I was once again awake and knew that soon it was time for rounds; a few weeks had gone by, Mariella was partially mobile, I was not so much, and Mariella was allowed a max of 50 steps per day.
We were heavily pregnant, and they were preparing for a C-section as the babies were big enough; sure, they would go to incubators as they were only 31 weeks or so, but it was time for them to be born.
I was in different positional therapies, meaning my body was turned and positioned several times a day, always weirdly, but they were not bad, meaning no pain; it was just relieving pressure on certain points and allowing some healing to take place, like my whole pelvis was encased now in a plaster cast.
I had a catheter and a shit collector, but my legs and hips were fixed in certain positions with this cast. There were adjustable casts and supports in my limbs, and I was allowed to be awake 5 hours per day, so not much, and most of that time.
I was tired and groggy and napped anyway. But I had my moments, so much so they had inspired Mariella as well, and well, fucking shit, our husbands had anticipated this, and they muted us.
Every time it was time for rounds, they activated this damn spell to keep us silent as they went on with rounds and checked us over, and then, only then, were we allowed to speak, but since they liked us to sleep, it was maybe wise not to articulate everything out loud, or even in my mind.
Right now, I was on my left side, my right arm hanging from the support rod, and there was a soft pillow in my armpit, so my arm was not too badly hanging. I had gloves, which fixed my fingers and sometimes moved them, as my hands had been crushed too by glass—real Dr. Strange injuries—but my hands would be fine in some days. Well, I had a little game with Mariella, again with fancy words; she liked to learn them too. As I did not hear footsteps just yet, it meant it was time for one round of our game.
I said to Mariella, who was now lying on her back, not lifted at all, "Our husbands are so damn habile, or they think so with their medical words and procedures. They seemed to be afraid of our sometimes philippic wording about them, like fancying them and being a good patient would have some kind of paramountcy."
"I am so fed up sometimes with their attitude," Mariella grunted as she was trying to decipher my meaning.
Well, the message was quite clear, and those words just added some pizzazz to it.
She said, her voice irritated, "I am so damn fed up hearing about my skeleton. Which part of today's list? Right now my spine is optimized; it is in perfect alignment, so my vertebrae can heal and strengthen, and as this mattress moves, it keeps pressure off my womb, and since my blood pressure needs to be so damn low, and babies are not heavy just yet, thank God this is just 45 minutes at a time."
I scoffed and said, "I am hanging most of the time like some art installation, and even if this is not bad, this is hardly a relaxing position; all I have to do is nod off or shift my weight slightly, and it feels like I am hanging off a cliff with his arm."
I rolled my eyes and decided to add a bit more to my little lesson, "I have no energy to get into bracas with them, so I just go with the flow, even if I am sometimes a little doubtful about their discernment over my situation."
Mariella furrowed her brows as she was remembering my fancy words and checking them later; she was allowed screen time for 45 minutes per day, and if her vitals were fine, her tablet still had certain limitations on what she could watch. As her preeclampsia had not gone away, it was under control, only because the Salvatores really kept their eye on the ball and did not slip up at all.
Getting us healthy and healing was not easy, and I had to give it to them; each of the men in our pack had truly devoted themselves to us and the pack, as well as the girls too. They came by sometimes, just visiting; babies were not allowed near us because of possible infection, and those visits were short anyway, but at least we were healing, slowly, but there was progress.
As for my kids, it took time for them as well. As their injuries have not been easy, and reconstructing the whole ankle, like in Dash's case, and getting it to fuse and heal with no issues took time and patience, it was what it was, and despite this, it was sometimes getting on my nerves quite badly.
I managed to give lists of stuff to May or whoever of the girls was coming to visit so they could keep things rolling. Of course, I had to be cunning so Salvatore did not hear, or else I might have had a nap in that spot, and my poor girls would have been interrogated about what I had given them.
As I heard footsteps approaching, I finally glanced at the clock. Oh, they were late; it was 8:13 am, and rounds usually were strictly on time, but let's see then.
As number one was the first to come in, he said in his clipped doctor's tone, "Morning, my sweetlings. Today it is C-section day. We took some time to get the nursery and incubators ready. Mariella, you are first, and it is a full blackout with probably a few days' sleep afterward. Baby, I reckon you have yours in the early evening or tomorrow; it depends, as we have a few procedures to be done to kids as well, so they are first, then 'Ella, and then we clean up, see what is going on, and see if you are, my baby, today or will it be tomorrow."
He started then, as usual, with the kids first, and I was in bed at five, so it took a bit of time for him to reach me, as they had discussed this and that. Well, I was alert and had been quite a few times. I had an idea.
Well, I needed to think a bit more, but I thought it might give me another award in the real world. I was not sure if we could use it here, as it would take some tinkering from me in my Moldovan lab.
I was really thinking about my idea, and I did not notice the curious expression on Wulfe's face as he zeroed in on me, noticing I was thinking something, but what? He began to probe, to seek where my hidey hole was; according to him, my mind had no secrets from him if he so chose.
My idea was once again kind of a biological craft, like mac burners, but unlike mac burners, which were just one layer of cells, this would be stiff and layered with multiple levels of tissue, kind of piece of hard cartilage, and at first the patient would need 3D scans as well as tissue samples. These were done so we could map out the area exactly where this piece would come and partially let it harden in the printed-out mold.
And I had my base idea of how I crafted macburners, so I could tweak it a bit and make it hard, supportive, and maybe get some vessels on it, or even nerve cells, so now the tissue samples could be right out on there to grow for a few days and then have an operation. It was my base idea.
