general clinic log

[testsonseashells]

Who: Drs. Solus or Strider, various patients.
What: Echo checkups
When: Whenever
Where: LSR clinic

The LSR clinic, despite its run-down, beat-up appearance, is actually fairly clean on the inside. Lit by white fluorescent lights, it's generally pretty empty, with the occasional non-network patient coming in to get something looked at. A volunteer is usually found running the front desk, organizing papers and responding to phone calls, while Dr. Solus and Dr. Strider take care of the actual medical business.

The waiting room is barebones compared to other clinics and medical practices - LSR doesn't have the money to get entertainments for the waiting patients, so all that's available are a few chairs.

When it's your turn for an appointment, whoever's at the desk will direct you down a hallway to the left, and you will meet one of the doctors.

[ooc: general clinic log! all checkups for crazy echoes can take place here. specify dr. solus or dr. strider in the subject line.]

Comments

[healspec]

There was someone else here to look at it, and the person Aaron sent into the room was Ravindra, whom he opted to let handle Danny alone.

Ravi recognized him as the kid who'd come along on the expedition and the one who'd managed to find the snake underground. Which also reminded him of how angry Danny had been upon learning the secret Aaron had kept from the network, which led to a pang of guilt because Ravi had also kept that secret from the network.

Well. It wasn't like he had to TALK about that. He could just focus on doing his job and try his best to ignore any awkwardness.

He moved to stand before Danny and motioned for him to show Ravi his injured arm. He hadn't registered the green as blood yet, and thus was not quite as concerned as he needed to be.

[gogoghostpowers]

Oh hey, isn't that the guy who led the expedition under the Tuning Towers a while ago? Danny doesn't know much about him beyond that, honestly, but he feels like he did a pretty good job of leading that whole thing. Plus, at least he didn't lie about the rock.

He hesitates for a moment, but at Ravi's gesture, he slowly tries to hold his arm out. Unfortunately, with how tight he pressed it against the sweater and with how sticky ectoplasm is, his arm has kind of gotten glued to the sweater a little. With his free hand, Danny gingerly pulls the sweater from his arm, but not without hissing and gritting his teeth.

That done, he holds out the arm for Ravi in all its drippy, glowing, half-nonexistent glory.

[healspec]

Oh. That certainly doesn't bode well. Dismay takes shape in the furrow of his brow, deepening when he realizes all that goopy green stuff is blood.

He keeps his mouth shut because the only thing that would make it out just then is a highly unprofessional, 'Holy shit.'

Thankfully that's the only thing that's so upsetting about this injury. He's seen much worse before in terms of actual physical damage. He leans away from Danny to grab a pair of scissors from the various tools stored on the counter. "I am going to cut these off," he explains, meaning the bandages, because he needs to get a look at the wound itself to know how bad it is.

[gogoghostpowers]

Danny doesn't notice Ravi's concerning expression. He does, however, notice him going for a pair of scissors. Danny doesn't think about it--his mind just leaps straight to "sharp blades in wound" and he tenses up. It's bad enough as it is, he doesn't want it getting worse! He even almost jerks his arm away.

But then Ravi explains it's just for the bandages, and Danny relaxes. Deep breath in, deep breath out. Okay. He can do this, he can handle this. He tries to hold his arm still and tries to relax a little.

"O-okay."

[healspec]

He carefully cuts away the bandages, with the dull edge of the scissors against an uninjured section of Danny's arm, and then just as carefully peels them away from the wound. They don't peel like bandages on a fresh wound; more like ones that have been there for a while on an infected wound (sadly something he had experience with). In other words: the stick more than they should be.

The furrow of his brow deepens once he is able to see inside the wound. It's...probably not the kind of expression you'd find encouraging on a medical professional's face.

As far as he can tell, there is nothing in there. Even accounting for the extra-thick green blood, he doesn't see any of the normal things he'd expect to see in an injury of this extent. No muscle tissue, no bone--it's definitely deep enough that he should be able to see bone here.

He starts to lift one hand over the wound, hesitates, glances up toward Danny's face. With the unfortunate instances he's already had of accidentally discovering where his magic's definition of 'evil' lies, he's a little wary now. "Ah--this should not hurt. But I am sorry if it does."

Then he finishes the motion, bringing his hand to hover just above the wound. His other is, and has been, holding Danny's wrist to keep his arm steady. He closes his eyes, and a warm golden light gathers in his palm, bathing Danny's wound in the gentle warmth of sunshine. He's not healing yet. This is just diagnostics.

