#pneumothorax
Whumptober Day 8
Dr. Byrne meets Kai at the entrance to the ED. “What’s up?”
“Jack Brooks. 40-year-old male collapsed with sudden severe chest pain and shortness of breath a couple hours after playing football with his kids. Wife and kids are on their way over. Sats holding in the mid-80s, heart rate at 120, pressure at 130/90.”
Dr. Byrne glances over at Dr. Howell. “Alright. Bring him to trauma two. I need ultrasound.” He walks along the stretcher and helps Kai transfer Jack to the bed. “Okay, Mr. Brooks,” he says, squirting some ultrasound gel onto the probe, “my name is Dr. Byrne. I am here to help you. Now, this is going to be a bit cold, but it’ll help me get a better sense of what is going on.” He pushes the probe into Jack’s chest.
Jack flinches in pain. His breaths are heavy and strained. “Can’t breathe,” he pants out.
Dr. Howell appears behind Dr. Byrne. She grabs an Oxygen mask from behind the gurney and places it over Jack’s face. She looks over at the ultrasound screen. “Dr. Byrne, what do we see here?”
“That looks like a pneumothorax.” Dr. Byrne spies Jack’s blank expression out of the corner of his eye. “It means you have a collapsed lung. My recommendation for your current situation is a needle aspiration of the pleural cavity. This procedure can be done right here, right now, but it’s a bit uncomfortable. Do we have your consent to proceed?”
Day 8: Coughing up a Lung
Summary: Erik’s not feeling too well, but it takes some worrying from Mia (of all people) for him to seek help.
Word count: 870
Erik clears his throat and strikes his hand against his chest twice.
Mia glares at him as he coughs and rolls her eyes dramatically. “Really?”
“What?” Erik snaps.
“You’ve been coughing nonstop for, like, days.”
"It’s not been days,” Erik snaps back.
“Uh-huh.” The hum of an indignant sister.
They have a glaring fight, one Erik choses to interpret as himself winning, then he pushes past her and farther on the trail.
“Seriously! I don’t know why you don’t just, like, ask someone for help! You know, like a healer!” Mia grouches behind his left shoulder.
Erik shakes his head. "I know Serena, and I’m not gonna bother her.”
"Why not? Is there something wrong with her?” Mia asks. She runs up to his side. A grin splinters across Mia’s lips. “Ooh, or do you maybe have a thing for her?”
Erik dry heaves. “No.”
“Ew. Okay…”
“Not that she isn’t a nice person or anything,” Erik says. “She definitely is! She just…”
Reminded him of Eleven, the last thing he wanted to be thinking about now.
“Goddess, you have so many weird problems,” Mia sneers. “I’m happy I don’t have problems like you!”
“Whatever,” Erik says somewhat emphatically.
…
Erik is sleeping in the middle of the night, swaddled in the comfort of darkness, when he feels a tightening in his chest and blearily opens his eyes. He jolts up in bed and heaves for breath, and it comes, albeit raggedly.
He starts to cough, and he hears Mia shuffling in the blankets next to him, darting to a sitting position.
“Is everything okay?” Mia asks over his coughing.
His eyes adjust to the dark and he sees her silhouette. Worse than that, he hears the worry lacing her words.
Erik’s able to rein himself in after what feels like too long, and even once the coughs have subsided he’s still short of breath, hunched over slightly and clutching at himself to sate it.
“Yeah, I'm— fine,” Erik assures through a slight cough.
“Stop lying!” Mia’s shout is loud, jarring.
Erik briefly freezes, his heart panicking. He collects his hands in his lap, worrying his lower lip.
He knows what he should do. Ask for help. Visit Serena, or Rab, or even Hendrik. Take his pick. This isn’t what Eleven would have wanted of him, and it certainly isn’t worth putting his sister through extra worry.
“Stop lying,” Mia repeats. “I know you’re struggling, so why are you hiding it? I’m tired of worrying about you!”
Erik ought to be worried for his life now, if Mia’ssaying that.
“First thing tomorrow morning, we’ll go to Heliodor. Visit Serena.”
“Promise?” Mia whispers.
“Promise.”
Mia sighs. “Alright. You better stay alive till then.”
“Of course I will,” Erik reassures. “You can’t get rid of me that easy.”
…
“…And how long have you had the pain?”
Erik’s sitting on the edge of a bed. He rests one shoe on top of the other, swiping the sole across his big toe, the material of his shoe thin enough for him to feel it. Sunlight filters into the small room, casting the wooden floor in a gentle orange. It smells of lavender. Serena’s leaning close to him, listening to his heartbeat.
“Since… since that,” Erik says.
