21/08/64
Babylon Animal Care Clinic
Patient Treatment and Interaction Summary
Date: 21/08/64
Physician: Micki
Patient: Le Fay (La Fay? La Fey? (sp?)) “third of her name of Lex’s (sp?) Pack”
Patient Status: Extremely pregnant. Possible threat to health. Aedus says she’s in her third month (!!!!!). Part of me knows that isn’t possible (two months maybe, but not three) but goodness gracious is this dog ever pregnant.
Overall health extremely poor, obvious symptoms of extreme exposure to radiation. Her response to treatment has been absolutely amazing. I don’t ever remember seeing a dog who’d been exposed to this much radiation and started making such a speedy recovery. I’m expecting (hoping) for substantial progress come morning.
Patient: 5 (?) puppies
Patient Status: Extremely weak (based on movement and reaction to outside stimulus, no clue honestly), but looks like they’re responding to treatment better than I’d ever hope. I don’t have the best equipment here so I can’t do as thorough a scan as I’d like, but from what I can tell things are looking good for the little ones. To be honest I’m not even 100% sure there are five of them in there, but Aedus assures me there are. He seems pretty sure of himself when he talks about them, and I’m inclined to believe him (don’t ask me why, I don’t understand anything anymore).
Breed: No clue. Never seen this shape with this size with this type of fur in this color before. Some sort of mastiff, maybe? Who knows. She’s tall like a mastiff, and her neck is thick as a tree trunk. Her snout is longer than a mastiff’s should be, though, and her ears are shorter and stick out like a pair of triangles taped to her head. Her chest is wide and deep and her paws are like shovels on the ends of her legs. Big claws, too. And teeth. Just about everything on this dog is big.
I asked Aedus about it while he was still conscious, and he told was able to mumble was something about “Lex’s pack”. I don’t know who (or what) Lex is, but I’m assuming it’s some sort of relative of Le Fay’s. Her mom/dad? Maybe the sire who spawned this new breed? Who knows. Not me, I can tell you that.
Weight: 213 pounds (don’t know how much of that is dog and how much of that is puppies)
Looks like most of it is pure muscle. Ol girl is ripped, doesn’t look like there’s ever been much fat on her.
Age: 2+ years according to Aedus (he couldn’t narrow that down anymore for me, he was in and out of consciousness at this point)
That would probably be my guess based on her size, but it’s hard to be sure without knowing her breed for sure.
Prior Medical History: She’s definitely had it rough, but beyond the radiation damage and the malnutrition (it looks like that’s a recent issue, probably lack of appetite due to rad. sickness) it looks like she’s in pretty great shape. Muscle development is incredible, teeth all mostly intact and healthy (gums bloody due to rad. sickness & a few teeth were chipped, but nothing out of the ordinary for a dog this size). No signs of major prior trauma. Few scars here and there, especially near her paws, but no signs of broken bones or major scarring.
Height: 29 inches
Coloration / Markings: Shaggy, medium-length black fur. Thick, dense undercoat and fluffy, whispy overcoat. Her fur feels like silk when you touch it even though it’s obvious she hasn’t had a bath in a while.
Allergies: None known (Aedus didn’t seem to understand what I was talking about when I asked him about this. He was pretty out of it at the time, but I honestly don’t think he knows what an allergy is)
(Who the hell doesn’t know their dog’s allergies?)
Temperament: Hit or miss. Aedus was the only one she really paid any attention to. No matter where he was in the room her eyes were never off him for more than a second. She did not like me examining her, but he was able to keep her calm long enough for me to get some meds in her system. She was already partially sedated when he passed out and if she hadn’t been I honestly don’t know what she would have done. When she snarls it’s like every primal fear in me rises up and screams at me to get as far away from this thing as possible, but then I’ll see her and Aedus blinking at each other or I’ll see her tail wag while he’s whispering to her and something about it makes my heart melt. I don’t think I’ve ever met an animal quite like this one.
Treatment Summary: Hoo boy. This was a rough one. Beyond the simple fact that finding the two of them in my storeroom was not something I was expecting, Le Fay was in absolutely terrible shape when I first got my hands on her. I knew I should run and call someone, the beatcops or the biddies or someone, but Aedus practically begged me to help her and the look on his face nearly broke my heart.
I started with a basic physical exam, which was terrifying. When I first reached out to touch her for a second I honestly thought she was going to tear my arm off. It wasn’t just that she growled at me or flashed those massive teeth. She looked right in my eyes, and it was different from looking at any other dog I’d ever met. There was nothing primal or instinctual about what she was doing. She wasn’t reacting out of blind fear. She knew what I was and what I was doing, and she very clearly and concisely let me know that if I laid a finger on her she would choose to kill me. I know that doesn’t make any sense. I’m looking over this as I’m typing and I know how it sounds. But I swear, when she looked at me it was not with the eyes of a dumb, simple animal. This is something else, and I feel like I fully don’t understand what.
