RP: Down by a Knockout

[shh_kenneth]

Date: February 18, 2005
Character(s): Kenneth Towler, Cedric Diggory, Andromeda Tonks
Location: Kenneth Towler's Clinic
Status: Private
Summary: Kenneth Towler treats Cedric Diggory's concussion.
Completion: Complete

Kenneth apparated with Cedric into one of the clinic's small patient rooms, knowing it was best if he didn't move his patient around too

Comments

[shh_kenneth]

This is what you get for apparating with a concussion patient Kenneth thought to himself as he watched Cedric Diggory vomit with a tinge of both sympathy and misery. And not a little bit of relief that he'd managed to avoid getting dirty in the process. He loathed dirt of any sort.

Kenneth immediately moved to support his patient's back and head through the process, until he was certain it's all over.

"On a plus note, there probably isn't anything left in your stomach to bring up," Kenneth observed with a shake of his head, once Diggory was done. "And you wanted a laptop."

The unspoken "tsk tsk" was almost audible.

Kenneth quickly vanished the mess on the floor and his patient (unsanitary conditions were completely unacceptable in his clinic, and the stench was truly awful).

"I'm afraid I have a policy of not killing my patients ," Kenneth said, not unkindly. "Let's get you into a bed, shall we? The faster I examine you properly, the faster I can give you something to help settle you down."

A quick levitation spell--Kenneth being very careful not to jostle his patient into further gastric upset--and a decidedly unhappy Cedric Diggory was quickly and professionally tucked into a bed. He summoned a glass of water and offered it to his patient.

"Now, don't gulp this down," Kenneth warned. "I'd prefer to avoid a repeat of your arrival. For your sake as well as mine."

[shh_cedric]

At least Towler wasn't laughing at Cedric's expense. But if Towler had never, in Cedric's memory, been especially sympathetic, he also hadn't been intrinsically cruel -- or he wouldn't be a healer.

He just ... was. As the two of them had been in the same year, if not the same house, they'd shared a few classes, but Cedric really didn't know him beyond that. His memory of school was sometimes spotty in any case, although he did remember the Weasley twins hadn't much liked Towler, or at least they'd got a kick out of giving him a hard time. Cedric could also remember being friendly to Towler a few times but if Towler's reactions had never been deliberately rude, Cedric also hadn't interested him. Cedric had never really quite puzzled out the other boy. Man, now.

He took the water and raised up on his elbow enough to sip it slowly, as instructed. He also used it to rinse around his mouth and get rid of the awful taste. Then he handed back the glass. "Thank you. And what do you need me to do?"

[shh_kenneth]

Now that Cedric was convinced he was ill, he'd turned into quite the polite patient. Kenneth was too much of a pragmatist to think the situation would hold, but he'd make do until it ended.

"You're welcome," he replied as he took back the glass. "That'll do as a starter. We don't need you dehydrating."

Raising his wand, Kenneth cast a very complete diagnostic spell and was happy to note that his patient's concussion, while serious, wasn't diastrous. His patient, he noted did have some old brain damage, no doubt related to his injuries from the past. An intrigued Kenneth made a note to ask about that once he got past the items relevant to Diggory's current injury.

"What hurts, would probably be a good place to start," Kenneth said after a moment as he rechecked his patient's eyes. Diagnostic spells weren't always 100% effective and a patient's input was unfortunately often required to get everything correct. "Aside from the obvious headache, and the wrist. I'll fix the latter as soon as I'm sure the treatment won't cause problems elsewhere."

[shh_cedric]

As tempting as it was to reply to the 'What hurts' with 'everything,' Cedric knew that wasn't likely to be very helpful. It also wasn't strictly true. (Not that Cedric had ever let the facts get in the way of a good metaphor.)

"My stomach feels nauseous -- which is rather self-evident. I think I pulled something when I vomited too." It had been a sudden jerk. "My shoulder hurts. The wrist -- you noted that. That whole hand really, but I suspect it's the wrist. Otherwise, I think it's bumps and bruises. My chest hurts, left side. And my left shin. The left side of my cheek -- is that cut? Maybe I fell that direction?"

[shh_kenneth]

Nothing in Diggory's littany of injuries came as a surprise to Kenneth.

"Quite likely you strained your abdominal muscles more than a pull," Kenneth told him as he moved over to one of the cabinets lining the wall of the room. Though the strongest potions were kept locked up in the clinic's dispensary, basic medicines were stocked in each room. "Vomiting tends to have that effect. I would, however, venture that it's safe to say you fell on your left side."

Kenneth selected two bottles from the shelves, grabbed a few bandages, then moved a chair up to the bed so he could easily work on his patient.

"Your arm is most likely a result of your wrist, but we'll see if that's the case in short order," he told Diggory as he set his supplies on the nightstand before drawing his wand and waving it over the affected limb.

"Don't move your wrist for at least a few minutes," he ordered, then adeptly cast a bone healing spell. "We'll check back on that one shortly."

Satisfied he'd done his usual proficient job, Kenneth grabbed one of the bottles, poured some of its contents on a bandage and began dabbing it here and there. He did indeed find some glass in the cut in his patient's head. Another spell, and the wound began expelling the tiny shards. "You have glass in the cut. It would be nice to figure out how it got there. What's the last thing you remember?"

[shh_cedric]

"Uh, going to bed? Really. I don't even remember going down to the kitchen, or what time it might have been. I probably was changing the light bulb."

[shh_kenneth]

"Mmmmm."

