Lita didn't miss the look on Rodeo's face when she finally uncovered his buddy's wound. She had been silently (and not so silently) blaming him for his friend's state. However, watching the way his smirking mouth had set into a grim line and how his laughing blue eyes had narrowed and turned downcast, she could see he hadn't known how bad it was. Also, it wasn't like this was a kid she was working on but a fully grown man, capable of making his own dumb ass decisions. She was judging Rodeo as culpable in the situation and perhaps he was...to a point. But he was also here, seeking help, doing the dirty work and doing all he could in his limited power to save his friend's life. Lita wasn't letting him off the hook yet, but perhaps she was being harder on him than she needed to be.
"If any sort of real system was in place anymore," Lita answered, prepping the infected area before really diving in. "I would be a fifth year surgical resident. I got all the good surgeries under my belt. Appendectomy. Kidney transplant. Anal fissures. You know, the good stuff. Delivered a few babies, too. God, is that gross."
When he asked about the prognosis, Lita sighed, knowing how she had to answer.
"Honestly?" Lita asked, motioning to the scalpel, which Rodeo dutifully handed over. She reopened the wound carefully and widened the search area, catching a glint of metallic sheen underneath the fluids. Her dutiful nurse handed her the suction bulb and the scalpel she asked for and then resumed his position at the patient's shoulders.
"With the bullet placement, I've certainly seen better but I've seen worse, too. The tissue damage is extensive, along with the blood loss...a cracked collarbone is almost a definite. There's a 50/50 chance he'll pull through the extraction easy-peasy. It's afterwards that we're going to have to worry about."
She glanced up at Rodeo and addressed him unblinkingly, all signs of their previous easy banter gone.
"The infection will kill him. If he doesn't get the proper antibiotics, fluids, and after surgery care, he will die. And if you let whatever reason you had for not bringing him into the hospital in the first place be why you don't do what's right for him in the end, you're just as good as killing him yourself."
With that truth bomb dropped, Lita began to poke around the man's wound carefully, her forceps glancing the edge of the bullet. The patient stirred, groaning and shifting despite his delirium.
"Come on, Rodey," Lita said through gritted teeth. "Use those muscley arms and hold this sucker down."