Post by Mimi on Aug 18, 2006 10:33:29 GMT -5
John poured the remainder of the bottle of vodka on Marlena’s bare stomach. “God, I sure the hell hope that she can’t feel this.” He bent over her in prayer, using his right hand to make the sign of the cross, tracing from forehead to breast and from shoulder to shoulder. “In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti…Forgive me for what I’m about to do.” John picked up the knife and slowly made a horizontal incision just above her pubic hairline. Marlena’s dark red blood flowed freely from the wound, collecting in the gap between where her legs met her torso, and then finally running down the outside of her thighs onto the bed.
“John, found a soldering iron, but no drugs.” Alexie said as he handed John the dirty instrument. “Oh dear god, god be with her,” he muttered under his breath when he saw that John was performing a very crude cesarean section on Marlena. Although John was calm and collected, the scene before him was more out of a horror movie.
“Great, Roman, clean it off with alcohol and then plug it in…Alexie, get on the VHF and get me an ETA on a plane. Roman, how’s that iron heating up? I need to cauterize some of these blood vessels…. Matrona, what’s her pulse?” John said in a hurry, shouting orders one by one. He used a clean washcloth to soak up some of the blood that was occluding his view.
“Sixty-five beats per minute and dropping,” Matrona informed him, a worried look on her face. She looked down at the rapidly expanding crimson stain on the bed and wasn’t confident that Mrs. Black or her baby were going to make it.
“Come on Doc,” John muttered, “Stay with me,” John said softly to Marlena as he completed his initial incision through the thin layer of skin and fat, leaving her uterus visable.
“Here, John,” Roman said as he handed John the hot soldering iron. He watched in fascination as John lowered the tip of hot iron carefully onto the bleeding blood vessels, careful to minimize contact with her tissue. Within seconds the blood loss lessened, but the smell of burning flesh permeated the air.
“Hold this please,” John said as he carefully handed Roman the soldering iron. “Pulse?” John asked Matrona as he quickly inspected his work.
“Sixty and dropping,” Matrona warned him.
“Hurry John,” Roman said in a panic, alarmed at the attention to detail John was taking in this time of emergancy.
Roman and Matrona waited in anticipation as John picked up the knife again and slowly made a six inch horizontal incision through her uterine muscle. John was surprised when some of the amniotic fluid spilled out, but was pleased to see that it didn’t contain meconium.
“Damn,” he said as he adjusted the uterus to minizmize the spillage. He looked up at Roman and then at Matrona who was carefully monitoring Marlena’s pulse. Matrona had a look of nausea on her face and John could tell by the way that she was sitting that she was doing everything she could to avoid looking down. John looked back at Roman and closed his eyes for a brief second, in disbelief as to what he was about to ask. “Roman under any other circumstance there is no way in hell I’d let you do this to my wife but I have no choice.”
“What do you need me to do?” Roman asked, hoping that John wasn’t going to ask him to make any incisions on Marlena.
“Her amniotic sac is intact. Seeing that we don’t have anything here to suction it out and we don’t have time to find something to use, I need you to reach up inside Marlena and break the sac.”
“You want me to what?” Roman asked.
“You heard me pal…try it with your fingers…if that doesn’t work you’re going to need to find an object to grab onto it so that it tears.”
“Oh god,” Roman said as he moved to the end of the bed between his ex-wifes bloody legs. Carefully, under John’s suspicious gaze, he inserted two fingers into his ex-wife.
“What the hell am I looking for?” he asked John as he moved his fingers around.
“You’ll know it when you feel it,” John said as he held her uterus carefully, desperating wanting to reach in and rescue his child. He was so close.
“I can’t feel anything but a nasty mess…I’d rather hold the uterus than do this,” Roman admitted, disgusted by what he was doing.
John rolled his eyes, knowing that they were losing previous time. “Fine, come over and hold this,” John said as he took Romans’s bloody hand and placed it on the edge of Marlena’s open abdomen. “Don’t move..Matrona, what’s her pulse?” John asked as he reached his hand inside of Marlena and quickly ruptured the thin menbrane of her uterine sac. As he pulled his hand out a flood of amniontic fluid gushed out. John quickly took hold of her uterus from Roman.
“Fifty.”
“Shit, this baby’s coming out now…Where the hell is Alexie? Come on Doc, hang in there for me a little while longer,” he begged her, concentrating on the task before him.
