Oh my gash

Posted on Sun Jul 28th, 2024 @ 11:53am by Ensign Anne Marie "Ree" Beckett & Lieutenant Avira zh'Kenarh M.D.

Mission: Remnant
Location: Main Sickbay
1044 words - 2.1 OF Standard Post Measure

"How on Earth did you cut your hand?" The crewman escorting Beckett asked as she watched her hold her right hand up above her heart. The yellow of the duty jacket she'd wrapped around it had mostly turned to red where it hadn't beaded off onto the floor.

"I don't know," Ree answered truthfully. One minute she'd been cutting slides for botany. The next thing she knew the slide had shattered, the power to her tool was down- and from wrist to the tip of her thumb was laid open and bleeding where it wasn't slightly charred. She'd rarely gotten truly hurt in her life- beyond when she was 10 and had gotten kicked by a deer. Just as she had then, she got up white faced and uncharacteristically quietly to ask for someone to take her to the doctor, please. "I was being really careful."

"I'll put in a service request," the crew man said before very calmly steering Beckett into sickbay and wishing her good luck. "At least you're left handed!"

"Yeah, that helps," the brunette said to no one in particular. She looked at the medical crew moving about the sickbay with purpose and said a quiet "hi..."

One of the more dull aspects of working sickbay was that a lot of the work involved making sure the right stock was in the right place so that when a medical emergency hit they wouldn't be spending precious time trying to find the cotton balls. Avira was in the middle of taking a pack of bandages to the trauma kit. The Doctor sensed the door opening, antennae twitching at the slight change in atmosphere. She turned and saw a much more pale version of Ensign Beckett than she remembered. "Good morning, come in, take a seat. Let's have a look at that." Some diagnosis were so obvious that she could do it from across the room. She grabbed the auto-suture and some other supplies and took them back with her to the nearest biobed.

Beckett did as she was told, scooting onto the biobed somewhat gingerly. "I *may* have had an accident with a malfunctioning tool..." She said, unwrapping her hand carefully to show the doctor. It didn't worry her that it bled like crazy: extremities were dramatic like that. It's that it didn't hurt more. Maybe her adrenaline was just still spiking.

Avira took out an assortment of absorbing gauses and pressed one down on the wound to temporarily stop the bleeding. "I'm going to have to examine how deep the cut is and what got damaged." She pulled the cotton away to check at the gash. It was rather deep, the layers of skin peeling away indicating it had been quite a violent cut. She took out a small needle and poked the top of the thumb, "can you feel this?"

Anne Marie stared at the wound for a moment in gross fascination before looking at the pin atop her thumb. It was like a little flag along a trail carved through the side of her hand. Luckily she'd never been the squeamish type. "If I say no, how troublesome is that?"

"It's always best to just tell the truth, and we'll work from there." Avira put the needle away and slightly pulled the two sides of the gash further apart. The cut, while deep, was relatively clean. "There's some nerve damage we'll try to repair, then we can suture it right up and get you back on your way." There was a moment of hesitation. She had to administer this treatment, but what if her hands started shaking during it?

"Thank you, doctor..." Ree watched owlishly as the doctor paused. Did that mean it was bad? Good? Considering medication? Wondering if there was such a thing as personal buffers for clumsy humans? Who knew.

Avira stretched her hand and balled it into a fist before stepping up with the auto-suture. "It's important that you keep still as I try to reconstruct the nerves. Let me know if you feel anything out of the ordinary, or pain." She had once had someone faint from the pain without saying a word because they felt that the pain wasn't 'out of the ordinary', since then she always specified.

"Okay." Beckett sat up straight and tried to be as model a patient as she could be. She wasn't quite sure what would feel out of the ordinary, so questioned that as well. "It's normal to itch a bit?" She asked. "Or feel twitchy?"

"That's normal." Avira focused so hard her antennae straightened themselves out completely, fully tensed up. Her hands were holding up and it didn't take long for her to find the offending nerve-ends and stitch them back from whence they came. Then it was a couple of layers of muscle and skin, each having to be repaired individually to get the cleanest heal. "It will take some time to get full motor function and sensation back. You might actually start feeling a tingling sensation a couple of days from now as the connection is reestablished. Like you would due to obdormition."

Beckett blinked at the usage of the word. "I don't know what that word you just said means. It certainly looks better which is great for my peace of mind. Thank you, doctor. I'm sorry for coming in like that."

"No need to apologise, we're here to help." Avira tried to think of another name for the medical condition of not having enough blood flow to your extremities. "In Andorian we call it 'snow skin', like a tinging sensation when you partially cut off circulation to an extremity due to your posture."

"We say *your hand fell asleep*. It sounds funnier than it is, though because..." Ree shrugged. It just wasn't. "You know. Thank you again, doctor. I'll get out of your way now."

Avira wanted to add another mention of it being the entire purpose of the medical bay is to keep the crew healthy and capable of performing their duties. "Please let us know if it gives you any trouble." There was a sense of relief that she had been able to perform the simple procedure without incident that she held in until the doors behind the Ensign closed.