"Sorry?” Serena asks. She straightens up, tilting her head.
Erik clears his throat. “At the Tower of Lost Time…”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“You should have come to us sooner!” Serena exclaims. “And healing spells haven’t been helping it?”
“I haven’t tried any healing spells. I’ve been eating medicinal herbs, though.”
“Well… hm. And you said it was trouble breathing?”
Erik nods.
“It might be a collapsed lung.”
“Really?” Erik’s eyes almost pop out of his head. How does she know that? And why didn’t a healing spell help it?
“Healing spells are good at regeneration, it’s true, but it’s not going to re-inflate a lung,” Serena explains.
The words make Erik shutter. He grimaces. "How do we fix it?”
“Bed rest,” Serena says. “I feel that perhaps you should be resting anyway. I do think some sleep would be good for you, after all that has happened lately. I know it has been good for me, at least.”
“You’re right,” Erik says. “I just don’t feel like staying in one place much, you know?”
“Why?”
Serena looks genuinely curious and Erik doesn’t want to have to explain it, but knowing Serena and how slow she is, she probably doesn’t understand.
“I’m… trying to escape something, but I can’t… physically run from it.”
“Ohhhh… I’m sorry, about Eleven leaving,” Serena says.
She reaches out for his hand and he lets her touch his. She frowns and Erik sighs, shaking his head.
“Yeah, no, thanks. It’s… it’ll get better. I’m sure you’re going through it too. Everyone probably is.”
“Yes, but that’s why we have each other,” Serena says. “We should talk to Jade about you staying here a little longer. Then we can pull up a room for you and you can stay with us for a little while! Doesn’t that just sound splendid?”
Erik nods as he massages his chest again, his breaths growing tight. “Yeah! Thanks, Serena. You’re a lifesaver.”
“Anything for a friend,” Serena says, smiling.
Whumptober, Day 8 - Gabriel Reyes, Jack Morrison
Prompt:Coughing up a lung (pneumothorax, exotic illness, “definitely just a cold”)
Fandom:Overwatch
Characters:Gabriel Reyes (Reaper) and Jack Morrison (Soldier: 76)
Rating:T
Words:828
Notes:Requested by Anonymous! Hope you see this and enjoy! Mild Language warning
Brilliant light pierced through Gabe’s skull when someone thumbed his eye open. Voices spoke above his head, but he couldn’t make sense of them. Alarms rang somewhere in the distance, or maybe they were close at hand. His body didn’t seem able to distinguish the two. It took him longer than it should have to realize that he couldn’t understand the language washing over him. Panic rippled through his body as he tried to make the scattered pieces fit together.
Consciousness came in waves. Flashes of light, urgent voices, and pain. Gabe opened his mouth to tell the hand running over his stomach to fuck off, but pain shot through his ribs when he drew a breath. Something heavy sat on his chest, compressing it. He couldn’t get enough air despite his desperate gasp. Agony radiated through his left shoulder, sharp and sudden.
I’m having a heart attack, Gabe recognized with a macabre amusement. I’m dying.
The thought was chased by annoyance that the nanites that SEP had pumped Gabe full of wouldn’t prevent such a mundane death. He coughed and couldn’t draw enough oxygen to keep the spots from his vision. He gagged on the lack of air, clawing at his throat. A sidearm cocked beside his head made Gabe shy away. The sound was loud enough to rupture an eardrum, as were the screams that followed. Then, a familiar voice swam through the cacophony. “Do something, or I swear you’re next.”
Jack, Gabe recognized the voice with a start and pieces began to snap back together. They’d been on a mission—he couldn’t summon the memory, only that it was top secret. He’d caught something he thought was just a run of the mill cold, what, two days ago? Three? The timeline dissolved in fever delirium. Heavily accented, broken English washed over Gabe without comprehension, but he clung to Jack’s unwavering voice. “If he dies, you die. Do you understand?”
Gabe never heard an answer, something sharp and hot sent a wave of agony through his chest. It felt like his lung was being suctioned through a tiny hole in his ribs. HIs breathing had been shallow before, now it was impossible. Darkness swallowed the world.
When Gabe opened his eyes again, his first thought was that the afterlife looked a lot like a shoddy hut with the sound of heavy, tropical rain pounding against the thatched roof. A second blink cleared the blurriness to reveal Jack leaning against a wall, gun resting across one thigh. When Gabe painfully cleared his throat, the blond sat bolt upright and trained his weapon on the doorway.
“Jack?” Gabe’s voice came out as a dry croak.
Turning, Jack laid the gun on the mat beside him and held a bottle of something to Gabe’s mouth. Water splashed into Gabe’s throat and ran down the sides of his face to dampen the pillow. Jack brushed a hand over Gabe’s forehead and sighed. “The fever broke. About damn time.”
