Chapter 15 (Medical Complications)
Chapter 15
“And that’s the last one.”
Allen breathed a sigh of relief and pulled his pants back up when the nurse finished removing the last needle from his buttcheek.
“How many shots was that today?” he asked sarcastically, “felt like you stuck me about a million times back there, and was it really necessary to stick me so hard too? I felt like you were trying to run me through a few times.”
The nurse, a white coated, pink maned, earth pony mare named Nurse Redheart, finished capping the dirty needle and dropped it in the biohazard waste bin before sarcastically retorting, “Actually it was only around half a million or so, and don’t be such a foal, I didn’t stick you any harder than I did the last time you were here.”
Allen rolled his eyes at the nurse’s sass. “Oh, well then, don’t I feel lucky?”
“You should, considering that we determined that you were susceptible to several diseases that we couldn’t vaccinate you for in our first round of testing because you hadn’t had the preparatory vaccines and medicines given to you yet. Diseases that would have had very unpleasant effects on your biology if we hadn’t vaccinated you in time.”
Still a little miffed by her lack of bedside manners, Allen shot back, “And what kind of ‘unpleasant effects’ are we talking about here?”
“Death most likely,” she shot back evenly, not even bothering to look up from her clipboard as she finished her report.
Allen blinked, and like a balloon who’d been punctured, he felt the remaining irritation drain from his body. “Oh, right.”
Letting go a sigh, Redheart turned to regard Allen and said, “I am sorry for the inconvenience that you endured here, Mr. Ross, and I’m sorry that you felt more pain than you should have. Getting stuck with a lot of needles and pumped full of medicine all at once isn’t anypony’s idea of a good time. However, we had to get you back in here quicker than we initially thought due to one of the tests coming back saying that you were critically vulnerable to several rather common diseases here in Equestria. One of them being pony pox.”
“Pony pox? What does that do?” asked Allen.
“It usually manifests itself in young foals, common symptoms are fever, headaches, loss of appetite, tiredness and red bumps and blisters on the skin that will usually break after a day and then scab over. It is highly contagious and in severe cases can result in blisters in the mouth, throat, eyes, and anus. Adults that get it tend to fare worse than foals, and it can lead to pneumonia and meningitis or encephalitis, which is an infection of the brain. If left untreated in an adult or if they’re immune system isn’t strong enough, it can also result in death.”
“That sounds an awful lot like chicken pox, which I had as a kid.”
Nurse Redheart shook her head. “Not quite, pony pox, while similar to chicken pox, is more dangerous to non-ponies. Even though you had chicken pox, that won’t be enough to keep you from getting the pony pox. If you had contracted it, inflammation of the brain would have likely occurred, followed by massive organ failure, in addition to the aforementioned symptoms. We’re not sure why pony pox is so deadly to other species, but it is, so you getting the vaccine was critical. Luckily you haven’t been exposed to any so far, so you should be fine now.”
Allen gave a mental sigh of relief. Glad that he had dodged that particular bullet. “Well, that’s a relief, guess I shouldn’t have given you so much grief then, sorry.”
Redheart gave him a curt nod as she finished putting things away. “Apology accepted. And I apologize if I’ve been less than gentle, your skin isn’t as difficult to get through as a pony’s is, so I apologize for any excessive force.”
“It’s alright, I know I didn’t make it easy. I’ve always hated needles, and being around them tends to make me squeamish and irritable.”
Redheart smiled. “I completely understand, trust me when I say that you’ve been the most cooperate patient I’ve had today when it comes to giving them their shots. Trust me, nothing is more frustrating than a unicorn foal going through their magical surge phase who doesn’t want to get their shots.”
Allen gave her a curious look. “Magical surge phase?”
Redheart twirled a hoof nonchalantly and replied, “Oh it’s just that when the magic in a young foal is still developing, it’ll sometimes ‘surge’ and allow the foal to do extraordinary things. Unicorn foals are the worst, I can’t tell you how many times one of the little rascals has teleported on me or cast a shield spell on themselves to keep from getting stuck. Pegasi come a close second as they tend to just zip around the room like a little rubber ball that’s been thrown too hard,” she sighs, “before I worked here in Ponyville, I did my residency at Canterlot General, and some of the stories I heard from the staff about their encounters with a surging foal left me fairly anxious the first time I had to work with one. It’s why they finally invested in a null room a couple of years ago, helps keep the young one's magic from surging when they’re working with them.”
“What did the foals do to the staff?” asked Allen as he and Redheart walked back to the checkout desk.
“You name it, teleportation, shield spells, fireballs, ice shards, transformation, phasing through solid objects, strong levitation spells, pretty much any kind of spell you could think of, they somehow managed to cast. Nopony is really sure how they can do it when they surge, but then are unable to later, but such is the mysteries of life I suppose.”
“Wait, you said transformation spells? As in, turning something into something else? That’s a thing here?” asked Allen, a hint of nervousness coloring his voice.
Redheart nodded. “Yeah, rumor has it that Twilight accidentally turned her parents into house plants when she surged during an entrance exam at Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. I’ve never asked her if it’s true or not, but I wouldn’t be surprised. I remember when I was still in Canterlot, one of the doctors said that he and a nurse had their genders reversed by a young filly when she was in to get her shots. Luckily, those spells either don’t last for very long or are easy to reverse.”
