Solo Broken Bones

[Waisana]

17th Winter 513AV

A knife was moved carefully down the material, cutting the cloth in as straight a line as possible using a sawing motion. Waisana had pulled the material taut before taking a knife to it. The healer divided the cloth as evenly as she could, cutting it into long strips that would be rolled into bandages. The material tore and ripped as it was cut through until at last the cloth had been divided into small enough pieces. Each piece was then taken up and rolled into small bundles, ready for use at some stage in the future. It was a time consuming task but a necessary one. Those in the healing tents often took turns in preparing such medical supplies. They were always needed and so producing them was a near constant process, best shared among them.

When the teen finished shredding her cloth and rolling it, she put the new bundles in a basket and carried them to the different treatment tables, restocking the diminished supplies. When she was finished, she returned the basket to where she’d found it and set about looking for some other task to do. It was while she was looking around that she spotted the latest entrant to the tent, a young man waiting in the tent entrance while trying to catch the eye of one of the people working in the tent. Waisana moved towards him, a friendly and welcoming smile on her face. Being male it was unlikely that he would be a captive and so the girl used Pavi rather than Common.

”Hello. How can I help you?” Her gestures suggested an eagerness to help and the man looked back at her gratefully. She did a quick visual assessment checking for any obvious signs of trauma. She quickly scanned his face before moving down his body, checking for any tears in his clothes, or to see if he was nursing any wounds. He brought the problem to her attention before she could get very far. He raised his right hand slightly to show it to her, his right hand gripped in his left hand. She assumed that it was damaged in some way but she couldn’t see anything clearly with his other hand in the way.

”I hurt my hand. I don’t think that it’s broken but I dunno. Mind looking at it? It really hurts and I’d like to get back to work so if you could give me something for the pain...” the man told her, grinning sheepishly at her. She gathered his tone of speech from his expression as well as his words, the normal method of speaking Pavi diminished by his inability to sign. She nodded in agreement and beckoned him over to one of the treatment tables. She did not intend to just give him something for the pain as he suggested but she knew that there was no point in arguing, that he could be persuaded against a return to activity after she’d examined him.

She washed her hands before seating herself beside him at the treatment table, she held out her hands in readiness and he gingerly placed his right hand on top of them. It became immediately apparent that an injury had been sustained. His index and middle fingers were swollen and red, approaching purple in some places. She turned his hand gently, examining the fingers to see if there was any broken skin or blood. There were no lacerations so the damage was internal. It could just be tissue damage or it could be damage to the bones. She got up to collect some cold water and cloth, soaking the material in the liquid before placing it on the skin in an effort to numb it and bring down some of the swelling. The man winced.

”Sorry, uh...I don’t know your name” The horse maiden looked at him in question. He looked back at her blankly for a moment and then seemed to realise that she was asking him his name. ”Oh right, I’m Zerak,” he replied, trying to smile but it came across more as a grimace. The healer shot him a sympathetic look. ”Yes, well sorry about this Zerak. I need to bring down the swelling a bit first before I start checking things. What happened exactly?” Waisana asked, her expression inquisitive. She moved the cloth off of his hand, squeezed it over the bowl and dipped it in cold water again.

Zerak didn’t answer right away and when the girl looked up, she found that his cheeks had coloured. The teen frowned, wondering why the man seemed embarrassed. What on Mizahar had he been doing that had caused such an injury? He did look uncomfortable but she couldn’t imagine what could have embarrassed him.

”Oh well, I oversee horses and I was checking the hooves of one and I had a bit of an accident,” the man explained, his eyes dropping from hers as he found himself unable to meet her gaze. The next part came out as a mumble. ”I didn’t pay attention, just for a tick and the horse I was supposed to be looking at stepped backwards. Onto my hand.” The healer nodded in understanding. She could understand the man’s embarrassment now. His injury had been caused by foolish carelessness and so he felt shame. She didn’t think that it warranted such a reaction however.

Now that she understood how he’d gotten his injury, she’d have an idea of the degree of damage. It was unlikely that his fingers had escaped breakage but a simple examination would tell her more. Unwrapping the cloth from around the injury once more, the teen noted that the swelling had reduced so now would be the time to begin her probing.

”Sorry, this is going to hurt but bear with me.”

[Waisana]

Zerak's fingers were put to Waisana's examination as she grasped his hand gently. She pressed the man's index finger between her fingers, trying to be as gentle as possible. Her examination required her to press quite firmly to actually feel the bones through the swollen flesh so she couldn't be as gentle as she'd like but at least she wasn't being completely inconsiderate. The girl apologised as she probed, pausing to give Zerak a chance to catch his breath before she continued. The bone immediately above the knuckle of his middle finger felt divided to the teen so it seemed a fairly straightforward fracture. The damage to the index finger was more extensive. The bone above the knuckle of that finger felt shattered. There was no holding the bones together to allow them to heal. The pieces had already moved out of place and she couldn't realign them. She couldn't fix it and she couldn't leave it that way. The internal trauma would cause problems and the shards would probably end up cutting out through the flesh. She'd have to amputate it, it was the only way.

She released his hand and regarded him with a somber expression. "Both of your index and middle fingers are broken above the knuckle. I can strap up your middle finger no problem but your index finger is too badly damaged. The bone is shattered so I can't put it back together," Waisana explained, pausing as she thought about how to break the bad news to the poor patient. His expression became confused. He'd obviously assumed that she would be able to fix whatever was wrong with him, putting total faith in her because that was her job.