“Matrona, I need you to stop what you are doing and go into the bathroom and get a clean towel. I’m going to hand you the baby, while Roman and I concentrate on Doc,” John ordered her as he slowly reached into Marlena’s uterus and felt for the baby’s head. “Roman, press down on the top of her stomach,” John ordered him. As Roman pressed down, John was able to grab the baby by the head and support its neck as he slowly lifted the baby from her body. John picked up the knife and cut the umbilical cord.
“Matrona, hurry,” John yelled. Matrona came running in from the bathroom with an open towel in her arms. “Oh my god,” she whispered when she saw the tiny baby that John was holding.
“Take the baby,” he said as he handed the baby off to her.
“Get me the soldering iron Roman,” John asked as he applied pressure on her uterus where it was bleeding profusely. “Where the fuck is Alexie…we need him here now.”
“The baby’s not breathing,” Matrona said in a panic.
“Shit, Roman put your hand here,” John said as he grabbed Roman’s hand and placed it upon Marlena’s uterus.
“I’m going to be sick,” Roman said to himself as he applied pressure and closed his eyes tightly.
“Let me see the baby,” John said as he took his child out of Matrona’s arms. He rubbed the baby’s face with a towel to see if stimulation would cause the baby to breathe on its own. “Shit,” he said as he realized that the baby still wasn’t breathing. “Come on baby,” he said before he lowered his mouth over the baby’s mouth and nose trying to clear the airway of mucous. The baby cried out loudly.
“Thank god,” Roman said.
“Clean the baby and keep it warm,” John said as he kissed the baby on its forehead and then handed him back into Matrona’s waiting arms. Marlena had given him a son.
“Let me see,” John said to Roman as he got back on the bed. “Roman, I need for you to check her pulse for me…. With all this blood loss I’m concerned.”
“Thirty-five John,” Roman said in a panic. “We’re losing her.”
“Give me the pillows now,” John ordered as he reached up and grabbed two of the pillows on the bed and placed them under Marlena’s thighs and butt. “I need more pillows,” John yelled. Roman got up from the bed and ran into the other room and returned with more pillows. John quickly placed them under Marlena, trying to raise her legs.
“Pulse?”
“Thirty.”
“Damn.” John moved the pillows so that her lower abdomen was higher than her heart.
“Pulse?”
“Thirty-five…. Its climbing,” Roman said ecstatically, surprised that what John had done appeared to be working.
“How’s the baby?” John asked Matrona as he looked over to where she was sitting on the floor with the baby, cleaning him up.
“This little boy is a strong one,” Matrona said as she looked down at the black haired child.
“Roman, keep monitoring her pulse…Alexie?” John yelled again as he reached over to the nightstand and grabbed the soldering iron. After several tense minutes he was able to control her bleeding. He slowly reached into her abdomen to retrieve the placenta.
“What the fuck,” he said as he came into contract with a foot.
“Roman, press down on her abdomen again, like before,” John said in a panic, realizing that at least ten minutes had gone by since the first baby was delivered. “Please let this baby be alright,” he said to himself as he felt for the head and neck. As Roman pushed down, John was able to free the baby.
“Oh my god,” Roman said in astonishment and then started laughing. What was the probability of this happening?
“Monitor the pulse…make sure it’s increasing…if it drops I need to know immediately,” John told Roman as he took the baby and placed it on the bed, cutting the umbilical cord first. .
“Come on little one,” John said as he stroked the baby’s face lightly, then put his mouth over the baby’s nose and mouth and lightly blew, trying to dislodge any mucous from the airway. The baby was still unresponsive. “Come on baby,” John said as he tried to suction and clear the baby’s airways once again. He felt for a pulse and didn’t find one.
“Dammit, I’m not going to lose you,” he said as he started CPR on his little girl. After 30 seconds of chest compressions, he breathed into her nose and mouth, praying that she would breathe on her own.
“The medevac is still grounded in Anchorage,” Alexie informed John as he entered the room. “Holy shit,” he said upon seeing all the blood and two babies.
“Alexie, I need for you to monitor Marlena’s pulse. If it drops below 35 beats per minute I need to know…. Roman, I need for you to check and make sure that there isn’t another baby in there,” John ordered as he gave the baby chest compressions.
He stopped long enough to blow into the baby’s nose and mouth.
From across the room John heard the wail of his newborn son. Roman smiled at the sound and then grimaced as he reached into Marlena’s exposed uterus. “Nope,” Roman said as he slowly felt around.
“Check to see if the placenta is detached. I imagine that it is and its what caused the bleeding to begin with,” John said matter of factly as he rhythmically gave his daughter chest compressions with his fingers. She was so small and frail looking, much smaller than her brother.
Roman slowly lifted the placenta out of Marlena and set it on the bed beside her, covering it with a towel. “Now what?” he asked as he watched John trying to revive the tiny infant.