As far as he can tell, the visual is accurate. He can't feel anything except one uniform texture all the way through. The light dies, he draws his hand back, gives the injury an uncertain look. He doesn't shift his gaze to Danny's face this time when he says, "...You don't...seem to have a skeletal structure?" It's dubious because what the fuck even. "Did you know about this?"

[gogoghostpowers]

The warning makes Danny a little wary of whatever's about to come next. But he said it shouldn't hurt, so it'll be okay, right?

He doesn't expect the glowing. He stares at it, trying to figure out what it is or what it's doing, but true to Ravi's word, it's not hurting. So it shouldn't be that bad, right?

All in all, he's pretty calm about this! At least until Ravi looks back at him with an uncomfortably quizzical expression and tells him he doesn't have a skeletal structure what the hell.

"I--what? Like, I don't have--bones and stuff? What is--how does that even... Y-you're kidding, right?"

[healspec]

"Nnn...no..." He wishes he was kidding. At least then he might have some kind of idea of how to proceed from here. But how do you heal someone that...doesn't seem to have standard anatomy?

He guides Danny over to the sink to rinse out the wound. He's not...sure if it's the right thing to do in this situation? But it is standard procedure, so he's just going to stick to that for now. "Look," he says, directing Danny's attention to the green mess inside his arm, now that it's clear the wound's appearance isn't just a result of being covered in coagulated green blood. "All the way through, it is like that."

[gogoghostpowers]

Rinsing out the wound stings a bit, but compared to everything else that's happened today so far, it's not that bad at all. With the sticky mess cleaned up a little, he looks closer at the wound.

Oh god, it's deeper than he thought. And bigger. In the movies, wounds like this usually have bone sticking out--but Danny definitely doesn't see anything of the sort. It's incredibly stupid, but Danny pokes at it, because just seeing it isn't enough to fully convince him.

His finger sinks into the ectoplasm barely staying inside his arm right now. It doesn't even hurt--at least, not until his finger touches something smooth--did he reach his skin from the other side?! Indeed he did, and at that point the injury begins stinging again. Danny yelps and yanks his finger out.

"All--are you sure? Seriously? How is that--" Danny uses his free hand to press it up against his chest, just to make sure. "--but I-I still feel like I have bones and stuff!"

[healspec]

He takes his attention from Danny to retrieve an anti-septic spray, and looks back just in time to see him with his finger in the wound. "Don't," Ravi snaps, the same way one might say, 'What are you doing, you idiot!'

He takes Danny's wrist again, holding his arm at a convenient angle. "This might sting," is the only--very brief--warning he gives before spraying the wound down with antiseptic. Any attempt to jerk away results in a tighter hold on his wrist.

Unfortunately, Ravi's magic does not have disinfectant properties yet. So he still has to rely on modern science for preventing infections.

While he's doing that, he tells Danny, "After this is taken care of, we can check the rest."

How is he going to heal this, though...? Maybe it will become clear once he actually starts trying.

[gogoghostpowers]

Even with the warning, Danny is not prepared. He yells briefly when the antiseptic first hits the wound and does try jerking his arm out of Ravi's grasp, but when it fails he just grits his teeth and shuts his eyes.

It takes a few seconds for the pain to start subsiding, and then Danny opens his eyes again and starts relaxing a bit. After all, the anti-septic's the worst part, right?

[healspec]

Right.

When he's done, he sets the spray down, and then slides his hand from Danny's wrist up his arm to support it beneath the wound. His other hand moves to hover over it, just like before when he used his diagnostic magic.

He closes his eyes again, and again that warm golden glow appears. He tries for blood restoration first, but it fails because he can't figure out how Danny's body generates blood--no bones means no bone marrow to produce it. Flesh repair doesn't really help, either. This stuff apparently doesn't heal itself the same way regular muscle tissue does.

Hmm. Maybe if he treats the uniform gelatinous flesh as specialized organ tissue... When he regained his deep tissue damage healing, he had to figure out the different processes for different organ tissues on the fly, so he's got some practice there already. He re-focuses his attention. He'd been concentrating on finding the right peg to fit in the hole, but now he's starting with the hole and making a peg to fit.

He pours energy into the ectoplasm, just a little to start with, and nudges it to do whatever it wants with that energy. Most bodies will prioritize healing, so as he keeps pouring in a slow trickle of magic, he concentrates on following along with what Danny's body is doing with it. He finds the process, he breaks it down, and then he reverse engineers it. Finally having gained some kind of handle on what to do, he goes from passively observing to actively guiding, starting with a low magic-flow and gradually increasing it as he gains confidence.

