Recovery Process
August 23 rd , 2022
The week after Lynn finally woke from the coma had been an emotional rollercoaster for all of them. Although it had only been a few days, her body was emaciated, and she was shocked how weak she actually was. Toby had checked her vitals frequently, but it wasn’t her general constitution that she was struggling with.
It was the weakness and soreness of her muscles, making it almost impossible for her to stand without support. Of course she was a doctor too, but as she had always been in charge of the ER, she never really saw the recovery process of the patients.
She felt like a burden to everyone as eating was the only thing she was able to do on her own. She couldn’t go to the bathroom alone, couldn’t move from her back on her side or the other way around without hurting the surgery site.
She was groaning and huffing and cursing the entire time and Toby tried his best to lighten her mood. Very unsuccessfully .
Of course there was only one person that could make her smile in this miserable situation and that person was Nate.
Although Toby hadn’t been very happy with it, Nate was starting to be able to walk after his surgery, allowing him the freedom to sneak out of his room as much as possible. It would help prevent him getting a blood clot, but Toby hated it when his patients overdid it. Nate didn’t care because spending time with Lynn, reading books to her, watching TV shows and movies while cuddling in bed as best as they could was all he cared about. Of course he was monitored as well, making sure that his wound looked good and no infection could be seen. Even with moving way more than Nate should have, his healing process was exactly how it should have been so, after laying in the med-bay for a little over a week, Nate was finally allowed to move back to his room.
But because Lynn was still lying there, he was around almost 24/7, only getting shooed out of the room when Tia and Birdie needed to wash Lynn and help her change her clothes.
Eight days after the liver-donation Lynn took her chance and bombarded Birdie with a request as soon as she entered the patient room.
“I really need to shower,” Lynn pleaded while making the best puppy dog eyes she was able to do. She even tried the trembling lip, but to be honest it looked more like she was having a seizure than a cute face to convince Birdie.
“You know Toby will kill me if I allow you to shower,” Birdie responded, while stepping next to Lynn’s bed and noting down the vitals that were showing on the monitors .
“But I finally got rid of the catheter yesterday and I even improved with the PT and strengthened my muscles a little. The PT and Toby were very happy about it this morning,” Lynn whined.
“I’ll have to check with Toby again, but he’s in surgery right now. Agent Richards broke her leg and he needed to fix it.”
Birdie was currently checking the different medicine bags that were hanging on the IV pole. Yes, Lynn got rid of the syringe pumps, but she still needed to get some medicine through the IV on her hand.
“Wait. Agent Richards? Eliana Richards?” Lynn asked, her eyebrows raised so high, they were almost lost in her hairline.
“Yeah. She got hurt on a mission.”
“Oh shit. Hope Peter’s doing okay. I know the two have been out on a simple mission.”
“Agent Davis seems to be okay other than a few bruises and scratches.”
“Thank God. Birdie pleeeeeaaaassseeee. See, I can even sit on my own. With a chair in the shower it won’t be any problem. Really. Trust me, I’m a doctor, too.” Lynn quickly went back to the original request, scared that the change of topics would destroy her chance of a much needed shower.
“But you’re not in charge right now, and I don’t know if you can assess your condition correctly.” Birdie sighed.
“I don’t feel like a human anymore. Look at my hair. It’s so greasy. And my muscles are so sore and full of knots. I don’t even understand how that happened because I haven't done anything other than lie around for the last two weeks, but it feels horrible. I could really use some warm water to soothe my muscles. That’s good for my recovery process, too.” Lynn had started with a pleading voice but changed into her doctor-voice at the end, making Birdie laugh, but the nurse didn’t respond as she was focusing on changing the medicine bag and attaching it to the IV again.
“Darling, you can really be a pain in the ass sometimes,” a male voice could be heard from the other side of the room.
Lynn and Birdie turned around simultaneously to see a brunet man with ocean blue eyes and a wide smile standing in the doorframe. He had a bouquet of flowers in his hand that was shining with different colors. Bright blue forget-me-nots, purple sweet peas, purple snake's-head fritillary, as well as some branches of cherry blossom. The beautiful flowers were combined with different branches and grasses, giving the bouquet a good contrast to the colorful highlights.
“You brought me flowers.” Lynn’s lips curled upwards into a wide smile.