“Twilight turned her parents into house plants?” said Allen, a shiver running down his spine at the thought of being turned into a ficus.
Redheart placed a calming hoof on his thigh and said with a soothing tone, “Like I said it’s a rumor, and trust me, we ponies have ways to figure out if somepony has been transformed into something else. That kind of magic leaves large traces behind, and it’s a simple matter of reversing the spell. Besides, there are very few ponies out there who have that kind of magical power, so you’ll be fine.”
“Somehow that doesn’t reassure me very much,” replied Allen, a concerned look on his face.
Seeing that he hadn’t calmed down, Redheart tried again. Standing on her hind hooves and resting her forehooves on his chest, she looked him square in the eye and said in as calming a voice as she could, “Mr. Ross, I can assure you that the one pony capable of potentially casting transformation magic in this town is Ms. Sparkle, and she would never do something like that without a pony’s permission. Additionally, every unicorn is rated on their power level when they are in school, and they are given a designation as a result, and as that pony grows, they are re-evaluated on a regular basis. For instance, Twilight is an upper beta level unicorn, and before you ask, yes, that designation is supposed to be public knowledge. The reason is that each of these designations allows others to know roughly how powerful that unicorn is, which means they’ll have a decent idea of what kind of spells they are able to wield. Furthermore, there are strict laws in regards to the misuse of magic, and very few unicorns would risk the kind of punishments those laws entail should they break them.”
“But what about those foals you were talking about? They can do that too, right?” Allen had calmed down a little, but for some reason, his heart was still beating hard in his chest. The idea of being transformed into something against his will terrified him like nothing else.
Seeing that her words weren’t having a strong impact on him, Redheart softened her gaze and spoke even softer. Luckily they were in a wing of the hospital that was currently not being used, and as such, there wasn’t anypony to see Allen have his little panic attack. “Allen,” she began, using his first name for the first time since meeting him, “I told you, foal magic doesn’t work the same as adult magic. The effects can be easily reversed by any competent adult because a foals magic is unstable. That is what gives spells their power. If a spell is cast in an unstable manner, it will either not work, be weak, and thus easy to counter, or will simply explode in the casters face. With transformation magic, it takes a great deal of power to permanently change something or someone into something or someone else. That is because the spell has to spend so much of its energy converting one type of matter into a different type that it can’t sustain itself unless the caster is able to pour enough energy into the spell to overcome the power drain. Not only that, but every living creature has a magic resonance inside them, so in order to change something permanently, you have to overcome the magical resonance of whatever it is you are transforming, and that is extremely difficult. So, I will say this again, you are in no danger from some random unicorn coming along and zapping you with a spell and turning you into a begonia on the side of the road for the rest of your life.”
Allen slowly felt his heart rate returning to normal, but then he felt it skip a beat or two, his legs suddenly felt weak, and he lost his balance. Throwing a hand out, he caught the nearby wall, and using that, tried to lower himself to the floor. Redheart, having been using her forehooves on Allen’s chest to keep herself upright, suddenly found herself falling forward when Allen fell backwards, the end result being that Allen suddenly found the nurse sprawled across his lap in a very awkward manner. Checks flaming red, Nurse Redheart quickly extricated herself from the somewhat compromising position of having her rear stuck up in the air, while her face was buried in Allen’s lap.
Thank Epona that nopony saw that or I’d never hear the end of it. Thought Redheart thankfully to herself as she readjusted her nurse's cap, which had gone askew in the tumble.
Having finished adjusting her cap, Nurse Redheart took a moment to awkwardly clear her throat and said, “Sorry about that, are you alright? You lost your balance so suddenly, I didn’t have time to catch myself.”
Still feeling weird, and breathing slightly hard, as if he’d just climbed several flights of stairs at a run, Allen shakily nodded, “I-I think so. I don’t know why, but I feel a little funny.”
Upon hearing Allen’s reply, Redheart’s nurse mode instantly kicked in, and she moved forwards to examine him.
Drat, I don’t have a flashlight to check his pupil dilation. Leaning her head against his chest, she listened to his heartbeat. Heartbeat seems a little fast, better check his pulse. Grabbing his wrist with a hoof, she placed her frog against it and felt his pulse. Hmmm, I don’t like it, it feels off slightly, not as strong as it was when he came in this morning. I’d better have Dr. Stable check on him, he might be having a reaction to one of the vaccines.
Glancing up at Allen, she asked calmly, “Do you think you’re able to walk? I’d like to have Dr. Stable take a look at you, I think you might be having a reaction to one of the vaccines.”
Allen blinked several times as he tried to focus, and giving his head a shake he said, “I don’t know, what’s going on?”
Crap, I was afraid this might happen, too many medications in too short a time. His body isn’t handling it well. Biting her lower lip, she quickly made a decision. Turning around, so that her rear was to him, she said, “Climb on, I’ll carry you to the ER, and don’t give me any excuses, I might be smaller than you, but I’m an earth pony, and we are stronger than we look.”
