Ugh. Stupid Curse! [Carter]

[katie]

Katie was lucky to have apparated into the magical area of St. Mungo's. When she arrived, she was bent over in pain. She was used to this, she had dealt with it for the last eight or so years. But she still hated it. She usually took a potion to make things all right, but when she was going to buy her supplies to brew one, she ran into George Weasley. And that was enough of a distraction to keep her from buying the supplies she needed.

So, now she had not taken her potion for a few days. She thought it was fine since the dull pain in her stomach was not too intense. But that did not last long when she woke up in the middle of the night screaming in pain. The curse that she had recieved while dodging another person's killing curse, was at it again!

A mediwitch instantly grabbed her and brought her up to the Intensive Care and Emergencies area of the Hospital. She quickly brought Katie a potion that would be a temporary pain killer while she went to brew the regular potion. They knew her here. Katie laid in her bed waiting for the Mediwizard to come in and yell at her for not taking her potion again.[/font]

[carter]

Carter was just about to finish up his small nap during his break when a magical alert owl flew into the break room. These new owls could fly any where in the hospital fast and safe. They pretty much apparted to a place, they worked like pagers in the Muggle world. Jumping up he went over to the owl and picked up the parchment that was with the owl. "Darn it, so much for a nap." he told the owl, even though he could not understand him.

Picking up the Muggle Stethoscope he brought along to see how they worked in a Magical ER Carter rushed out of the break room for a patient which had serve abdomen pain.

Rushing out the door Carter headed toward the administrator desk to grab the patients chart. Once he got the chart he headed toward the room she was in. After answering a few questoins by the medical students, Carter got to room 404. Coming into the room Carter had a smile on his face. One of his first few patients in the magical world. "Hello," he paused looking at the chart, "Ms. Bell, I'm Dr. Carter." He said still using his Muggle title.

"So you seem to be having some serve abdomen pain, and they've already gave you a potion, can you tell me if you have ever had this pain before today? If so what did you take for it?" he asked looking at her.

[katie]

Katie could tell that the temparary potion was working somewhat because she was a little more at ease when the mediwizard came in. Her stomach was still in a lot of pain, but it was much more tolerable by this point. She looked up to see the doctor introduce himself. She figured he was pretty new judging by the fact that she had never seen him before.

What she found quite interesting was that he had a muggle stethoscope around his neck. Most of the mediwizards did not use one of those things. Wands were the perfect, versitle tool for the job. That gave her another reason to believe that he was new to the staff.

But the biggest clue was that the doctor was not sure whether this had happened before. All the staff at St. Mungo's new Katie well and what had happened to her during the war. But she would let it slide this time. She would just explain everything then.

"You see, about eight years ago, during the Dark War, I was dodging a Killing Curse which was heading right toward me. But in doing so, I fell into another curse that was not meant for me," she explained. "Since then I've had severe abdomenal pain. There's been a lot of tests and studies on me but they have not found a cause. They know it's Dark Magic, but they have yet to be able to identify it.

"I take a powerful potion usually," she continued. "It helps keep the pain to a much lower intensity. But, uh, I haven't been taking my potion recently," she added sheepishly. "That's probably why it got real bad today."

[carter]

Carters experience back at County General taught him when people had the somewhat doughtish look on there face. This patient seemed to have that look, most likely becuase I have a Muggle tool hanging around my neck. I still trusted it more than my new wand. Hopefully later onto the line of work here at St. Mungo's he would learn to have his wand out more than the tool.

After hearing about her story Carter ruled out that her appendicitis were acting up. Thank god my Chief Resident always told me to check up on history first, would of saved a quick surgery by the wand. When Katie told him about the potion she had been taking he quickly flipped back into what seemed to be a very big folder. He found the potion, which like she said was very strong and also had a lot of things to put in it.

"Well, this may just be your day," he started, "before coming to St. Mungo's I was reading up on some recent break through in Magical Medicine, there seems to be a new and stronger potion out there that you only have to take once a month. However, there is a small rash where ever the pain is, in this case your stomach, it goes away after a few days after you take the potion. However, you also have to come back here and receive it from a Mediwitch, probably will always be me. " He finished. Carter stood up and grabbed another bottle of the small pain potion, since she had received it from a Nurse, around 30 minutes ago it was time for another douse. "Drink this," he said giving it to her. "So how about it?" he asked looking at her.

[katie]

Katie nodded as the mediwizard explained the newest potion that was made. It would make things a lot easier as she would not have to take the potion every day. But going to St. Mungo's every month would be a hastle and the bills would probably build up. And the thought of a rash made her feel kind of queasy. Being the girl she was, she did not want to have a rash on her stomach during the summer when she was at the beach. That would just be too embarassing!

There was also the fact that the potion was only newly discovered. Who knew what long term effects it would have on Katie. And she always had to keep the curse in mind. No one knows what it actually is, though most have thought it was a pain causing curse that will stay with her the rest of her life. If that was indeed true, this potion would help it. And perhaps it would make the pain disappear completely, at least temporarily. Katie would love to get away from the constant dull pain.

Katie weighed her choices. Katie was a bit of a risk taker, so she did not have too much of a problem with taking the potion. However, her older mature side was also telling her to learn a little more about it first. She really did not want to mess up things when they were working out just fine.