"I don't get it. How are you going to fix my index finger then? You can't do it the same way as my middle finger?" Zerak asked, watching her expectantly. The girl shook her head. Her eyes and her manner clearly showed her regret. "I can't fix the bone at all. I'm sorry but I'll have to amputate it." They regarded each other silently, the apology clear in Waisana's eyes as she stared back at the startled man. The girl hadn't been in a situation like this before so she didn't know what to say to comfort him, to try to explain it away. All she could do was wait for him to say something in response to her words so that she could respond, so she'd have something to say. Her diagnosis seemed to have struck the poor fellow dumb, leaving the two of them in an uncomfortable silence. The way he just stared at her was a little disconcerting and she was strongly inclined to say something, even if it was only nonsense.

"You mean you're going to cut it off?" he squeaked, voice cracking as the awful truth finally seemed to sink in. The girl nodded in response, unsure of what else to say. "Will it be quick? Will it hurt a lot?" Waisana bit her lip, considering. She didn't know how long it would take her to do although she knew it was something that couldn't be rushed. She knew how to perform an amputation of course, she just hadn't done one before.

"It can't be done too fast, you understand. I might do more harm than good otherwise and I won't lie it'll hurt. I'll give you something for the pain though so it won't be too bad." Her words probably weren't very comforting but she couldn't help being honest. She didn't see the point of sugar coating it. "So I'll strap up your middle finger first and then I'll treat your index finger, all right?"

[Waisana]

Zerak didn't put up any kind of protest, didn't react at all in fact. He just sat there stating at the hand that she was going to have to maim. It was pointless sitting and staring back at him so Waisana rose and set about gathering supplies. She found a fine blade and a needle and left them in the hands of another to sear in the fire while she strapped up the man's finger. She decided that it was better to keep quiet unless really necessary and so she didn't explain what she was doing as she went along, instead working in silence.

Straightening the man's middle finger, she reset the fractures before she splinted it with a piece of wood. She secured it in place by wrapping a bandage around it and tying it in place. As an extra precaution Waisana used another bandage to tie the splinted finger to the one beside it. The reduced mobili would also discourage him from using his hand, something that he was certainly going to need to do. True, she couldn't ensure complete obedience in her patience but it was always good to try. The middle finger was the east appendage to treat however bit there was no point putting off the amputation any more than necessary and it wasn't fair to draw the ordeal out. Such a thing would be cruel.

She used a piece of cloth to pick up some of the numbing salve she'd collected so as not to numb her own skin in the process. She applied to generously around the finger to just below the knuckle joint and washed her hands afterwards as a precaution when she discarded her cloth. A tourniquet was tied around the base of his finger to try to cut off as much blood flow to the area as possible. Then taking the blade from the person by the fire, she carried it to her patient. The blade was kept at her side in an effort to keep it hidden. She didn't want the man to start panicking before she'd even started after all.

When she was ready to begin, Zerak seemed to have come somewhat to his senses, his wide eyes following her every movement. "Zerak, perhaps you should look away for the moment, okay? If you're looking at what I'm doing then you'll think that it hurts more than it does. The mind can create the illusion of pain, even when there is none," she explained to the man, her gestures somewhat impaired by the blade that she was keeping hidden in one hand. Her patient complied quickly, looking away from his hand towards the tent entrance.

Taking his hand once more, she ensured that the tourniquet was still tight before lifting his index finger up so that she could plan how to go about this. She would need to remove the shattered pieces of bone and she would need to leave a flap of skin so that the wound could be closed up. She tilted the finger from side to side, trying to work out where she'd need to make a cut. She'd need to make an incision at the knuckle and work the blade between the bones in order to sever the connection there. A piece of cloth was placed under the finger on the table, ready to catch the blood and particulates that were sure to come out of it.

She used the blade to cut down the side of the index finger from the base of the finger nail to the knuckle. She cut across the skin then to the other side and repeated her cut up the finger. She cut under his finger from the bottom edge of the nail to the other, following on from her earlier incision. Blood had already started to ooze from the incisions but she didn't think the blood flow was too bad. She used a pinching tool to peel back the skin, pulling the flesh from the bone. When the skin was removed, she could see the inner workings of Zerak's finger and could see exactly how badly damaged the bones within were. The bones had been splinted, shattered, multiple pieces left in the flesh. She'd need to take out the pieces before she could use the skin to close the wound.

She drove the point of the knife in between the bones at the knuckle, separating the good bones from the damaged ones. Once that was done, she could more easily remove the shattered bones. Using the pinching tool, the girl began to pull chunks of bone out until enough of it had been taken out. When that was done she cut away the excess skin and pulled the flap of skin over the stub. Waisana made a gesture for the woman by the fire to bring her the needle and take away the blade. The needle had already been threaded with gut thread so it was only a matter of sewing the wound closed.

It was a slow process pulling the thread through in small tight loops so as to make small neat stitches. It took her about half a bell to close the incision properly and once that was done, she knew the worst was over. She gathered the removed pieces and wrapped them in cloth. She then wrapped the end of his finger in wadding and held it in place.

"Okay, Zerak, you can look around now. Can you hold this wadding in place please?" the healer told him. The man had gone very pale during the procedure she noticed but he took a hold of the wadding with shaking fingers. When it was held in place, she was able to release the tourniquet to allow blood to flow back into the tissue. "Hold that firmly in place please and don't panic. There will be some blood but that's to be expected." She left him alone for a chime while she disposed of the leftover material and washed her hands. Despite her precautions, the numbing salve had partly numbed her hands and so washing it off was important.