Giving a shaky nod, Allen shakily climbed onto her, his chest flat against her back. Grunting under the sudden weight, Redheart shifted Allen slightly with her shoulders and feeling that he was as settled as he was going to get, carefully trotted down the hall towards the ER. She was sure under different circumstances, this would be a comical sight. Allen had his arms wrapped around her neck in an attempt to keep from sliding off her back, while his legs, being so long, dragged along behind her, occasionally leaving a scuff mark behind.
Dusty is gonna have a fit when he sees those scuff marks. She thought quietly to herself as she half carried, half dragged Allen down the hall.
A few minutes later, and they arrived at the ER. Pushing open the door with a foreleg, Redheart stumbled inside. Luckily, Dr. Stable was already there, and upon seeing them, he immediately made a beeline for the pair.
Lighting up his horn, he quickly removed Allen from Nurse Redheart’s back, to which she was grateful as, while he wasn’t heavy per se, he was big and awkward to carry around. Thankfully, she hadn’t had to carry him very far. However, there were more pressing matters at the moment than complaining about carrying big and awkward objects, namely that they had a sick human on their hooves.
“What happened,” asked Dr. Stable, a light amber colored unicorn, with an electrocardiographic monitor as his cutie mark.
Redheart shook her head. “I don’t know, we were talking on the way to the checkout desk and he suddenly became upset when I brought up that transformation magic was possible. I tried to calm him down, and it partially worked, but then he lost his balance and collapsed against a wall, and I had to carry him here as he said he felt funny and was unable to walk. I think he may be having a reaction to one of the vaccines we gave him today.”
Wasting no time, Dr. Stable quickly used his magic to remove Allen’s shirt and placed several EKG pads on his chest with his magic, it's cyan glow quickly moving from the pads to the nearby heart monitor and flipping several switches, bringing the machine to life with a rhythmic beeping sound. Turning to look at the heart monitor, he watched as the lines went up and down for several seconds before turning back to Allen and beginning his examination.
After several tests, he turned to Redheart and said, “Get him started on a saline drip, and give him a mild relaxant, five milligrams should be enough. He’s having a mild panic attack and that’s causing his body to dump adrenaline into his bloodstream. Did you happen to give him the pony pox vaccine today by chance?”
She nodded. “Yes, it was the last one I gave him.”
He nodded in sudden understanding. “I thought so, then it’s no wonder he’s reacting this way. That was a new one that we just got, and it has to be administered separately at least twenty-four hours before or after another vaccine or medicine. Additionally, the patient can’t do any activities that would elevate their heart rate for at least two hours, preferably three. They changed one of the ingredients in it, don’t know why, the old one was just fine, but they did. Anyways, as I said, get some saline in him along with a mild relaxant and he should be fine.”
“Wha-why didn’t anypony tell me about the vaccine change?! I thought it was the usual one!” replied Redheart angrily.
Dr. Stable held up a calming hoof. “I know, I’m sorry, I had thought everypony had been told this morning. We used up the last of the old vaccine yesterday afternoon, and I had Nurse Tenderheart bring up the new ones from storage. I’ll be sure to double check and make sure everypony knows about the new procedures with this vaccine. We don’t want another repeat of this,” turning to regard Allen with a contrite look, he said, “Mr. Ross, I am so very, very sorry about this, but don’t worry, you are in good hooves and we will correct this, Nurse Redheart, if you please?” he asked as he turned to leave, presumably to make sure everyone else was up to speed on the new changes.
“Of course Dr. Stable, I’ll get right on it,” she replied before quickly getting to work. A few minutes later, and the drip was going, and Allen could already feel the relaxant kicking in. Giving a contented sigh, he relaxed further into the surprisingly comfortable bed. Nurse Redheart, upon noticing that he was shivering slightly, had gone and fetched a pre-warmed blanket from one of the warming cabinets and gently placed it over him.
Giving her his thanks, Allen felt his eyelids grow heavy and he found himself dozing off. However, all too soon he felt a hoof shaking him awake. Glancing over at the pony the hoof was attached to, he found himself looking at Nurse Redheart. Blinking blearily at her, he glanced around the room in confusion before asking in a slurred voice, “Wha time iz it?”
“You’ve been asleep for a couple of hours, Mr. Ross,” she replied softly, “I’m sorry to wake you, but I need to examine you to see if your condition has improved.”
He blearily nodded for her to go ahead. Quickly setting to work, Redheart asked as she took his pulse, “How are you feeling? Any tightness in your chest, labored breathing, is your heart beating strangely?”
He shook his head. “No, I just feel a little tired is all.”
She nodded, a pleased smile on her face. “That will be the relaxants, which is good, we don’t want your heart beating too fast or it could trigger a reaction.”
“Why?”
She continued working as she replied, “All vaccines and medicines have magic in them. These spells are classified as ‘ingredients’ by the Ministry of Health, and most of them are just meant to keep the medicine from degrading or to boost its potency. However, like all things, if you change an ingredient, even slightly, it can cause... complications. In your case, the pony pox vaccine had one of the potency spells changed, apparently the company that makes it thought that we were due for a more virile strain this year and wanted to get ahead of it, so they made it stronger. Problem is, by doing that they made it so that the vaccine won’t play nice with the other ones we gave you. So now we have to wait for them to work themselves through your system so that it doesn’t get overloaded. Unfortunately, in your case, nopony told me that we had run out of the old one and that they had brought the new vaccine out of storage, and the bottle looked like the usual one. So, I assumed we still had some of the older ones left, which we could inject with other medicines at the same time without issue. Moreover, since you hadn’t had any reactions to the previous round of vacancies and boosters, your body is obviously able to properly absorb and metabolize the magical ingredients without issue, so I figured that this round wouldn’t be any different.”