Of course, there was a ton of technical data, as well as quite a few unique dental substances needed, but I hoped to make this a bit more affordable so its price would not be so high. If we could get the base made cheaply and then add cells to make it a DNA match, maybe the incubation and growing period would not be so long.
Wulfe slithered into my mind's hideyhole and found out what I was planning. His expression steeled; he had learned a ton of medicine, and he could grasp quite a lot of what I was planning here. He looked at number one, who also looked at me.
Suddenly I felt as if number four had busted into my hideyhole as well, and others too, and soon my idea, my data, was copied, and my husbands were not too impressed, as I had not said a word, but now they had quite an idea, and they could do it, and now it would be Salvatore's bone and joint craft or something.
Number One said out loud, "Thank you for that, my love. You have given us an almost-ready thing; a few more tweaks, and I reckon we can get the first version done next week, and then we can go on from there. But please, speak next time if you have an idea so we can get with it. Now if we use our tissues as a base, remove DNA with our version of dentals, and keep them soft, then we can harvest tissues, implant them as soft, and kind of mold them in place and then harden them; it will be more feasible as tissue lives and morphs no matter how recent scans are, but yeah, we can layer it and use it for kids and Mariella and for you too, once we get enough for it to grow."
I took a breath and said, "Well, for us, there is no need to eradicate DNA; you could take our tissues, like skin, use it as a base, and make it a version that would work faster. You have elastase in the skin, but you can fuse pieces of joints and cartilage even from our ribs to stiffen it."
He nodded; numbers two and five were already talking, their foreheads creased as they were plotting and planning whom to take and what, but now they were continuing their rounds, and soon it would be my turn. I just knew that I would most likely be sleeping a few days after surgery as well, and maybe our healing would start to kick in a bit more.
As I was hanging there and waiting for what men or doctors would decide for me, I felt weird as I was just thinking about babies and how wonderful it would be to care for them, the smell of babies, their little scrunch, and their little sounds, and this sensation grew.
As my blanket was tucked in, nothing was really seen, but Mariella's nose twitched as she smelled the air, and she said, "Hey, Dr. Damon, Mimi's leaking; I smell milk."
Oh, well, yeah, now as I started to understand this sensation, my front was soaking, and more was dripping all of the time. Soon numbers one and ten came to me, as number four had gone to the drug cabinet. And again my lovely, but wet, blanket was removed, and so was my gown. Number ten placed pumps on my tits as number one wiped my skin and felt carefully just how full they were.
"You are packed, I see. Fine, let's empty you out, give you our concoction, and then as we get on with the C-section and whatnot, we do a bit of surgery, meaning blocking a few nerves so your tits are not eager to make milk. It would be no problem if you would not ever make milk again, but it is more than likely that this is only a temporary fix."
I was given a fresh gown after my breasts had been emptied, 6 liters per breast, so I had made quite a lot, which did not make Salvatore any happier, as I had just depleted my resources even more.
Number three said. "Well, after surgery, I would say 8 meals a day, orally, five of them liquid and three a bit more solid, but let's take it carefully, use our molecular concentrate to make boosters for her absorption, and let's monitor lipid profile, vitamin levels, energy usage, and cellular turnover as well as mitochondrial activity."
Number two nodded, he said. "Rest and bed rest are still needed after surgery; even with this new graft, her pelvis needs time. It is a week before her healing really kicks in, and then it is hard, so we need to feed her via IV and orally."
Number one grunted in agreement and said, "Monitor her pheromones, make sure she is safe, and let's see when we can move her somewhere else to recover. No stress for you, baby."
He looked at me, and I rolled my eyes. I could still feel several Salvatores going through my mind, my medical ideas. I had plenty, but not all of them had been feasible, or then I had had no time or energy to tackle some issue that I had noticed, but now, my eager husband plucked these out of my mind permanently.
For them, it was a wonderful challenge to have someone like me have an idea, try something, and have a problem. Their minds worked differently, and so now they had multiple projects to tackle. I was not mad; if they could do them all well, if not, well, not every project was meant to be.
Damon rattled off a long list of tests for me, after and before the C-section, as well as scans and tissue sampling, as I had too few badly crushed places, like my pelvis, my shoulder, and my fingers, so they needed tissues from them as well. And make sure my fangs stayed down and there was no more milk. It seemed my whole life, my five-hour awake window was focused on eating; a re-scan would be taken 3 days from the initial placement and the next one week from the initial, and if those were promising, Adam and Charles would start to work me over as well.
Even Salvatore talked much in similar ways during the rounds; variation was found in their body language. Number one was stiff and proper, hiding behind medicine and keeping his touch purely clinical, at least for me.
Whereas my so-called cuddlebugs, numbers two, four, five, nine, and ten, stroked and smiled at me, their touch belying their need to be with me, they had less trouble mixing a medical mindset with loving husband mode. I had felt their love, all of them, as those fur pillows had stone chips in them, and they had been filled with their love for me.
After all, I was a creature of love, and according to the classification of energies by Jill Macdougal done in 2035, energies were in different categories. Like active and passive energies, or receiving and sending energies, or healing and helping, versus exciting and stimulating. I had read some of her books, but I suspected that Wulfe had found them, read them, and given them to others, and there was a lot of information for them as energy creatures, and as for Mariella, too.
She was kind of a guardian of my energies, though I suspected she was on sick leave from that position, and who was right now doing that to me, I had no idea, and frankly to say, it was less important right now, as I could see benefits Salvatores keeping busy with tinkering with energies and stones in the future, leaving me ruling over my wing; this caused quite a sharp glance from number one, and he adjusted my IV, making my mind blur, and once again darkness was taking over.