He spent a lot of energy trying to figure it out though, and healing becomes exponentially more taxing the more work you do on a single injury. He's not able to heal it completely before the strain becomes too much for him. When he starts to waver and notices he's leaning against the counter, he decides it's time to stop. The light fades, he pulls his hand away to set it over his face, fingers pressing against the bridge of his nose.

"Mm--" Before saying anything else, he cracks an eye open to see how bad the wound looks now. Mostly healed, it seems, but it's hard to tell with Danny's unique physiology. It'll still need to be bandaged, definitely.

"I can't do more than that." It's not an apology, but it does carry a faint undertone of guilt. He would prefer not to leave injuries half-done, but in this case he can't help it. Anything more is going to overtax him enough to make him useless the rest of the night.

Telling himself that doesn't make him feel any less like he's let Danny down, though.

He turns away to wash his hands and put on gloves. "Sit down, I will bandage the rest."

[gogoghostpowers]

Danny keeps as still as he can while Ravi does...whatever it is he's doing--although it is a little difficult to stand up straight after all the blood loss.

He keeps an eye on Ravi's glowing hand again. He's still not entirely sure what he's doing but it doesn't seem to be hurting him. In fact, after a little while, he starts feeling...different. Like something is happening inside of him, but he's not sure what. And, as Danny looks over his arm, it seems to be what's making the injury look exponentially better than it was moments ago.

Super weird healing for super weird injuries. Alright, it's not the strangest thing he's dealt with all day.

When Ravi finally steps away, his weird hand-glowy-thing done with, Danny follows instructions and sits back on the examining table.

"No, this is--wow." Danny holds up his arm to study the injury closer. "What--what did you just do?"

[healspec]

He pauses a moment, hands braced on the edge of the sink, head bowed. A few deep breaths aren't enough to restore that lost energy, but it is enough to give him time to adjust for working at a higher state of exhaustion. He can function just fine as long as he has time to make that adjustment.

Having stabilized himself, he dries his hands, puts on a pair of gloves, and grabs the supplies he'll need to do the bandaging. "I healed it," he says, turning and walking over to Danny. It's a bland explanation, but what else is there really to say?

He takes Danny's arm again, moving it into a convenient position, and then starts wrapping it. He does elaborate, but not much. "An ability I got from a pulse."

[gogoghostpowers]

"Oh. Uh...okay, then. I-I guess." Weird healing for weird injuries, right? It kind of makes sense. Or at least, it doesn't make any less sense than anything else that's happened to him since joining the network.

Danny calmly keeps an eye over his arm as it gets bandaged. It looks misshapen and inhuman, almost, which, now that he has a clear view of the injury, is pretty gross. But he keeps still the whole time as it gets bandaged. Even if the fabric touching the wound stings, it's significantly less painful than what he'd been dealing with half an hour ago, so. Hooray for small victories?

[healspec]

...Yeah, that makes him feel like he failed to live up to whatever Danny expected out of him. But what else can he say about it? It's magic healing, that's about all there is to it.

Orrr, instead of trying to guess, he could just ask. "Ah--what did you want to know about it?" He sounds a little uncertain. He's really not used to just asking people outright what they expect, it always feels a little awkward.

[gogoghostpowers]

Well now this just got plenty more awkward, because Danny certainly wasn't expecting a question like that. It takes a few seconds for his brain to catch up and then begin formulating a response. "W-what? No, I just wanted to know what the whole--glowy-hand thing you were doing was. I've uh, I've never seen anything like it before, so I didn't know..."

[healspec]

Oh. Maybe he shouldn't have asked, then. Always making the wrong choice in any social situation, good job Ravindra!

But the self-reproach on his face is only a brief flicker. He finishes up Danny's bandages and then tapes them up so they won't unravel. He doesn't have to be mad at himself, he can elaborate based on that reply, can't he?

"Magic." Well, obviously. Don't just stop there. "Holy, I think. As far as I know, no one else here has the same kind."

He peels off the gloves, dropping them in the trashcan under the counter. "So, what I said about your skeletal structure." And the fact that it was missing. "If you like, we can do an x-ray to see what it looks like elsewhere."

[gogoghostpowers]

"Holy magic. Huh. Okay then." Danny doesn't have much else to add to that, either, because by this point all of his skepticism about magic and aliens and superpowers had been completely worn down by nearly six months of nonstop weirdness.