“But it was,” cut in Allen.
Redheart nodded as she finished her exam. “Yes, it was. By increasing the potency of the vaccine, your bodies immune system became overloaded. However, it seems as though that by itself wouldn’t have caused any issues or at least that is what Dr. Stable thinks. So, if you had gone home and taken it easy for the rest of the day, you would have probably been fine, maybe you would have felt a little off, but not to the degree you do right now.”
“So what happened then?” asked Allen as Redheart removed the blood pressure cuff from his arm.
She shrugged. “Near as we can tell, you became upset when you and I discussed the effects of a foal’s magical surges. As a consequence, your body entered into a ‘flight or fight’ mode and began dumping adrenaline into your system, elevating your heart rate among other bodily functions. This, in turn, caused a negative reaction with the recently injected vaccines, which then caused your body to become ill from the effects. Which in turn, made the body dump even more adrenaline into your system, and made the problem worse.”
“So it created a positive feedback loop?”
“Precisely,” replied Redheart with a nod, “as your body tried to counter the negative reaction to the medicine, it just made the situation worse. The only way that we could hope to reverse it was to get you to relax, hence the use of the mild relaxants, coupled with the saline drip. Which, if your vitals are anything to go by, seems to be working. Heart rate is back down to normal levels and your heart's rhythm is working properly again, breathing levels are normal and so is eye pupil dilation. I’m very glad we got a good baseline for you during your initial check-up,” finished Redheart, half to herself and half to Allen.
Turning to leave, she called back over her shoulder, “I’ll go and get Dr. Stable, and we’ll see if he thinks you are good to go home or if we should keep you overnight.”
“But I’ve got animals to feed,” protested Allen.
Nurse Redheart gave him a stern glare. “If you think I’m going to let you go home and work yourself back into a hospital bed after I just got you out of it, you’ve got another think coming mister! No strenuous work for the rest of the day, do I make myself clear?” she asked in a tone that brooked no argument.
Allen meekly nodded his head and seeing that he was going to behave himself, she gave a satisfied nod of her head and trotted out the room to fetch, Dr. Stable. A few minutes later, and Redheart returned with the doctor. Taking a look at the clipboard at the end of Allen’s bed, Dr. Stable looked it over before nodding to himself and putting it back. Glancing up at Allen he gave the human a happy smile. “Good news, Mr. Ross, it looks like you are going to be just fine.”
Allen returned the doctor’s smile with a grateful one of his own. “That’s good to hear doc. I was afraid you were going to be forced to keep me overnight.”
Dr. Stable’s smile quickly turned upside down. “Well, actually I was planning on keeping you overnight. Even though your vitals have normalized for the moment, I’d still feel better if we kept you close by in case anything else cropped up. Not only that, but I know how you farmers like to ignore my advice when I tell you to take it easy. So, I’m not going to give you the chance to ignore it.”
“But-!”
“No buts,” cut in Dr. Stable, giving Allen a stern glare, though a second later it softened, “I’m sorry, Mr. Ross, but what with your alien physiology, and your recent complication, I’d rather play it safe than have you be at home without somepony keeping an eye on you in case you have a relapse.”
Allen felt himself deflate in defeat, and he hung his head. “So who is gonna take care of my animals?” he asked unhappily.
“Well, is there anypony who you think would be willing to help you out? We could send somepony to go and get them real quick. I’m sure they would be happy to help you.”
Allen let his head fall back onto his pillow as he stared up at the ceiling and he thought carefully for a few moments before saying, “Well, the only ponies who’ve really been to my farm who live close by are Lyra and Twilight, they might be willing to help, though I don’t know where they live.”
Redheart gave a gentle smile and said, “Don’t worry, Mr. Ross, I know where both of them live. They’ve been patients here several times and we have their addresses on file,” turning to Dr. Stable she asked, “if you’re alright with it, I can go get them right now.”
He nodded. “I don’t see why not, I’ll keep an eye on our patient while you’re out, see you when you get back.”
Turning to leave, she gave the two a wave goodbye and trotted out. Dr. Stable, watched her go for a moment before turning back to Allen and continuing his examination.
~oOo~
Nurse Redheart quickly trotted through the sun-drenched streets of Ponyville as she headed in search of Twilight and Lyra. She first decided to see if Twilight was home, as even though she hadn’t had many opportunities to get to know the mare, Redeheart had heard that Twilight would often be found with her muzzle firmly planted in the middle of a book. So to that end, she figured her best chance of finding the mare was to head to the one place in town that had plenty of books for a pony to plant their muzzle in, the Golden Oaks Library.