“Of course. Now that your room isn’t an ICU anymore, I’m finally allowed to bring some. But to be honest, Oliver got them for me at the farmers market he and Marta went to this morning. I didn’t feel well enough for a trip into the city,” Nate answered while closing the door behind him and stepping next to Lynn’s bed.
“I’ll bring you a vase,” Birdie said and was about to leave the room when Lynn screamed after her,
“And bring some waterproof dressing as well.”
Birdie only chuckled and then closed the door behind her .
“Waterproof dressing?” Nate asked, confused, as he took a seat on the chair next to Lynn’s bed.
The moment he leaned back, he whined a little. His wound was still bothering him as soon as he put pressure on it, which automatically happened as soon as he leaned back. As Lynn already had a wound from stitching her back together after the stabbing, Toby had just reopened that one for the transplant. It was on the front of her body, right under her breast.
But for Nate’s surgery, Toby had decided to open his back to have access to his liver. The front of Nate’s chest was full of scars from the torture and the surgeries to save his life afterwards.
Toby didn’t want to cut through these scars so he decided to choose a scar-free area on Nate’s back and side. This was very thoughtful of Toby, but it caused Nate to struggle a lot with sitting and lying down after the surgery.
“Yeah, I really need to take a shower. I feel awful!” Lynn whined with her head turned towards Nate.
“But you look beautiful as always, darling.” Nate tried to reassure her, but only got a huff back.
“You don’t have to lie just because you’re my boyfriend,” the brunette woman complained.
“I’m not lying. You’re the most beautiful woman I've ever dated,” Nate responded before leaning forward to press his lips on hers.
Birdie re-entered the room with a “that’s disgusting” on her lips, making both Nate and Lynn laugh out loud before breaking apart .
She held one hand up in the air and wiggled a package, making Lynn’s eyes shine in excitement.
“I’ll let you shower, but only under one condition,” Birdie said with a serious frown on her face.
“Anything!” Lynn exclaimed happily.
“Loverboy here has to shower with you. As he’s already released from the med-bay and I know he can stand and all that stuff, he can wash your hair and make sure you don’t collapse or fall off the shower chair.”
“Roger that,” Nate answered and saluted sloppily, before all three of them burst into laughter.
“Also, Agent Sheppard. You stink as well. You need a shower,” Birdie commented with a giggle.
“Hey!” Nate responded, a pout very present on his face.
“I’m sorry, I’m just being honest.” Birdie was still giggling.
Nate raised his arm and sniffed underneath his armpit before making a grimace of disgust.
“Maybe Birdie’s right,” he mumbled, shrugging his shoulders and looking innocently at his girlfriend.
Lynn didn’t know if she should burst into laughter or grab Nate’s hand, pull him close and place kisses all over his face, because he looked so damn cute with that pout on his face.
“I love you even when you stink,” she mouthed in his direction, getting a smile back.
“And I love you even with greasy hair,” he responded.
“Hey, you said I look beautiful! Liar!” Lynn grumbled with a theatrical exaggerated pout on her own face.
“Stop flirting, I need to change your dressing for the shower,” Birdie said with a commanding voice .
“Yes Ma’am!” Lynn and Nate responded simultaneously, struggling hard to hold back their laughter.
Birdie rounded the bed and motioned for Nate to lean forward. Then she grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled the white gauze off the wound on his back. Afterwards she placed the transparent waterproof dressing on top of it and clapped Nate’s shoulder to signal him that she was done. She repeated the same procedure with Lynn’s wound.
“What about my cast?” Nate asked while raising his left hand in the air that was still surrounded by the black cast.
“Hold on a minute,” Birdie responded and grabbed the iPad that was laying on the small bedside table.
She scrolled through it to check for Nate’s patient file and the comments and instructions Toby had made. She mumbled a few things to herself before passing the iPad over to Lynn. The brunette woman grabbed it, confused, and looked at Birdie with a raised eyebrow.
“If he was your patient, would you allow him to take the cast off for a quick shower?”
Lynn studied the x-ray of Nate’s hand as well as Toby’s report and notes. She had stuck out her tongue again and Nate couldn’t help himself but smile when he saw. He really missed her being back in her element.
“Well, the crack is pretty small and it’s surrounded by intact bones, so no risk of displacement in that short period of time. It’s been nine days since the break, so I'd do a check-up x-ray and if that still looked good, I'd allow it if he was my patient,” Lynn commented while placing the iPad back on the bedside table.
