to face the death you're never that far from

dath ilani Celegorm is Merrin's patient

Author

Swimmer963

Thread Description

Merrin working in Exception Handling

  • Status: in progress
  • Warnings:
    • dubiously canonical dath ilan
    • medical drama
    • non-lintacanon Feanorians
    • who are in dath ilan for some reason
    • ICU medicine in way too much detail
    • gross medical procedures and bodily fluids
    • I am not kidding about the bodily fluids
    • overly honest depiction of ICU nursing
    • except in dath ilan so it's also vagueblogging Earth constantly

Prerequisites

  • optionally, for no laid course prepare (how Merrin came to the attention of Exception Handling), for background on Merrin, dath ilan, and Exception Handling
  • optionally, something with Feanorians in it, for background on the family

Setting

Timeline

Day 0

5 hours before thread start, ~7pm: Merrin starts being vaguely on call

1 hour 45 minutes before thread start (10:15pm?): Kalorm's boat capsizes

45 minutes before thread start (11:15pm?): Kalorm and co call for help, Merrin's helicopter heads for them

~35 minutes later: Kalorm goes underwater

Day 1

Around midnight Default time: Thread start

11 minutes after Kalorm goes underwater: Merrin surfaces with Kalorm and is pulled up to the helicopter

~20 minutes later (12:20am?): helicopter lands on nearby ship, Kalorm's shipmates moved off helicopter, stabilization protocol on Kalorm

less than 30 minutes later, 50 minutes after Kalorm gets pulled out (12:50am?): medicopter takes off from ship, Kalorm cooled to 18 C

~70 minutes later: medicopter meets medevac plane, transfer happens (takes less time than the 20 minutes originally planned)

~1 hour after transfer complete (3am?): Kalorm's family head to the hospital

~2 hours after transfer complete, 3h 50m after Kalorm pulled out, ~1h before dawn in Default, ~4am: medevac plane lands in Default Hospital. Kalorm transferred to heart-lung bypass. Nerdel and Finnar briefly visit.

~30min later, ~4.5 hours after Merrin's shift starts (4:30am?): 12-hour rewarming protocol starts. 

12 hours later, 16 h 40m after thread start (4:40pm?): Merrin goes off-duty, Avarris takes over. Merrin gets a painful massage and then falls asleep.

5 hours later (9:40pm?): Avarris goes off-duty after getting Kalorm off the bypass machine. Nerdel visits.

around midnight: Khemeth visits Kalorm and plans what happens next.

Day 2

~noon: Khemeth meets with Merrin and briefs her on Kalorm's weird psychology

~5pm, ~24 hours after rewarming protocol ended: Merrin's shift starts. Kalorm gets rewarmed the rest of the way and un-sedated, takes probably about three hours to actually wake up.

Day 3

~midnight: Kalorm starts complaining, gets mad at Khemeth and tries to fight Merrin to pull out his breathing tube, asks to be moved to the floor. Minimum-support ventilator trials every so often for the rest of Merrin's shift.

6am: Khemeth goes to bed

7:30am: Merrin goes off-duty, Tharrim takes over. Attempt at a dialysis run cut off when Kalorm complains about the noise.

2pm: Halthis's shift starts. Adventures with lung-recruitment therapy. Successful dialysis run.

6pm: Merrin wakes up, gets a painful massage, jumps into extremely cold water

8pm: Kerrin's shift starts.

8:30pm: Merrin arrives for her not-quite-shift while Kerrin is getting a report from Halthis.

~10pm: Adventures with bronchoscopy-while-not-fully-sedated. (Kalorm wakes up after it at 10:30pm). Minimum settings trial for an hour.

~11:30pm: Kalorm off ventilator. Merrin has a Concern. Kalorm has a parasympathetic response to exertion, ultrasound does not show anything very wrong. Nerdel visits and Merrin leaves.

Day 4

2am: Kerrin's shift ends and Dalthem's begins. Dalthem keeps the lights off and mostly stays out of the room to let Kalorm sleep.

6:25am: Kalorm briefly wakes up with nausea. 

8am: Dalthem's shift ends and Tharrim's begins.

9:18am: Kalorm wakes up with nausea again, this time with extra terribleness and pain. 

~10:20am: Dialysis run.

11am: Merrin's shift starts, Tharrim sticks around in case she needs backup.

11:30am: Adventures with enema. Coughing leads to nausea and throwing up, then passing out. And cramps. And adventures with blood pressure. Followed by MRI adventures.

~1pm: Adventures with poking scopes down Kalorm's intestines.

~4pm: Back in the ICU.

~5:30pm: Bloodwork shows signs of systemic infection. Merrin promises Kalorm she won't leave. Another round of MRI adventures, during which oxygen saturation drops a bit. Merrin has more Concern.

~7pm: Back in the ICU. Kalorm is not doing well.

7:45pm: Halthis's shift starts (slightly early because Merrin asks for backup). Kalorm tries to avoid going back on the ventilator for as long as possible, but that doesn't turn out to be very long. After that, everything is terrible.

~8:15pm: Kalorm goes into cardiac arrest, Merrin does CPR, and eventually things get sort of precariously stable.

