Ab. Larson: Week Six
Prompt: Recovering from an illness
Warnings/Rating: G for all audiences
Word Count: 191
Summary: Abel is pleased with his patient’s prognosis
Abel was sure that his contentment in life caused him to be a better doctor.
He had much to be content about. He was a professional success, had a happy marriage and two wonderful children. His life was almost perfect.
On the other hand, his most recent patient was far from perfect. Abel didn’t scrub in much since he joined Grace, but still did the occasional neurology call just to keep his skills sharp.
It was on such a call that the patient had come into the E.R. with massive head trauma and Abel, to be honest, didn’t think he would survive. His intracranial pressure was off the charts and he was unresponsive to pharmaceuticals. With little else to risk, Abel made the decision to perform a decompressive craniectomy.
It was a long-shot, but it worked. The pressure fell off and within a week, amazingly enough, the man had improved to the point that the follow-up cranioplasty could be performed.
Now the man was set to be discharged and Abel said his good-byes. It was a good outcome: an almost full recovery with minimal cognitive impairment.
Abel couldn’t have been happier.