Nopony was quite sure who had built the library or even how. The tree housing the library had been there for decades, and as such, it’s origins had been lost to the foggy mists of time. However, regardless of who had built it, one thing was for sure, it was one of the unique landmarks of Ponyville, and locating it was not very difficult, all one had to do was search the rooftop skyline for a giant tree and head towards it, they’d eventually find themselves in front of it in no time. Such was the case with Redheart as after a few minutes walking, she found herself at the front door, a stylized candle holder with a lit candle carved into it greeted her as she knocked.
After a few minutes, the sound of approaching hooves, and indistinct mumbling, reached her ears and a moment later the door opened to reveal one of the mares she was looking for.
“Oh, Nurse Redheart! What brings you here at this time of day? I would have thought you’d still be at the hospital,” greeted Twilight, a confused look on her face.
Nurse Redheart returned Twilights greeting with a nod. “I actually just came from there. Do you happen to know where Ms. Heartstrings is? This concerns her too.”
Twilight, having picked up on the serious look on the nurse’s face, nodded. “Yes, she’s actually here with me right now. We were working on our research paper together and working up another list of questions to ask Allen, why, what’s wrong?”
Redheart grimaced and said, “Allen had a bad reaction to one of the vaccines we gave him,” she quickly held up a hoof upon seeing the growing look of alarm on Twilight’s face, “he is stable right now, but Dr. Stable wants to keep him overnight just to be on the safe side. So he asked me to come and see if you would be willing to take care of his animals for him tonight, as he’s confined to the hospital till tomorrow morning.”
“Oh my gosh! Of course, we will. Lyra!” she shouted back over her shoulder, causing the mint green mare to come trotting over, a concerned look on her face upon seeing Twilight’s distressed look.
“What is it, Twilight?” she asked.
“Allen’s in the hospital, and needs our help,” she quickly explained, before turning and rushing back into the depths of the library, calling for Spike to come help her pack various things before she left.
Lyra, having been too far away and fully engrossed in her work to hear the full story turned to Redheart and cautiously asked, “What happened to him, is he going to be okay?”
Redheart quickly waved away her concerns with a hoof and gently replied, “We think Allen had a bad reaction to one of the vaccines we gave him. Thankfully it happened at the hospital while he was walking to the checkout desk, so I was able to quickly get him to the ER. Dr. Stable has him on a saline drip and mild relaxant right now, and we intend to keep him overnight as a precaution. However, that means he can’t go home to tend to his animals and seeing as you and Twilight are the only two he really knows that well, he asked us if we could come and ask you for your help.”
A determined look flashed across Lyra’s face and she replied without a second of hesitation, “Of course! Let me go grab my saddlebag and we can head there right now.”
Lyra hadn’t even had a chance to turn around before a pair of saddlebags, matching her coat color, and with her cutie mark printed on the side, were all but slammed onto her back and she was quickly pushed out the door by Twilight’s magic. “Okay, we’re ready to go now!” exclaimed a suddenly frazzled looking Twilight. Her usually neatly combed mane had a few stray hairs poking out at odd angles and her slightly off-center smile made her look a little unhinged.
“Are you alright, Ms. Sparkle?” asked Nurse Redheart, a sudden concerned look on her face at the sudden change in demeanor of Twilight.
“I’m fine! Fine, just fine, yep, nopony is more fine than me, I’m not worried about anything, cause obviously there is nothing to worry about right now, not one little thing!” she replied, her smile having become steadily creepier as she prattled on, leaving Nurse Redheart feeling less and less sure that the mare was in fact, ‘fine’.
Lyra, having been a friendly acquaintance with Twilight for several years, could see that her friend was quickly winding herself into a full-blown panic attack or mental breakdown, probably due to finding out that Allen was in the hospital so suddenly. Twilight had never been very good at handling stressful situations reliably. Thankfully, Lyra had experienced a few ‘Twilight Freakouts’ and knew some ways to mitigate them before they got too big, so she decided to try and soothe her by distracting her using one of the most reliable ways she knew how.
“Hey Twilight,” she said, in an almost conversational tone, a sly glint in her eye.
Twilight, a few more hairs having popped free of her mane, while one of her eyes started twitching, turned slowly to regard her friend and asked in a strained tone of someone trying to keep it together and failing, “Yes?”
“What’s your opinion on Haycarts Treatise on Ponies? I always thought he and his work were a little over-hyped myself.”
You could almost hear the needle scratch, as Twilight’s brain crashed, then rebooted, at Lyra’s remark. Giving her friend a look that practically screamed, ‘are you crazy’? She took a deep breath and proceeded to launch into a long lecture about how Haycart’s research and philosophy were a critical departure from the old ways of thinking and had helped usher in a scientific renaissance across ponydom.
And there we go, lecture mode engaged, and she’s already forgotten whatever it was that was bothering her, score one point for Lyra Heartstrings!
Giving Nurse Redheart a covert wink, Lyra inclined her head towards the hospital to signal that they should get going. Redheart, gave her a grateful smile, as she had heard about Twilight’s... eccentricities when she became stressed. Most of this was second hoof as she hadn’t been in town the day that Twilight had tried to figure out how Pinkie Pie worked, but from what she had gathered, it hadn’t ended well.
Shaking her head to get her mind back on task, she quickly set off, with Lyra pulling Twilight along behind as the bibliophile unicorn continued her one-sided argument concerning the merits of Haycart’s treatises.