9:30pm: Merrin goes off-duty. And cries. Khemeth experiences an urge to slap Merrin and thereby discovers masochists exist. Instead he tells her to take a shower and get herself in a better headspace.

~11pm: Merrin looks at the unapproved options for Treatment Planning and flags the "cocoon and prone" option as intuitively promising, and then goes to sleep. Halthis plays whack-a-mole with all of Kalorm's various issues.

12:19am: Kalorm goes into rapid atrial fibrillation, which gets fixed via cardioversion

Day 5

2am: Halthis's shift ends, Kerrin's shift starts. Kalorm gradually improves, a little bit, mostly, except his lungs.

5:45am: Merrin wakes up. Kalorm gets cocooned and proned. Kalorm continues to gradually improve.

8am: Kerrin's shift ends, Dalthem's shift starts. Kalorm continues to improve.

~12pm: Kalorm tolerates being flipped to his back ok, so they take him for another MRI

1:15pm: back in the ICU, Kalorm in prone position again. Ileocecal valve removed.

2pm: Dalthem goes off-duty. Since Kalorm is unconscious, someone without a name who has not been hand-picked to get along with Kalorm takes over.

3:44pm: Kalorm's heart does some arrhythmias because his electrolytes got fucked up

5pm: random medtech swaps for other random medtech. Merrin tries to nap, mostly fails, eats food.

6:45pm: Kalorm gets weaned off the paralytics. Kalorm enthusiastically attempts to spike a fever and gets opiods about it.

10:30pm: random medtech #3 goes off-duty, Merrin goes to bed. Kalorm gradually improves.

Day 6

~12am: Kalorm spends ~30m on his back

4:15am: Merrin wakes up with a nightmare, spends a little while up, goes back to bed at 5:30am.

6am: Kalorm spends another ~30m on his back

8am: Tharrim's shift starts.

9:45am: Merrin wakes up.

12pm: Kalorm gets flipped onto his back again, gets a CT and a bed-bath, then gets flipped back and gets the other half of the bath. Kalorm continues to gradually improve.

2pm: Tharrim leaves, a Random Medtech takes over

6pm: Kalorm spends another 30m on his back. After he is flipped back, his sedative dose is decreased, and he soon again attempts to spike a higher fever, which they give him fever reducers about.

9:15pm: Kalorm, while still unconscious, is less sedated now, and is getting weaned off many of the various drugs he is on. Merrin goes to bed. Kalorm continues to improve overnight.

Day 7

8am: Halthis comes in. Merrin gets up.

8:35am: Halthis starts easing down the sedation further.

~9:20am: Kalorm wakes up and freaks out about being upside down. They re-sedate him a bit, flip him onto his back, and try again, this time more successfully. Kalorm promptly falls asleep.

10:30am: Kalorm gets flipped back to prone and keeps napping.

12:20pm: Kalorm wakes up with nausea from the antibiotic and gets drugs for it. Merrin takes a break. 

2pm: Kerrin's shift starts. Merrin back from her break. Kalorm gets flipped back onto his back and starts very basic rehab exercises. Merrin definitely does not laugh at him. 

8pm: Kerrin leaves, Dalthem's shift starts.

8:30pm: Kalorm gets turned onto his back again and Merrin tells him what happened and why he's been unconscious. Then he gets another bath.

9:30pm: Kalorm gets flipped onto his front and goes to sleep for the night. So does Merrin.

Day 8

6am: Kalorm wakes up, asks to be on his back, taken off sedation, and to do exercises.

7:45am: Merrin wakes up.

8am: Halthis's shift starts. Kalorm asks what the hell is up with the cookies, and proceeds to demand that Merrin also get cookies, which gets enthusiastic support from Halthis and the rest of the medical team. Kalorm sits up on the side of the bed. Merrin gets cookie breakfast while Kalorm naps after his exertion. For the rest of the day, Kalorm alternates naps with pushing himself with rehab exercises and minimum setting ventilator trials.

4pm: Kalorm's dialysis line pulled.

8pm: Dalthem's shift starts.

9:30pm: Kalorm flipped back to prone and goes to sleep for the night.

Day 9

8am: Tharrim's shift starts. Kalorm wakes up. Merrin is awake and has had cookie breakfast. Kalorm asks for a minimum settings trial, but it makes him have a panic attack because he can't breathe. Merrin gives him a hug and he goes to sleep.

11:15am: Kalorm wakes up again. This time he stands up (with a lot of assistance), and exerts himself sufficiently that he throws up. Then he takes a nap, and so does Merrin.

1:30pm: Kalorm wakes up and watches a music video of Merrin eating cookies.

2pm: Tharrim leaves, Dalthem takes over. Kalorm sits in a chair.

3pm: Kalorm does lots of exercises while in the chair, alternating with rest and naps.

6pm: Minimum settings trial (while in chair). Kalorm gets off the ventilator, then takes a nap.

8:30pm: Kalorm wakes up with a nightmare. Merrin gives him ice chips and then warm water, which Kalorm drinks himself out of a cup. Then it is bedtime for Kalorms and Merrins. 

Day 10

overnight: Kalorm squirms in his sleep a lot and causes problems for the various equipment. His pain meds get switched off because of this.

8am: Merrin wakes up. Halthis is on duty. Kalorm drinks some apple juice, and then discovers that he is in pain.

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