to complain nonstop. You could here his voice though out the entire infirmary. Bec pressed the nurse button and got quick responses. When the nurse asked what she needed. Bec pretended to be typing on a keyboard with one hand. The nurse said she wasn't up to it. Bec put her hands in the begging position and did the best puppy dog eyes she could with as much pain as she was in. The nurse came back with a laptop. First she type, 'Deliver this message to Mckay.' Showed it to the nurse and the type her really message. The nurse looked at it giggled promised it would go to the right person and Bec lay back and closed her eyes to try to sleep.
Mckay was still complaining in the main ward. The nurse walked over to him and shows the screen. Mckay was stunned into silence, Sheppard looked at it confused, and Dr. Zelenka almost busted out laughing. Scrawled across the screen in 48 pt. Times New Roman fount were the words 'For Pete's Sake Mckay, stop complaining. I don't get the good meds either. P.S. You weren't trapped under a table for over two hours."
Yep, things were getting back to normal.
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Author's note-There was some confusion about why Dr. Bec woke up during surgery. The answer is simple because she had a concussion they could not use total anesthesia, sedative, or strong pain medication such as morphine. That means the only medications they could give her is Tylenol, which is a little hard to do if they are unconscious, or they can use local anesthesia. That only numbs the immediate area, so they are free to wake up and move. Today minor operations are done with local anesthesia, which means you are able to watch them work on you. It is actually really cool.