Kenneth wasn't too surprised by the lack of memory--common enough in a concussion--but his patient's prior history (as little as he knew of it) made him wary. Kenneth hated surprises. Especially ones that could end up harming his patients. Once someone suffered a head injury, they became far more susceptible to negative side effects on the next go-round.

"Have you ever suffered any memory lapses before?" he asked casually as he continued to clean out Diggory's cuts.

[shh_cedric]

Cedric laughed softly, and regreted it, putting a hand to his head. "Memory lapses? Towler, I don't remember half my school years before the whole 'dying' thing. Well, that's an exaggeration. But yeah, I suffered a lot of memory loss. Bits of dead brain do that to you."

[shh_kenneth]

"I can well imagine dying might be a process one might not want to keep in one's memory," Kenneth observed wryly. "I've seen it happen enough."

He'd seen it happen more than enough, and it was never pretty. But that was not something he cared to discuss with his patient.

"However, I was speaking of memory lapses since then," he said as he carefully surveyed his medical handiwork. "You have quite a bit of scar tissue wandering about that brain of yours and concussions can be tricky affairs. I need to figure out what the concussion caused versus what was there to begin with."

[shh_cedric]

And that ... wasn't a direction Cedric wanted the conversation to go. "There is a lot of damage," he admitted. Not much point in even trying to deny that. "If there's too much going on, I have a hard time focusing on anything. Sort of like information overload." Then realizing Towler might not get the Muggle reference, he scratched the back of his head. "Er, never mind. But yeah, it sort of scrambles my head. I have to go off by myself if I can to sort myself out, let my head calm down."

[shh_kenneth]

Kenneth couldn't help but roll his eyes. He'd been a healer for long enough to know when he was getting the runaround.

If there was one thing he could never understand, it was why wizards (though his father assured him Muggles were just as bad) couldn't comprehend that telling one's healer the whole truth and nothing but the truth was the only way they could avoid seeing each other more often.

Of course, browbeating a patient with a concussion was generally unwise procedure. Still...there were other ways. For all that he was a Gryffindor, his mother had once told Kenneth that he had a definite hint of Slytherin in him. Kenneth thought all labels idiotic.

"My father is a Muggle, I'm familiar with the concept of information overload," Kenneth told Cedric matter-of-factly. He believed wizards that harped on Muggle blood were proof of the dangers of "pureblood" inbreeding. "I must point out, however, that you are not a machine and re-setting one's brain is infinitely more complex. And that things tend to freeze when they reset themselves."

Kenneth sat back and looked his patient in the eye (Diggory didn't appear to be seeing double anyway) and asked him, "When your head 'scrambles,' as you put it, do you suffer memory lapses? Or perhaps some other side effect?"

[shh_cedric]

"I've spent a lot of time in the Muggle world," Cedric said simply. "Especially recently, so I sometimes mix my metaphors."

He had to think about the other, how to explain it. "I wouldn't say when my memory scrambles I have memory loss. More that I can't concentrate on anything? If I push it ... well, it doesn't give me a panic attack, but something sort of like it. My heart rate goes way up and I have to make myself not hyperventilate. If I close my eyes and can block out some of it, I'm all right. But I know what's happening. I mean, I don't forget it. I just may not be able to process everything that's happening."

He was starting to feel a bit sleepy. Maybe even more than a bit. His eyelids were drooping.

[shh_kenneth]

"I see."

Kenneth did not like the sound of Cedric's explanation. It sounded as if there were a good deal more than a bit of brain scarring to Cedric's experience. But the rules of triage precluded his own curiosity and he needed to clear his patient of immediate difficulties before tackling any longterm issues.

"For the moment, however, we will concentrate on your current state," Kenneth told him--he was sure Diggory looked relieved. "I will give you a neurological exam to make certain you are in no immediate danger, and then I will let you sleep."

He didn't think the latter would be a problem given Diggory's rather apparent and increasing drowsiness.

For the next 15 minutes, he put Diggory through his paces, asking him questions, testing his spatial awareness (the latter not fabulous, but that didn't seem to be a result of the concussion), his immediate recall, and neurological reactions. Diggory wasn't in terrible condition, but neither was he getting sprung from the clinic anytime soon.

Satisfied, Kenneth sat back and told his patient, "You can go to sleep now, but keep in mind that you will be woken up every 2 to 3 hours for the next 24 hours to make certain you stay in acceptable condition. With luck, you'll be able to hold down some food during your wake-up call."

[shh_cedric]

"Every two to three hours?" Cedric resisted groaning. And while he'd done his best with the neurological exam, he had a feeling that he might have given away more unintentionally than he'd intended.

But really, he was just too sleepy at the moment to worry much about anything. "Is this normal? I just suddenly ... can't keep my eyes open. Is something bad happening?"

[shh_kenneth]

"Quite normal and nothing to be afraid of," Kenneth told Diggory with complete assurance. "Your body's had quite the shock and no matter what any potions master tells you, there are few things better for injuries than sleep."

That seemed to satisfy his patient and Kenneth watched as Diggory finally yielded to his exhaustion. Once he was satisfied that Diggory was sleeping easily, Kenneth rose from his chair, extinguished the light in the room, and headed for his office.

Sitting at his desk, he immediately sent an owl to Andromeda Tonks, asking if she could be so kind as to come in on the weekend in light of the current emergency. Noting Diggory's rather unique medical history, Kenneth wanted to be prepared if something went wrong.