Brain Surgery

Posted on Thu Jun 27th, 2019 @ 9:13am by Lieutenant JG Gallia Norris

Mission: Episode 1: Hell is a four letter word
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: during the fight
1509 words - 3 OF Standard Post Measure

The crap had hit the fan hard out there, and now medical was abuzz with the arrivals of the wounded and dead. Ens. Kyun Lin was new to Elysium, her first assignment since graduating with her nursing degree, and hadn’t had a clue what to expect, ~Definitely not this.~ She thought as she began triaging the incomings, reaching the end of the line where young African male in an Elysium Academy t-shirt lay slumped in a chair, “What’s the deal with this guy?” She asked a passing corpsman.

“Phaser wound to the head, obviously he’s dead, sir.” Petty Officer First Class Danielle Howard sighed, these Ensigns seemed to get dumber and dumber with every new load.

Lin wanted to say something smart back, but couldn’t really because the Petty Officer was most likely right, ~Maybe I did ask a stupid question.~ She conceded, if only to herself, as she began to scan the young man’s body into the computer for identification and confirmation of time of death. The tricorder scanned quickly, as always, but it did not give the expected sound confirming registry of death, “What the hell?” She muttered, seeing her tricorder showed brain activity, even if it was weak and erratic, in the ‘corpse.’ Turning back she saw the same corpsman standing a few meters away, “Petty Officer, get Dr. Hertz, this guy is alive!”

As if hearing that somehow gave him permission to believe it, Mark Robeson twitched the index finger of his right hand, once, then again.

Seeing that moved Howard at a speed she didn’t know she could make anymore after sixteen hours on duty, “Dr. Hertz! Dr. Hertz! We need you…”

When Estelle heard her name being called, she told the surgical nurse, “You can close up, we’re done here for now.” There’d be a follow-up but for now, her patient had to live with a simple patch-up job. She walked out of surgery and towards where the call had come from. “What’s the issue?” she asked. There were many in triage, and she wasn’t going to check each and every possible patient. That was the job of the people out here, and someone had called her name.

There was an Ensign waving her over, which was good enough and she approached. “He’s seen better days”, she remarked. She took out her tricorder to get readings. “How is he even alive?” She looked at the wound more closely, then decided, “We might be able to keep him that way. Prepare him for surgery, he just jumped to the head of the line.”

“Yes, doctor.” Lin replied, motioning for four corpsman to move the cadet to the nearest available table. Prepping him quickly, she stated, “He’s ready, Doctor Hertz.”

“Good catch, Ensign.” Estelle looked at the readings. His nervous system had taken a bad hit, even though the main blast of the shot had missed his vital organs. A part of his skull was missing but the wound itself was superficial. Estelle imagine there was a bulkhead somewhere that had the charred remains of this man’s hair burnt into it.

“I was scanning in the time of death, the padd found brain function.” Lin answered, she couldn’t take the credit for this, she’d been sure he was dead, “Question is though, if we can save him, is there any hope for recovery?”

“I don’t know”, Estelle said. Truth was, she was out of her depth. This was a case for a neurologist. Of course, as a medical officer in Starfleet, she had the basic familiarity with the field, but it was far removed from her speciality as a surgeon, and she had to recall aspects of her training that she did not possess routine in. “Get me his last transporter logs. I need to look at his healthy nervous system for comparison.”

“Downloading them right now, doctor.” Lin complied, “On screen now.”

Estelle made an unhappy face. “A lot of neurons have stopped firing”, she said. “I can keep his body alive, but he will wake up a changed person.” But a changed person was better than no person, Estelle figured. “Does he have a living will on file?”

“No, nothing.” Lin shook her head, “Uh, hey, your friend from operations, the pretty dark haired one, she was talking to me the other day in the mess hall, mentioned her best friend is a neurosurgeon… Think she might can get her here for a follow up if we can save him?”

“All in due time”, Estelle said. She didn’t have the brainpower to spend on this line of questioning. She had to find a way into his brain without doing any more damage. It wasn’t as simply as restoring blood supply to an otherwise intact brain. She’d have to take out parts of it, and he’d be losing brain function. “I need a sonic separator.” It was the only tool she knew that was capable of such delicate cuts to separate healthy tissue from the dead cells without causing any more harm than the disrupter blast had already caused. “And hook him up to external circulation just in case.”

“Right.” Lin nodded, motioning for the corpsman to hook up the external circulation devices as she handed the doctor the sonic separator. She looked the wound over, “If we’re super careful, we won’t lose too much. He’ll need plastics, but that can wait until later.”

“Many of his motor neurons are gone”, Estelle said. “He’ll be paralysed through much of his left side.” Most of the damage was concentrated on the right hemisphere of his brain. Estelle snapped the sonic separator in place at the top of the surgical frame, then moved over to the controls and began the procedure. This was so delicate, she couldn’t perform it with her own hands. “Get the EMH in here, I need its help. Not even my hands are steady enough for this.”

The EMH, as if on cue, appeared beside her, “How may I assist you, Doctor Hertz?”

“Guide the sonic separator”, Estelle said. “We need to remove all the necrotic tissue.” Well, most of it. Some dead cells could easily be resorbed. “And I’m open to suggestions for rebuilding what’s died.”

“There’s not as much brain tissue loss as would be expected from a disruptor blast.” The EMH stated, “Though a competent neurosurgeon will become a necessity in the near future..”

“If the shot had hit him full on, we wouldn’t be looking at a brain at all”, Estelle said, impatient with this ‘captain obvious’ statement.

“There’s no need to be snotty towards me, Doctor.” The holographic medico replied, “I didn’t shoot him.”

“I need answers, not the blatantly obvious”, Estelle said. It bothered her this EMH had the likeness of one of the most revered doctors in Starfleet history, as well as his voice and speech patterns. “Use your database, is there something we can do to restore motor neurons, or leave his brain in such as state that they can be restored later?”

“We could attempt to replicate the neurons.” The EMH stated, “Or simply put him in stasis until we can attain the neurosurgeon we need. If nothing else it will stop any further necrosis of the brain.”

Estelle knew replicating tissue was a hit or miss affair, the only safe way was cloning and accelerated, but still slow, growth. “Then stasis it is”, she decided. “How long do you need?” She could see the EMH had already done a good part of the job during their conversation. Multi-tasking wasn’t an issue for a computer programme, after all.

“We can put him in…” The EMH replied, finishing up one last thing, “Now.”

Estelle waved over a corpsman, “Activate the stasis pod in the morgue.” It was morbid, but that’s where they had the infrastructure for long-term storage, to allow for various burial rites that required returning a body home, or forensic investigation after a crime, fortunately rare about Starfleet vessels. “We’ll beam him in there.”

It took a minute, but Howard yelled back, “Pod’s ready, doc!”

Estelle initiated the transport, which got him out of trouble for the time being, though far from saved. She looked at Ensign Lin. “He’s a long way from fine but he’s also a long way from dead.” She put her hand on the Ensign’s shoulder. “It’s a good start to your work here.”

“Thank you, doctor.” Lin smiled, openly relieved. She’d managed to stay calm on the outside, but she’d crapped her mental pants about five times during all this drama.

Howard came by and looked the young Ensign over, “Not bad.”

“Now I need coffee”, Estelle said. “You’re both invited.” Yes, there were more people to take care of, but nobody terribly urgent, and not taking breaks meant making mistakes.

“Right.” Lin nodded, “Coffee.”