“Alexie, how’s Marlena’s pulse?”
“Fine.”
“Roman, please go quickly to the kitchen and bring saran wrap and more towels up here. Also grab the space heater that’s in my office. We are going to need it to keep these babies warm.”
“I feel a pulse,” John exclaimed as he felt and saw the tiny beat of his daughters heart. “Come on baby, breathe for daddy,” John said before he blew into her mouth and nose once again.
“I love you so much little one…breathe for me please,” he softly pleaded with his daughter. He blew into her once again, praying that she could do this on her own. Suddenly she gasped for air, coughed and started breathing on her own. “Oh thank god,” John exclaimed as he watched his daughter’s color change from blue to a beautiful pink. He checked her pulse and was thankful that it was near 100 beats per minute.
“Got the items,” Roman said as he entered the room, looking at the site before him.
“Roman, wrap the babies torsos in the saran wrap place them in a blanket near the space heater. Due to their prematurity they are susceptible to hypothermia. Monitor their pulses and make sure that it doesn’t drop below 100 beats per minute. I need to help their mother.” John handed his blond haired daughter over to Roman and wiped his bloody hands on his pants and knelt next to Marlena, sewing kit in hand.
“Doc, I’m so proud of you…Just a couple more minutes and this will all be over with and you can wake up and see your beautiful babies,” John said softly to Marlena as he threaded a needle and began to slowly sew her up.
“Doc, you should see the babies, they are both strong fighters just like you…They need their mother and so do I so you’d better hang in there for me.” As John sewed the incision that he had made, he spoke words of love and encouragement to Marlena, hoping that she could hear him and would have the strength to hold on until help arrived.
“Pulse?” He asked Alexie.
“Sixty five and holding.”
John nodded his head, slowly looking around the room before him. Matrona and Roman were tending to the babies in the corner of the room, trying to keep them warm. He could see an occasional hand reach out, but little else. Alexie sat up against the headboard monitoring Marlena’s pulse, in shock at what had happened. As John observed what was before him he tried to comprehend how in less than one hour everything could change so much. Less than one hour before he was talking to her in the bathroom, now she lay pale and lifeless in the middle of the bed. John had medical training and knew full well the statistical probability of survival with this amount of blood loss. Her chances were not good and neither were the babies.
“John,” Alexie asked looking around at the blood that seemingly covered the surface of everything within a five-foot radius of the bed, “What happens if the medevac can’t get here soon because of the storm.”
“Then she dies,” John said as a single tear rolled down his cheek. “She dies.”
“John, found a soldering iron, but no drugs.” Alexie said as he handed John the dirty instrument. “Oh dear god, god be with her,” he muttered under his breath when he saw that John was performing a very crude cesarean section on Marlena. Although John was calm and collected, the scene before him was more out of a horror movie.
“Great, Roman, clean it off with alcohol and then plug it in…Alexie, get on the VHF and get me an ETA on a plane. Roman, how’s that iron heating up? I need to cauterize some of these blood vessels…. Matrona, what’s her pulse?” John said in a hurry, shouting orders one by one. He used a clean washcloth to soak up some of the blood that was occluding his view.
“Sixty-five beats per minute and dropping,” Matrona informed him, a worried look on her face. She looked down at the rapidly expanding crimson stain on the bed and wasn’t confident that Mrs. Black or her baby were going to make it.
“Come on Doc,” John muttered, “Stay with me,” John said softly to Marlena as he completed his initial incision through the thin layer of skin and fat, leaving her uterus visable.
“Here, John,” Roman said as he handed John the hot soldering iron. He watched in fascination as John lowered the tip of hot iron carefully onto the bleeding blood vessels, careful to minimize contact with her tissue. Within seconds the blood loss lessened, but the smell of burning flesh permeated the air.
“Hold this please,” John said as he carefully handed Roman the soldering iron. “Pulse?” John asked Matrona as he quickly inspected his work.
“Sixty and dropping,” Matrona warned him.
“Hurry John,” Roman said in a panic, alarmed at the attention to detail John was taking in this time of emergancy.
Roman and Matrona waited in anticipation as John picked up the knife again and slowly made a six inch horizontal incision through her uterine muscle. John was surprised when some of the amniotic fluid spilled out, but was pleased to see that it didn’t contain meconium.