She looked at the potion the doctor had just handed to her. "Is this my regular potion?" she asked, hoping it was not just some trick to make her try out this new potion.[/color]

[carter]

As Katie seemed to ponder her options Carter checked her vitals again and listened to her heart. It seemed to be in good health. Since most wizards heal them selfs at the house they don't come in often to get check ups. So every time someone came in Carter would do a quick exam to make sure no obvious problems were occurring.

When he tried to give her the potion she stopped him. "Oh, its just the temporary potion the nurse gave you, it wears off after a short time." he explained. He reached over and pulled the bottle over in which the temporary pain potion was located in. "No tricks." he said while moving the cup back toward her. "The normal potion should be done in a few more minutes, the nurse will bring it back in. I suppose you don't want to try the new long term potion though. its been around for a year or so now and I can answer any more questoins you have on it."

Carter was a bit sad that she seemed not to want to take the potion. There has only been one two cases of long term rashes and one case of death, becuase the Mediwizard forgot to check the patients history of allergies. Hoping she would take it he went next door and brought back the potion that she could take and handed it to her. "Thats the bottle of potion you could take."

[katie]

Katie nodded as she looked at the potion. So this one was just a temparary painkilling potion. That was good since the pain in her abdomen was starting to increase in intensity again. She quickly drank it down, coughing afterwards. She still did not like the taste of many potions. She wished they tasted more like pumpkin juice.

"The only reason, honestly, that I don't want to try out that new potion is because I'm doing pretty okay right now. I mean, the only reason I'm here is because I was stupid enough to forget to take my potion like I was supossed to. I just don't want to mess with things too much," she shrugged. "You know what I'm saying?"[/color]

[carter]

Smiling as Katie took the short term potion Carter returned the bottle to its shelf. Taking the cup that she drunk it from, he threw it away in the trash can. He then went over to the records and wrote a few notes down, time the potion was took and how much. After signing the order he turned back to Katie.

"I understand your reasoning and I can not force anyone to really take something. So in that case, your daily potion should come soon, and then I will give you that then you can go home." he said with a smile. But in the back of his mind he new that the new potion would be better on her, but he could never force someone to do something they didn't.

[katie]

Katie nodded. She was glad not to be pressured into taking the new potion. "Thank you very much, sir," she said politely as she laid back in her bed. She might as well be a little comfortable while she waited to be let out. Things were going to be quick and painless apparently. Even the pain in her abdomen was back down to barely noticeable.

Katie sighed. "So, how long have you been working here?" she asked. "I've actually never seen you around before." She figured it would be a good idea to strike up a quick conversation with this mediwizard. Unless he had to see another patient, that is.[/color]

[carter]

Giving a nod to Katie singling that he understood Carter looked back down at his charts. Back in the states he would always be told to do the charts as you go, to make sure you did not forget anything. Which sometimes cost the patients life, becuase you would forget how much you gave of something already. When Belle started to talk about where he came from he glanced up, "here comes a lecture" he told himself.

"I actually have a Medical Degree in Muggle Emergency Medicine, I use to live in the Muggle world and worked at a ER in Chicago. Moved all the way up to attending. Meanwhile I was studying Magical medicine, so when I had to move here I decided to work here in the ER at St. Mungo's" he said with a smile.

[katie]

Katie frowned. He worked his way up as a muggle doctor? That was definitely a strange path to lead him to where he was. there was a huge difference between magical and muggle medicine. Every wizard or witch knew that. Suddenly, Katie's confidence in this mediwizard dropped.

"So you were for the most part in the muggle world," Katie said slowly. "I know that there are some wizards who choose to live there but to work there seems a little...well, frankly it's kinda weird. You're not one of those muggles who know about the wizarding world right?"

[carter]

Noticing the frown on his patients face Carter quickly spoke, "No worries though, ever since I got my MD as a Muggle, I started working on my magical skills, so I've got experience in Magical Medicine." he insured her. He made a mental note not to talk about why he came here. "If you know anything about how Med School works, I would what you call a 2nd Year Resident I suppose." he explained, he would of started as an intern but the Chief Resident decided to bump him up to that.

"Well yes, I lived there for about 10 years," he said hoping she would not start to freak out. "To be honest, living in a Muggle environment is not much different, since my home was all magic." he said with a small laugh. An insulted face was shown on his face. "No," he said defensively, "I was born as a Wizard." He hastily got up and grabbed the potion from the nurse. "Here it is," he said in a rather annoyed voice. "Drink it daily like your suppose to, and fill out these discharge papers." he explained quickly handing them to her.

[katie]

Katie could tell that her comment had upset him. Still, it was quite odd for a wizard to spend so much time in muggle-land. Even the greatest of muggle-lovers would take the comfort of the wand over muggle technology. And the fact that he was first a muggle doctor before a mediwizard was even weirder. Katie felt that she had every right to ask if he was actually a muggle who pretended to be a wizard. You had to be careful about those ever since the muggles almost were exposed to the wizarding world earlier that year.

She took her potion and leaned forward to fill out her discharge papers. All of a sudden, she was glad to get the heck out of there. She hastily filled them out and handed them back to the mediwizard. "I'm sorry," she muttered, not looking at him. "Am I allowed to go now?" She slowly sat up in the bed, deciding that she would never forget to take her potion again so she would never end up at this hospital.