“What happened,” Gabe asked, trying to push into a sitting position. The room spun, then steadied. He pressed a hand against a prick of pain in his chest that hadn’t been there before. Memories came back. “We were in a hospital. You blew our cover.”
“You were dying,” Jack answered, shaking his head like he could push the memory to the corners of his mind. “And it was a clinic not a hospital. Barely more than a witch doctor really.”
As Gabe digested the words, the memory of a gunshot echoed in his mind. He glanced at the weapon that Jack tucked back into the holster against the left side of his ribcage. Jack blew out a breath and shook his head. “Your little cold turned into an infection that nearly killed you, probably would have if not for the chemicals they pumped us full of. It managed to collapse your lung.” The man paused, then sighed. “I think, anyway. They didn’t speak much English.”
Despite the words, giddy nervousness washed through Gabe. He’d come that close to death and beaten it again. A laughter bubbled through his lips, building into a full laugh that sent pain spiking through his side. He coughed and tried to stop the amusement. Jack glanced over his shoulder and shook his head. “Probably a bad idea. I’m not sure how long that’ll take to heal, but at least another day or two.”
“Yeah,” Gabe answered, making his breath shallower so as not to put any more pressure on the injury. He tipped his head to watch Jack, wondering at the impassive blue eyes. “Thanks.”
Jack nodded, a short, sharp movement of his neck. “You should rest, we’ll have to move soon.”
Gabe watched Jack stand, head nearly brushing the top of their shelter and move toward the door. He considered the emotional cost of the past few days, but didn’t ask about it as Jack stepped into the rain. There would be time for that soon enough.
No.8 Coughing Up A Lung
pneumothorax | exotic illness | “Definitely just a cold”
Despite his best efforts, Fao was ill. It was unsurprising, really. Winter was well and truly upon them, freezing cold days and grey skies. They’d been understaffed at work, so he had been flat out with overtime and limited days off. Exhausted and freezing cold was not a good combination when the winter viruses were going around.
It had started with the classic sore throat, headache, sniffle. Just a cold. He couldn’t call in sick, so as usual, he pushed on through. Everyone told him to stop being so stubborn, to take a day or two off and just rest before he made himself worse, but he didn’t listen. There was too much that needed doing at work - they were stretched as it was. Another surgeon down and they’d be cancelling more surgeries. Not to mention what it would do to emergency availability.
When the coughing started, he was well and truly suffering. His chest was always bad, his own doing primarily, and he knew this cold would likely sit on his chest. Still, he didn’t have time to take off, couldn’t let his colleagues down. He swallowed meds and survived on throat sweets and ignored the endlessly present tickle in his throat. He did his best to ignore the wheeze in his chest, too. It was enough to make even a med student on the ward frown at him. The cigarette he’d had on his lunch break probably didn’t help matters.
He wasn’t stupid enough to think he was fine, he was just stressed enough not to care. He never had time to be ill. If he wasn’t careful, he’d end up getting Finn sick, which would end badly, but he kept his distance and tried his best to protect his brother. He was hardly home, anyway.
His cough got worse and worse, as it often did with these kind of things, and he sounded virtually hoarse. It was late one evening after work, stretched out on the sofa, he couldn’t stop coughing. It was giving him chest pain by this point, an ache across his ribs that he couldn’t shift.
With Finn hiding at Jess’, and Fred and Sheila unable to talk sense into their oldest son, Harrison was sent over to sort things out. He had a key, of course, and simply let himself in and went straight to Fao, who was still very much curled up in bed.
All it took was a single bout of coughing for him to order Fao into hospital, in a tone that left no room for arguments. Fao didn’t really have the energy to protest it anyway.
It was obvious he was pretty ill when he didn’t have to wait too long in the ED. After a quick exam and some bloods he was sent sharpish for a chest x-ray, which revealed a significant case of pneumonia. That wasn’t the worst of it, though. As was fairly standard for him with a bad chest like this, he had a pneumothorax. It wasn’t the first time, it probably wouldn’t be the last, either. It explained why his breathing and chest pain had got considerably worse.
Another scar found its place on the patchwork on his chest when they put in a chest tube, and admitted him for observations and IV antibiotics. It was a pretty significant infection that needed monitoring. He really wasn’t impressed, and spent the majority of his time waiting for a bed complaining that he really wasn’t that sick and he’d do fine with a hot bath and some oral antibiotics. He was ignored, obviously, but he hated being on the wards. He always felt so out of place, so vulnerable. And Finn didn’t even visit him, which he hated. He really missed his brother.
