Welcome to the Madhouse

Welcome To The Madhouse: Chapter Six

Chapter Six: Drop Dead Gorgeous

"Dr. Grace!" Dr. Al-Fadi exclaimed loudly, as Grace entered the doctors' lounge. "Where have you been? We have been waiting for you . . . again! How do you expect us to get any work done, if you are nowhere to be found?"

"I was rounding on our patients," Grace said, in an apologetic tone.

"Ah! Then I am afraid I will have to . . . forgive you!" the surgeon said, with a placated expression on his round face.

"Come, Dr. Grace, and look at these scans of our next patient. Tell me what you think we should do."

The small surgeon beckoned for Grace to sit down on the couch beside him. After activating a control on the table before them, and reciting a name and identifier number, Dr. Al-Fadi called up a patient's three dimensional body scan; it was displayed and rotated right before them. Using a swipe of her fingers, Grace manipulated the series of full body scans of the patient, who happened to be enormous, turning them around, removing layer by layer, front to back and top to bottom, to examine each vital organ and body part.

Throughout the heart and both lungs of this patient were scattered hundreds of long, sharp needles, each about the length of her index finger. The needles had pierced the soldier's body armour and shredded the tissues of the patient's upper body as they scattered throughout the chest. Grace winced as she looked at the images. If it were not for the battle-suit sealing over all the holes and immediately cryofreezing the patient, there would not have been much upper body left to operate on. Surprisingly, brain activity was still intact, so if they were successful in replacing the heart, lungs, thoracic aorta, pulmonary veins, esophagus, and could fix all of the holes in the chest wall, the patient might actually have a chance of making a successful recovery.

To Grace, it seemed like a very big 'if'.

"Neither the lungs nor the heart are salvageable. The major problem is whether we have replacement lungs and heart large enough to adequately serve this patient. What kind of animal adaptation is it?" Grace asked.

"She," Dr. Al-Fadi emphasized. "A she-bear adapt. A grizzly bear adaptation, actually, and she stands at almost three meters tall! We have no vat-grown organs large enough to fit her. We can replace with biomechanical organs or keep her in cryostorage until we grow organs large enough for her. What would be your choice, Dr. Grace?"

"Are the biomechanical organs capable of handling the size of this patient?"

"Excellent question, Dr. Grace!" sighed Dr. Al-Fadi. "I knew you were not just a pretty face! You remind me of myself, when I was younger, except that you are tall, blonde, beautiful, and female, whereas I was short, bald, irresistible, and all male! But, other than that, we could have passed for twins!

"We must wait, Dr. Grace, and vat-grow the correct, genetically-adapted heart and lungs to fit this ample, grizzly bear woman, in order to operate successfully on her! As you surmised! Bioprostheses would be totally inadequate, unless they were made for a grizzly bear to begin with, which unfortunately, they are not. We will have to keep Miss Grizzly in cryostasis until then.

"Luckily, I stopped the nurses from beginning the cryothaw this morning or we would have had a disaster on our hands! Instead, we will be operating on a wolf-adaptation - a she-wolf - with crushed lower limbs. How much wolf anatomy do you know, Dr. Grace?" Dr. Al-Fadi asked.

"About as much as I knew about tigers," Grace admitted.

"Ah! Less than nothing, then! What kind of doctors are they sending me these days? Well, you had better upload all the information you can into your cerebral augmentation unit, before we start the surgery. Otherwise, you will be of no help to me at all, Dr. Grace! Hurry now. You have less than five minutes before we scrub."