“Damn,” he said as he adjusted the uterus to minizmize the spillage. He looked up at Roman and then at Matrona who was carefully monitoring Marlena’s pulse. Matrona had a look of nausea on her face and John could tell by the way that she was sitting that she was doing everything she could to avoid looking down. John looked back at Roman and closed his eyes for a brief second, in disbelief as to what he was about to ask. “Roman under any other circumstance there is no way in hell I’d let you do this to my wife but I have no choice.”
“What do you need me to do?” Roman asked, hoping that John wasn’t going to ask him to make any incisions on Marlena.
“Her amniotic sac is intact. Seeing that we don’t have anything here to suction it out and we don’t have time to find something to use, I need you to reach up inside Marlena and break the sac.”
“You want me to what?” Roman asked.
“You heard me pal…try it with your fingers…if that doesn’t work you’re going to need to find an object to grab onto it so that it tears.”
“Oh god,” Roman said as he moved to the end of the bed between his ex-wifes bloody legs. Carefully, under John’s suspicious gaze, he inserted two fingers into his ex-wife.
“What the hell am I looking for?” he asked John as he moved his fingers around.
“You’ll know it when you feel it,” John said as he held her uterus carefully, desperating wanting to reach in and rescue his child. He was so close.
“I can’t feel anything but a nasty mess…I’d rather hold the uterus than do this,” Roman admitted, disgusted by what he was doing.
John rolled his eyes, knowing that they were losing previous time. “Fine, come over and hold this,” John said as he took Romans’s bloody hand and placed it on the edge of Marlena’s open abdomen. “Don’t move..Matrona, what’s her pulse?” John asked as he reached his hand inside of Marlena and quickly ruptured the thin menbrane of her uterine sac. As he pulled his hand out a flood of amniontic fluid gushed out. John quickly took hold of her uterus from Roman.
“Fifty.”
“Shit, this baby’s coming out now…Where the hell is Alexie? Come on Doc, hang in there for me a little while longer,” he begged her, concentrating on the task before him.
“Matrona, I need you to stop what you are doing and go into the bathroom and get a clean towel. I’m going to hand you the baby, while Roman and I concentrate on Doc,” John ordered her as he slowly reached into Marlena’s uterus and felt for the baby’s head. “Roman, press down on the top of her stomach,” John ordered him. As Roman pressed down, John was able to grab the baby by the head and support its neck as he slowly lifted the baby from her body. John picked up the knife and cut the umbilical cord.
“Matrona, hurry,” John yelled. Matrona came running in from the bathroom with an open towel in her arms. “Oh my god,” she whispered when she saw the tiny baby that John was holding.
“Take the baby,” he said as he handed the baby off to her.
“Get me the soldering iron Roman,” John asked as he applied pressure on her uterus where it was bleeding profusely. “Where the fuck is Alexie…we need him here now.”
“The baby’s not breathing,” Matrona said in a panic.
“Shit, Roman put your hand here,” John said as he grabbed Roman’s hand and placed it upon Marlena’s uterus.
“I’m going to be sick,” Roman said to himself as he applied pressure and closed his eyes tightly.
“Let me see the baby,” John said as he took his child out of Matrona’s arms. He rubbed the baby’s face with a towel to see if stimulation would cause the baby to breathe on its own. “Shit,” he said as he realized that the baby still wasn’t breathing. “Come on baby,” he said before he lowered his mouth over the baby’s mouth and nose trying to clear the airway of mucous. The baby cried out loudly.
“Thank god,” Roman said.
“Clean the baby and keep it warm,” John said as he kissed the baby on its forehead and then handed him back into Matrona’s waiting arms. Marlena had given him a son.
“Let me see,” John said to Roman as he got back on the bed. “Roman, I need for you to check her pulse for me…. With all this blood loss I’m concerned.”
“Thirty-five John,” Roman said in a panic. “We’re losing her.”
“Give me the pillows now,” John ordered as he reached up and grabbed two of the pillows on the bed and placed them under Marlena’s thighs and butt. “I need more pillows,” John yelled. Roman got up from the bed and ran into the other room and returned with more pillows. John quickly placed them under Marlena, trying to raise her legs.
“Pulse?”
“Thirty.”
“Damn.” John moved the pillows so that her lower abdomen was higher than her heart.
“Pulse?”
“Thirty-five…. Its climbing,” Roman said ecstatically, surprised that what John had done appeared to be working.
“How’s the baby?” John asked Matrona as he looked over to where she was sitting on the floor with the baby, cleaning him up.
“This little boy is a strong one,” Matrona said as she looked down at the black haired child.
“Roman, keep monitoring her pulse…Alexie?” John yelled again as he reached over to the nightstand and grabbed the soldering iron. After several tense minutes he was able to control her bleeding. He slowly reached into her abdomen to retrieve the placenta.