By the time they reached the hospital, Twilight had entered full-on lecture mode, lecture aids included. Lyra, being the friend she was, was politely listening as Twilight talked. Redheart had stopped listening after the first few minutes, as nearly everything the book-loving unicorn said went right over her head.
“And that’s why Haycart is not over-hyped,” said Twilight, a satisfied look on her face as she poofed away her lecture aids. “Hey, when did we get here?” asked Twilight upon noticing they were standing outside the hospital now.
Lyra just smiled and rolled her eyes. “We just got here, you know, by walking.”
Twilight, realizing that she’d been completely engrossed in her lecture and had zoned out, blushed and awkwardly clearing her throat, sought to change the topic. “Well alright! Since we’re here, we should probably go see how Allen is doing,” and with that, she quickly rushed inside. Redheart and Lyra just looked at each other and giggled at the flustered unicorn’s antics before following her inside.
Inside, they quickly made their way to the ER and found Allen lightly dozing in his bed, though he was awakened fully when Twilight and Lyra approached him and they began talking. Dr. Stable meanwhile, having nothing better to do, had elected to remain in the ER and monitor Allen’s vitals, though as Redheart approached him, she could see that he had a puzzled look on his face, and he was idly chewing on his pencil again. He always did that when he came across a problem that didn’t seem like a problem at first, but that his gut said was a problem and that he just couldn’t see it.
Clearing her throat to get his attention, she gave him a smile and asked, “Found them, they were at the library working on research apparently. Though I’m a little worried about Twilight, she suddenly became upset rather quickly for some reason just before we left.”
Dr. Stable hummed in reply, “She’s a high-level beta unicorn, almost alpha level if we’re going, to be honest, it comes with the territory. Plus she’s an adolescent, hormones and magic never did mix very well.”
“Still, I’m worried about her mental well being, to go from calm, if concerned about Allen, to the early stages of a mental breakdown, to back to calm and focused again when Lyra distracted her, I think she should be evaluated again. If her power levels are increasing, it could be serious.”
Dr. Stable nodded. “I’ll broach the subject with her at her next physical evaluation next month. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.”
Redheart gave him a grateful smile. “And thank you for taking me seriously. It’s very nice to have a doctor who will listen to their nurses about this sort of thing, especially in regards to mental health.”
“I wouldn’t be worthy of my cutie mark if I didn't. A proper doctor has to look at all the information given to them about the health of their patients, regardless of where it comes from. Which is why I’m starting to question if my initial diagnosis of Mr. Ross’s condition was correct in its entirety.”
Suddenly feeling worried, Redheart moved closer to him and in a lower voice asked, “What’s wrong, I thought we determined that his system was just overloaded?”
Dr. Stable nodded. “That’s the thing, even if his system was overloaded like a pony’s would be after all those shots we gave him, he shouldn’t have exhibited the severity of symptoms that he did. After you left, I decided to take a second look at the new pony pox vaccine instruction booklet that they sent us, and according to them, Allen’s symptoms should have just been mild nausea, flushed face, and mild dizziness, not what he had.”
“But those symptoms are in regards to ponies, are they not?” asked Redheart quietly.
Stable shook his head. “No, they did a rigorous battery of testing before sending this on the market. The results were uniform across all demographics, with little variations. Granted there were outliers, but my gut tells me that there is something more going on here, and I’m just not seeing all the pieces.”
“Is he having any additional issues?” she asked.
Dr. Stable shook his head. “None so far, but I’m still worried. His physiology seems similar in many respects to our own, but there is just enough difference that I’m worried he could be experiencing an issue and we just can’t identify what it is based on his symptoms. Plus, we only did the bare minimum tests needed to establish normal baseline conditions and took the usual fluid, stool and tissue samples needed to test for diseases and such. While we did a full x-ray of him, we never did a Magical Resonance Imaging scan, but now I’m thinking we should, just to be on the safe side.”
“Have you discussed this with him?”
Again, he shook his head. “Not yet, I wanted to wait till after he had a chance to talk with Twilight and Lyra first. Because I plan to run him through the full battery of tests until I’m sure there is nothing wrong with him, and I don’t need him anymore stressed than he’ll already be.”
“Alright,” said Redheart with a nod, “that seems prudent.”
Turning to give her a wry grin he joked, “Glad you agree, nurse, wouldn’t want to overstep my authority or anything.”
She swatted his rump with her tail, though it didn’t hurt as much as it should have, as his white doctor's coat took the brunt of the mock attack, and stuck her tongue out at him. “Jerk,” she replied half-jokingly, as he chuckled in response.
However, his expression turned serious again, and turning to face her, he lowered his voice further, causing Redheart to lean in closer to hear what he said, “All kidding aside though, as soon as Twilight and Lyra leave, I want to get him to the MRI room and take a look inside. I’m wondering if his body is having trouble metabolizing the magic inside the medicine.”
“But wouldn’t these symptoms have shown up the first time we gave him shots?”