The nurse raised her head and looked at Nate .
“You heard her. Let’s do an x-ray and see if your hand looks better.”
Nate just nodded in response and rose from his chair to follow her out of the room. Meanwhile, Lynn grabbed the iPad again and opened the surgery reports for her first and second surgery. She was so lost in the report that she almost jumped out of bed when the iPad made a loud “bing” to indicate Nate’s incoming x-rays. Lynn quickly opened the pictures and zoomed in to examine the crack in the bone.
“Wow, it looks pretty good already although it’s only been nine days. We can cut the cast off and change him to a wrist brace instead. That makes stuff easier for him and he can take a shower from time to time,” Lynn said to Birdie when she and Nate re-entered the room.
“Thank God!!” Nate exclaimed and added, “I really hate that thing. It’s smelly and annoying.”
Lynn smiled at him, and Birdie pointed to the chair before grabbing a cast saw and some scissors to free the man from the black monstrosity.
“Don’t move your finger and hand around too much while we’re in the shower. It’s still broken!” Lynn warned her boyfriend with her no-nonsense doctor-voice.
“Of course, Doctor Summers,” he teased in response.
Lynn reached out her arm and slapped him on his thigh as hard as she was able to with her weakened muscles. He barely felt it but hissed a loud “ow!” to make her feel better. Nate knew how frustrated Lynn was with her weak body.
A minute later Nate’s arm was finally free again and he was about to help Lynn out of the bed and into a wheelchair when Birdie quickly stepped between him and Lynn. She had a serious, almost angry frown on her face when she huffed loudly towards Nate.
“You’re not supposed to grab anything heavy with that hand. Go to the bathroom but keep your clothes on until I’m gone!” Birdie instructed and Nate quickly marched into the attached bathroom.
Birdie followed with Lynn in a wheelchair and placed some of Lynn’s clothes on the side of the wash basin.
“She’s not allowed to stand for more than a minute and you’re not allowed to lift her up with that hand. I know that makes things complicated but I know you can do it. The shower chair is already prepared and you should have enough space to put the wheelchair right in front of it. I brought her favorite shampoo and some shower gel as well. It’s already in the shower. If you need me or any help in general, there’s a call button next to the door but also a red rope inside of the shower. If you pull that, I’ll see the alarm. That’s only for emergencies though. Remember to only pull it in an emergency because I don’t want to see you naked unless I have to,” Birdie chuckled while trying to light the mood a little.
There had been a weird silence between Nate and Lynn while Birdie was explaining everything to them.
She left the room a minute later and Nate carefully helped Lynn out of her clothes until she was sitting naked in the wheelchair.
He took his time to look up and down her body. Part of him was shocked at how thin she had become with her ribs popping out from her skin and her thighs way thinner than he was used to. The little belly he loved to kiss in the mornings was gone.
Another part of him couldn’t help himself as he was automatically pulled towards her. Longing for her. It had been a while since they’d been intimate because of him avoiding her and the stabbing incident afterwards. He could feel his cock twitch while he leaned forward to place a loving kiss on Lynn’s lips.
To avoid the situation running out of hands while he observed his naked girlfriend longer, he stripped out of his clothes as quickly as possible, revealing his half-hard cock. He tried to turn around, so that Lynn wouldn’t see it, but of course she already had.
“I think Toby would kill us, if we have our normal shower ritual today,” she whispered with a little giggle, pointing to Nate's manhood. Of course thinking about their usual shower ritual, which was a codeword for shower sex, made him even harder and he needed to laugh as well.
“See what you do to me. It’s not fair.” He whined, while giving himself a few strokes.
“I wish I could take care of that, but I don’t think I have the strength for this already.” Lynn responded with her gaze locked on the floor. Her happy face fell and showed a sad expression, while she felt guilty.
Nate grabbed her chin with the good right hand and tilted it upwards, forcing her to look him in the eyes.
“We have the rest of our life to take care of each other. It’s fine. I haven’t even thought about sex for the last two weeks. But seeing you naked in front of me… I couldn’t co ntrol it. I’m sorry,” he mouthed before leaning down and kissing her once again.
To think about something else than shower sex with his girlfriend, he placed the wheelchair only inches away from the shower chair. Lynn pushed herself off the wheelchair and managed to maneuver her body onto the chair without additional help from Nate. Her face was furrowed a little and he knelt in front of her, placing his arms left and right of her body to catch her in case she would collapse.