“What the fuck,” he said as he came into contract with a foot.
“Roman, press down on her abdomen again, like before,” John said in a panic, realizing that at least ten minutes had gone by since the first baby was delivered. “Please let this baby be alright,” he said to himself as he felt for the head and neck. As Roman pushed down, John was able to free the baby.
“Oh my god,” Roman said in astonishment and then started laughing. What was the probability of this happening?
“Monitor the pulse…make sure it’s increasing…if it drops I need to know immediately,” John told Roman as he took the baby and placed it on the bed, cutting the umbilical cord first. .
“Come on little one,” John said as he stroked the baby’s face lightly, then put his mouth over the baby’s nose and mouth and lightly blew, trying to dislodge any mucous from the airway. The baby was still unresponsive. “Come on baby,” John said as he tried to suction and clear the baby’s airways once again. He felt for a pulse and didn’t find one.
“Dammit, I’m not going to lose you,” he said as he started CPR on his little girl. After 30 seconds of chest compressions, he breathed into her nose and mouth, praying that she would breathe on her own.
“The medevac is still grounded in Anchorage,” Alexie informed John as he entered the room. “Holy shit,” he said upon seeing all the blood and two babies.
“Alexie, I need for you to monitor Marlena’s pulse. If it drops below 35 beats per minute I need to know…. Roman, I need for you to check and make sure that there isn’t another baby in there,” John ordered as he gave the baby chest compressions.
He stopped long enough to blow into the baby’s nose and mouth.
From across the room John heard the wail of his newborn son. Roman smiled at the sound and then grimaced as he reached into Marlena’s exposed uterus. “Nope,” Roman said as he slowly felt around.
“Check to see if the placenta is detached. I imagine that it is and its what caused the bleeding to begin with,” John said matter of factly as he rhythmically gave his daughter chest compressions with his fingers. She was so small and frail looking, much smaller than her brother.
Roman slowly lifted the placenta out of Marlena and set it on the bed beside her, covering it with a towel. “Now what?” he asked as he watched John trying to revive the tiny infant.
“Alexie, how’s Marlena’s pulse?”
“Fine.”
“Roman, please go quickly to the kitchen and bring saran wrap and more towels up here. Also grab the space heater that’s in my office. We are going to need it to keep these babies warm.”
“I feel a pulse,” John exclaimed as he felt and saw the tiny beat of his daughters heart. “Come on baby, breathe for daddy,” John said before he blew into her mouth and nose once again.
“I love you so much little one…breathe for me please,” he softly pleaded with his daughter. He blew into her once again, praying that she could do this on her own. Suddenly she gasped for air, coughed and started breathing on her own. “Oh thank god,” John exclaimed as he watched his daughter’s color change from blue to a beautiful pink. He checked her pulse and was thankful that it was near 100 beats per minute.
“Got the items,” Roman said as he entered the room, looking at the site before him.
“Roman, wrap the babies torsos in the saran wrap place them in a blanket near the space heater. Due to their prematurity they are susceptible to hypothermia. Monitor their pulses and make sure that it doesn’t drop below 100 beats per minute. I need to help their mother.” John handed his blond haired daughter over to Roman and wiped his bloody hands on his pants and knelt next to Marlena, sewing kit in hand.
“Doc, I’m so proud of you…Just a couple more minutes and this will all be over with and you can wake up and see your beautiful babies,” John said softly to Marlena as he threaded a needle and began to slowly sew her up.
“Doc, you should see the babies, they are both strong fighters just like you…They need their mother and so do I so you’d better hang in there for me.” As John sewed the incision that he had made, he spoke words of love and encouragement to Marlena, hoping that she could hear him and would have the strength to hold on until help arrived.
“Pulse?” He asked Alexie.
“Sixty five and holding.”
John nodded his head, slowly looking around the room before him. Matrona and Roman were tending to the babies in the corner of the room, trying to keep them warm. He could see an occasional hand reach out, but little else. Alexie sat up against the headboard monitoring Marlena’s pulse, in shock at what had happened. As John observed what was before him he tried to comprehend how in less than one hour everything could change so much. Less than one hour before he was talking to her in the bathroom, now she lay pale and lifeless in the middle of the bed. John had medical training and knew full well the statistical probability of survival with this amount of blood loss. Her chances were not good and neither were the babies.
“John,” Alexie asked looking around at the blood that seemingly covered the surface of everything within a five-foot radius of the bed, “What happens if the medevac can’t get here soon because of the storm.”
“Then she dies,” John said as a single tear rolled down his cheek. “She dies.”