Aedus was fading in and out pretty rapidly as he started to bleed out (it would be a while before Hugo noticed the amount of blood pooling on the storeroom floor), but he was able to describe the “dragon’s breath” and its symptoms. I’ve never heard that name given to it before, but I know radiation sickness when I heard it (vomiting, diarrhea, fever, etc). I remember once, when I was still working out of Sandra’s in Carthage, someone found a goat (we thought it was a goat, at least) who’d been born out in the wastes and brought it in. It was so irradiated the poor thing practically glowed in the dark. That was the worst case of rad. sickness I’ve ever seen, and at least Le Fay wasn’t that bad off. I adapted the goat’s treatment and started off by pumping her full of Qzine, Charnide and a basic nutrient synth to get her rehydrated and hopefully get some of her strength back. The Qzine kicked the fever’s ass (for as much as it costs it damn well better, in all the time I’ve been travelin I’ve never once been to a city with pharmaceutical prices higher than Babylon’s). I was amazed at how well it worked with her immune system; her vitals (and the puppies’) started improving almost immediately.
I sedated her so I could focus on treating Aedus without her constantly threatening to rip my head off every time I touched him. She did not like that. I had to sneak around while she was growling at Hugo and stick her when she wasn’t looking. I know if she’d had the strength she would have been on me like white on rice, but I didn’t know what else to do. She was like a timebomb and I knew if I didn’t put her under sooner or later she was gonna be strong enough to stand and we would have been in for it then if Aedus hadn’t been up to calm her down.
She’s sleeping pretty soundly now and I’m hoping the Qzine will keep going strong. If it does she might be back on her feet come morning.
Additional Notes: Just in case any complications arise, I want to also document my treatment of the man who brough in Le Fay. He says his name is Aedus (he actually said a whole bunch of stuff that I didn’t catch, but he answers to Aedus so I’m going with that) (I’m not even sure I’m spelling his name right. I shadowed a professor named Aedus Kaneek when I was working in Constantinople, and the pronunciations sound the same so I’m going with that spelling for now and hoping for the best).
This is well out of my area of expertise, but while I was treating Le Fay Hugo made me aware that Aedus was bleeding. I came over to investigate and realized how badly he was hurt. He’d hung around while I was first getting a feel for Le Fay, but while I wasn’t paying attention he’d sneaked over into a corner and was almost comatose when I finally started working on him. I was drafted into the Jericho/fallout skirmishes as a medic just after I finished my first sessions (those bastards didn’t care what kind of degree you had as long as you could sew a stich) so while I do have some experience treating humans, this was by far the most extreme situation I’ve ever been placed in as a medical professional.
Some basics on Aedus. First off, he and his dog have at least one thing in common: they’re both large. I haven’t gotten around to an exact measurement, but I’d put Aedus somewhere between 6 ½ & 7 feet (I’d guess closer to 7) tall. He’s lean (I’d say malnourished at this point, but like Le Fay I’m guessing this is more a result of the rad. sickness than anything) but his muscles are well-developed. He reminds me of some of the farmhands who worked with Daddy back in Jericho, for some reason. Maybe it’s the hair? The boys back on the farm always loved to grow theirs out, but Aedus’ ‘do would put theirs to shame.
Anyway, he shows the same signs of radiation sickness as Le Fay, but he’s in much worse shape physically. Or at least I think. It’s hard to tell what he’s supposed to look like on a good day, what with all the tattoos. He’s absolutely covered in them. I’ve never seen anything like it. But I can tell his feet are in horrible condition. They were basically bloody stumps before I wrapped them up. I don’t know how he was able to stand, let alone make his way in here without screaming every step of the way. From what I can tell under all the ink he’s pretty bruised, there are lots of cuts (removed three large glass shards, several smaller fragments deeper in) and I also found a patch of splinters and chips embedded deep in left shoulder. These looked older, his skin had started to expunge most of the junk on its own. Oh, and, best of all, he’s been shot. At least four times. Two were just graze wounds, those were pretty easy to take care of (even for me). Stitched and wrapped, easy-peasy. The other two shots were both square in the back. I found one exit wound near his belly (I’m not seeing signs of major internal bleeding, don’t ask how) but I had to dig around near his shoulder to get the last one out. Finally managed, felt like I was gonna throw up the whole time. Had some erythrocyte synths leftover from working the bloodbank in Beijing, had to use the last of it to get his blood pressure back up to nominal (or as close to nominal as I could get). He’s resting now. Pumped him full of Qzine too to get his fever down and he’s responding well. Better than well if I’m being honest. I actually think he’s gonna live.
I can’t stop thinking about what happened when we (Hugo and I) first met him. He lashes out like a trapped raccoon, but he didn’t do it with his fists (actually, now that I think about it, I think he did kick Hugo when he first came into the storeroom), he did it some other way. I don’t even know how to describe it. I don’t even know if it really happened. It’s like he looked inside me and sifted through everything I was until he knew I could help Le Fay. And somehow because he knew I could help her I knew I could help her? It’s like once he made me realize it I didn’t even think, I just went to work and didn’t stop until I knocked her out and started in on him.
I checked myself after they were both knocked out (Hugo had helped me where he could, but he’d passed out on the floor at this point) and needless to say I had plenty of adrenaline in my system. My heart hasn’t pounded like this since I got out of Jericho. I never thought I’d miss that feeling, and I’m still not sure I do.
In Conclusion: This is, by far, the weirdest night I have ever spent in Babylon, but I think both of my patients (or all seven of my patients? If you count the puppies) are going to live.
I am absolutely exhausted, but I really do think they’re gonna be okay.
Date: 21/08/64 Signature: Micki