Danny flexes his arm a few times, bending it up and down, up and down at the elbow a couple of times just to get used to the feel of the bandages. Ravi's question distracts him, though, and he drops the arm, forearm hitting his thigh (which causes him to wince a little at the contact with the injury, but he gets over it pretty quickly).

An x-ray? He considers the offer. It seems a little excessive, especially now that he's all bandaged up and in (semi-)decent condition again. But...when else is he going to get a chance to check this stuff out? And if he's missing something as vital as skeletal structure, isn't it worth checking out to see what else might be going on?

"Actually--yeah, I think that might be a good idea."

[healspec]

AND THEN AN X-RAY HAPPENED. And while they waited for it to come back, Ravi gave Danny some print-outs for wound care instructions, including how to change his bandages (which he would need to do every 12 hours), and went over it with him to address any questions he might have.

When the x-ray did come back, it...sure was a torso-shaped blob of uniform cloudy whiteness. Ravi stared at it for a long moment, arms half-folded, one hand over his mouth. He couldn't decide what to say. And, well, even somebody who didn't really understand x-rays could tell that this wasn't what one was supposed to look like, so he wasn't sure he even needed to explain it.

It wasn't the first time he'd seen impossible shit due to echoes, and it obviously wasn't life-threatening, so he didn't think it was something they needed to be concerned over.

He really, really wants to make a joke about this, but wow that would be wildly inappropriate.

[gogoghostpowers]

Danny reads over the instructions a couple times over. This shouldn't be too bad to take care of, although he thinks he might have to find a dumpster somewhere in the city to toss all his used bloody bandages--he doesn't want to risk his parents somehow seeing weird green blood.

While Ravi fetches the x-ray, Danny puts away the instructions in the pocket of his hoodie, hoping that the blood-soaked (and rapidly stiffening) hoodie won't stain the instructions too. But that's something to worry about later--right now Ravi's got the x-rays. Danny moves closer to see it and stops dead in his tracks.

"Huh. That's...that's not supposed to look like that, is it." Danny is pretty sure x-rays are supposed to have like white blotches in the shapes of bones, not just...weird cloudiness.

He already did it once but he checks again, gripping his good wrist and squeezing. He does the same to his hand and his fingers. "I don't get it, though--it feels like I have bones and stuff there."

[healspec]

"A person, no. But it is the best x-ray of a mannequin I ever have seen." HE'S JOKING but he deadpanned that so well it may be hard to tell.

He looks over at Danny, lowering his hand from his face but keeping it close to his chest. "Echoes can be very strange. If you feel fine, probably there is nothing to worry about. If something changes, come back and we will take another look."

[gogoghostpowers]

He nods. "Yeah...okay."

Danny lowers his injured hand and delicately pulls his sweater sleeve over it to hide the bandages. "So, um. I-is that it?"

[healspec]

Well, that's everything Danny came here for, at least. But Ravi looks at the x-ray again, regarding it thoughtfully. It's true he couldn't sense any bones or anything in Danny's arm, but he didn't check for internal organs... Maybe the green whatever-it-is is somehow interfering with the X-ray and giving a false signal?

He is definitely too tapped-out to try the magic-sonogram technique to check for internal organs, so he'll have to go with the old stand-by. "Ah--let me check something, actually." He takes the stethoscope from around his neck and motions for Danny to lift his shirt.

He wants to listen for a heartbeat and breathing, see how that sounds.

[gogoghostpowers]

"Oh, uh, sure."

This is typical enough. Danny isn't fully aware of the medical reasoning behind it, but he's pretty sure doctors are supposed to pull out the stethoscope at every appointment, or else they lose their medical license or something.

He goes to pull up the sweater. It takes a little bit of fighting with it, given how stiff it's gotten from all the ectoplasm it's soaked up, but sure enough the crunchiness yields and he manages to pull it up to reveal his bare torso.

[healspec]

He's not a doctor tho!!!

Of course the stethoscope is freezing. Of course.

He tries to find a heartbeat first, but can't. It doesn't sound like there's much of anything going on in there at all, honestly. Which is puzzling, but intriguing, and his face reflects that. He moves the stethoscope to Danny's back with a softly given, "Breathe in," command, listens, shifts to the other side of his back, command given again, listens again.

Finally satisfied, he straightens and steps back, returning the stethoscope to its former position around his neck. "Well." Pause, he looks Danny in the face and gives a mild shrug. "It sounds like you are legally dead. I can't hear anything."