“You’re good?”
“Perfect,” she answered and smiled at him.
“Okay. Great. Let me know as soon as you get dizzy or feel any bad pain. Then we get you out of the shower as quickly as possible,” Nate said with a slight tremble in his voice.
“It’ll be alright.”
Nate stepped behind her, started the shower, and turned the water as warm as possible without burning their skins. He knew that Lynn loved to shower hot, and he bet it would help her tensed muscles to relax.
Slowly he grabbed the peachy shampoo and placed some of it in Lynn’s hair. He wanted to massage it into her hair and scalp, when he remembered that he wasn’t allowed to do much with his still-broken hand so he carefully started to give her a massage with only his good right hand. It wasn’t the same and he struggled a lot to work against the knots in her hair, but he tried as best as he could.
Lynn closed her eyes and enjoyed the intimacy between her and Nate as well as the little head massage he was giving her but when some curse words left his lips, she opened them again and asked,
“What’s wrong, honey?”
“The damn hand. I wanted you to relax after everything you’ve been through, but I didn’t manage to give you a proper head massage with one hand,” he whined and she could hear him sigh deeply.
“Hey,” she said while turning her head and upper body a little but the moment she felt a sharp pain in her side, she moved her upper body back in the old position.
“It’s okay. You have the rest of our lives to give me a head massage,” she added and could feel her heart skip a beat.
“That sounds good,” Nate responded before grabbing the shower head from the mount on the wall.
He carefully tilted her head back and started to get the shampoo out of her hair. When he was done, he gave her the body wash and placed some of it on her back to rub the parts she couldn’t reach herself. They worked in unison, rubbing everything off their bodies until they both smelled like they fell into peach juice. Nate didn’t care. He was going to love smelling the familiar scent when he was sleeping in his bed all alone tonight.
When they were done with the shower, Nate turned off the water and reached out for the towels. He wanted Lynn to be dry before changing into the wheelchair. He was scared she could slip and fall down while changing from the shower chair back into the wheelchair.
Ten minutes later they were both dressed and left the bathroom to move back to Lynn’s bed .
“Wait, I’ll get Birdie to help you back in bed,” Nate said, but Lynn stopped him.
“No need to disturb her. I can do this alone.”
“Lynn,” Nate grumbled loudly into the room, letting the doctor flinch a little in the wheelchair.
“You wait for Birdie. I don’t want you to get hurt again. I know you’re annoyed that you can’t do anything on your own but this time for your own good. We all suffered a lot while you were in the coma and I never want to see you so lifeless again so please, do me a favor and have a little more patience. With your body and yourself. I know it sucks.” He stepped next to the wheelchair and placed the hurt left hand on her shoulder.
She grabbed it and placed a kiss on it. Nate held back a small hiss, as she grabbed his hand a little too roughly.
“Okay. I’m sorry that you suffered so much over the past few days. I remember feeling helpless too when I heard your story and saw you getting hurt. I can’t imagine how it must be for you seeing me lying here.”
Nate was surprised how understanding she was, as Lynn had a tendency to be stubborn when it came to her recovery process.
He called for Birdie and the nurse entered the room a minute later with a bigger package in her hand that she gave to Nate. He looked at it and saw that it contained the wrist brace he needed to wear for the next few weeks.
“Wait a second. I’ll take care of your girlfriend first before I show you how to get in and out of the brace without hurting your hand even more,” Birdie said before stepping in front of Lynn with a big smile .
“Feeling better?” she asked the doctor.
“Much. Thank you for allowing it,” Lynn smiled back at her.
“Anything, if it helps your recovery, but now you need to do me a favor and make big progress in physical therapy so I can let you shower alone soon.” The nurse smiled after Lynn was lying in the bed again.
Birdie connected the IV with the medicine again before asking,
“Do you need anything else, sweetie?”
“Lunch would be great. I’m starving,” Lynn chuckled.
“I’ll bring you something as soon as I have loverboy’s hand secured again,” the nurse winked at her.
Birdie showed Nate how to put the wrist brace around his hand and take it off again. She also instructed him again that he was still not allowed to lift heavy things and should be careful to not break the bone again.
All in all it had been a pretty successful day in Lynn’s recovery.