Stable shook his head. “Not necessarily, remember what he told us the first time we saw him, his world either didn’t have any magic or there was so little as to be unnoticeable. I looked over the first round of shots we gave him, and those contained fairly low doses of magical ingredients. However, this round was much heavier as we needed to shield him against the more dangerous diseases that we couldn’t do last time because he didn’t have the preparatory meds in him yet.”
Redheart felt the gears grinding away in her head as she slowly nodded, a thoughtful look on her face as she brought a hoof to her chin and idly rubbed it with her frog. “I think I see what you’re getting at. During the first round his body only needed to metabolize a small dose of magic, and so it didn’t affect him or the effects weren’t noticeable, but now...”
“Now the dose was too big for his body to keep up and coupled with his mild panic attack, he had a reaction. To be honest, I’ve never seen a reaction like this before to magical medicine. I’m worried we might need to have some none-magical medicine on hoof in case something happens to him.”
“It might not be a bad idea, but we should probably do the tests first and see what comes up before we go and blow the hospitals budget on chemically treated medicine, I know for a fact that the prices for those are much higher than our own.”
Stable nodded. “Indeed,” he said before sighing, “hopefully I’m just worrying over nothing and this is just a result of him being an outlier rather than something more serious. Stress might have also played a role in the matter. I can only imagine what kind of pressure and stress he is under right now.”
Turning to regard Allen and the two ponies across the room, Redheart nodded in agreement. “Agreed, might be a good idea to see if he’d be willing to have a psychiatrist talk with him, being ripped from everyone and everything you know and love isn’t something one can just brush off and walk away from unscathed.”
“I’ll see if he’ll talk with Dr. Sunny Skies, she has a way of getting ponies to open up and work through their issues,” he said before noticing that Twilight and Lyra seemed to have finished their conversation with Allen and were preparing to leave.
I wonder what they were talking about, it looks like Twilight made one of her lists again. I guess Allen wanted to make sure they knew exactly what he wanted them to do while he’s here. Thought Redheart as she and Dr. Stable slowly trotted over to Allen’s bed.
Giving the three a smile, Dr. Stable asked, “So, got everything squared away?”
Allen gave a tired nod. “I think so. It should be pretty straight forward, and Twilight made a...list if you could call it that.”
Redheart and Dr. Stable chuckled, while Twilight gave a sheepish smile as she tucked the thick, rolled up list away in her saddlebag.
Clearing her throat to cover up her embarrassment, Twilight replied, “I just wanted to make sure that we didn’t miss or forget anything, after all, what kind of good friend would I be if I didn’t listen and follow my friend’s instruction properly?” she said, a slightly strained smile forming on her muzzle, while a couple of previously straight hairs popped out of formation.
There she goes again, thought Redheart to herself, though she didn’t let her concern show. Shooting a glance at Dr. Stable, she slightly inclined her head at Twilight as if to say, ‘You see what I was talking about earlier?’ Stable just gave a shallow nod in reply while keeping his expression friendly.
Allen didn’t seem to notice Twilight’s sudden shift in demeanor, instead, he said sleepily, “I really appreciate this, girls, thank you.”
Twilight shot him a million-bit smile and replied, “What are friends for?” glancing up at the nearby clock on the wall, she suddenly gasped and exclaimed, “Oh my gosh, it’s nearly four o’clock, Lyra, we gotta go! Don’t worry Allen, just leave everything to us, no need to worry! Okaygottagonowbye!” she said quickly, as she all but dragged poor Lyra out of the ER with her magic.
Lyra was naturally not amused. “Twilight, let go of me, I can walk just fine you know, ow! Stop pulling! You’re gonna mess up my mane and tail!” any further words were muted as the doors to the ER shut behind them leaving two ponies and a recovering human behind.
Glancing at the two, Allen quirked an eyebrow and thumbing his thumb at the doors, he asked, “Either of you two know what all that was about?”
“I wouldn’t worry about, Mr. Ross,” replied Dr. Stable easily, “it’s probably just Twilight being all excited at the chance to help you and gather more data for her and Lyra’s paper.”
Shrugging, Allen just said, “Don’t think I’ve ever seen someone that enthusiastic about helping someone out, but that’s just me. So,” he said suddenly changing gears, “I noticed you and Nurse Redheart quietly chatting across the room, and I’ve been in enough hospitals and seen enough doctors and nurses trying to hide the fact that they’re talking about how they want to break the bad news to a patient. So out with it, what’s wrong now?”
Dr. Stable’s ears fell flat and he bit his lower lip as he tried to think of a way to tell Allen about his suspicions without upsetting him further. However, with being on the spot so suddenly, he couldn’t find an easy way to say it, so he just told Allen the un-sugarcoated truth.
Nearly twenty minutes later and Allen didn’t really know how to feel about what both Dr. Stable and Nurse Redheart had told him.
Just great, something else is going wrong. He sighed as he massaged the bridge of his nose with his fingers. Finally, after a few moments of silence, he asked, “Do you think you can subject me to even more magic without there being more problems. I mean, you just said that you think my body is having trouble with magic, so wouldn’t adding more magic make things worse?”
“This magic is different, you’re body isn’t going to ingest it, and while it’s true that some of it may be absorbed as it passes through during the scan, it wouldn’t really be any different than the radiation from the sun hitting your body. The mana will have a shorter life span than that found in medicine so it shouldn’t cause any additional issues.”
“But there’s no guarantee,” said Allen, finishing what the doctor hadn’t said.
Dr. Stable just shrugged. “Is anything in life?”
Allen sighed. “No, I guess not.”
“Look at it this way Allen, yes there is a risk, but there is also a risk of not doing the procedure, and in my opinion, the risk of not doing anything outweighs the risk of doing the scan. Short of opening you up and looking inside, we don’t have any equipment that can look inside you with the level of detail that we need to see what may be wrong. Besides, if something does happen, both myself and Nurse Redheart will be there to counter whatever it is that happens.”
Allen just lay quietly in his bed for several minutes as he weighed his options, finally, he said, “Alright, let’s do this then and get it over with.”
Nurse Redheart nodded and said, “I’ll get the machine prepped and get Nurse Love to help power it.”
“Alright, I’ll get Allen prepped, and we’ll be along shortly.”
Nurse Redheart nodded, and with that, she took off to get the MRI room ready, while Dr. Stable got Allen prepped for transport. Allen meanwhile didn’t have anything to do other than hope they were worrying over nothing.
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9656842
Hmm, you're right. Twilight is acting a little odd. But I'm sure she's fine, she's probably just a little behind on homework or something. No biggie.
9656924
I'm sure she'll be fine.
Oh man the troubles of traveling
I have to wonder if this is something being done to him somehow, intentionally or not. Did Twilight do something in her obsessive NEED fir knowledge that had q reaction? Or maybe the change in the vaccines was done because of Allen.
9657100
No to Twilight doing something to him, and no to the vaccine. Even just changing a minor thing in the formula of a medicine would take months, if not years to do. Allen has only been here for less than a month, so no, it wasn't anything like that. It's just a case of his biology being different enough from ponies that it causes problems. More details will emerge in future chapters.
That's a positive feedback loop. Almost textbook definition. A causes B which causes more of A.
9657138
Thanks for the catch. The issue is fixed. Though I must say, your name is aptly appropriate for this situation.
9657169
Yeah, I get that a lot.
Twilight's starting to creep me out. The tone in her voice seemed like she wanted to take credit for Lyra's doctorate.
If I had to stay at any hospital, I'd want to stay at Ponyville General. I swear most of the RL ones are designed to let the patient stew in their bed for hours on end with no idea what's going on. Well, that and a lack of ponies.
Is it going to be weird that a pony is going to try and feed a horse? I hope it's weird.
9657213
I'll make it weird just for you. (Or at least I'll try)
9657128
My thought was that one of the vaccines had something added or changed, maybe that one of them wasn't an actual vaccine. Still, even with author confirmation part of me just doesn't believe they're not attempting something. I don't entirely know why but ever since... I don't know when in the story alot of the ponies stopped seeming entirely genuine in their intentions. Maybe its just me. *shrugs*
Another great chapter, as usual.:D
Ouch that has got to be bad. In a world where they got to cover so many different things I am surprised that this doesn't happen more often. Then again they should have marked the packaging differently if they wanted it done differently then normal so things like this don't happen.
9657462
Kinda doubt Equestria has the near-infinite beauracrasy found in our medical industry-- bit of a two edged sword there, rules designed to enforce highly detailed instructions on medications while others make it so difficult to get "comped" medical treatment without paying up front so many [extortion-level] fees.
9657270
Well as the author, I can confirm, it's just you. While there will be ponies that will try to take advantage of Allen, we haven't met them yet.
9657462
Normally they wouldn't give this many vaccines to a patient all at once, but because of Allen's unique circumstances, it can't really be helped. It's basically the best of two bad choices.
9657618
Yeah pretty much, though thanks to this issue with Allen, some of the rules might change for the better.
Hmmm... i can see it heading one of two ways. One hes badly allergic to too much magic which means hes probably at some point is gonna need to be changed into a not magic allergic pony body to save his life with alot of magic and wont be able to be changed back as it would kill him as soon as his human form returned due to magical overdose to his magic allergic human body.
2. Hes a magic sponge whose body is trying to acclimate to a magic rich environment slowly over time but too much magic at once makes him sick. He'll eventually be able to use magic maybe even wreck tireks shit. But he'll be susceptible to dark magic corruption... or be able to use it without consequence due to humans being both light and dark normally.
Something is gonna happen during the scan. Whether it be mild or severe will be the deciding factor, and I really wanna find out what happens so please update next chapter!
Xd
9662573
Sadly, work has prevented me from even starting on the next chapter yet. However, if today goes well, I'll get started on it as soon as I get home.
9663767
Yesyesyes!
Xd
"Vegeta! What does the scouter say about Twilight's power level?"
"It's... 1006."
"Really?!"
"Yup! Go kick her plot!"
(One beating later, Vegeta notes the scouter was upside down)
Allen begins mutating into The Fly from all the magic... because magic does stuff like that.
Hmm... I dunno about that. Does a being who came from a world without magic have such a thing?
...well guess I'll find out next chapter, since that was basically nearly discussed at the end. :P
Actually twilight getting help for her anxiety issues and ocd is a very good idea considering I never thought that it was a good thing that problem was shoved aside. A good friend would suggest that they get help from a professional to manage.