Part 1 of 5 of a little series I am drawing where Ion, due to his serous injury where he went into cardiac arrest and almost died years ago, left some permanent damage to the left side of his heart, causing irregular heart beat that required a pacemaker to make it function somewhat normally. Over time though the left side of his heart weakens causing both aortic and mitral regurgitation, to a point where he has to undergo open heart surgery to replace both.
Ion and his team of Contract Hunters are usually at the peak of physical fitness, due to the extreme lengths they might have to go to, to complete their Contracts. However during one of the missions, Ion started feeling that he didn't have as much energy as he normally would and his friend Zephyr, had noticed that physical strain was causing him to breathe heaver than normal. Ion kept trying to put it off as he had not gotten good enough sleep in a while but Zephyr put his hand on Ion's chest and could feel Ion's heart fluttering and rapidly beating out of sync, even though he has a pacemaker installed in there. Zephyr to Ion that he was no longer coming with them on the mission until he went to see his Father, who was missing for a while after Ion and Zephyr departed on their journey years ago but eventually found in a small village where he went back to running a small medical practice. After Ion and Ivan's reunion, Ion told his father of his serious injury and medical conditions that it had caused. Worried about his son a bit, Ivan told him that since Ion didn't have a doctor to monitor his condition on a regular basis, the he wanted Ion to come and see him every once in a while to make sure he was doing ok and as way for them to also spend some time together afterwards.
Ion made the trek to his father medical office by train due to Zephyr's worry that him running there would put too much stress on his heart while he was feeling these effects. Entering the office, the receptionist welcome him back and put Ion right away into the ultrasound examination room, asking him to undress and lay down on the exam table to wait for Ivan. Ion's father entered the room not too long after, greeting his son and asking him more about the symptoms he was feeling. Ivan then fired up the ultrasound and began the lengthy test as the both of them talked about random stuff through out the procedure. Ion tried to remain optimistic through out as did Ivan but as the test went on Ivan's face started to wilt a bit, though if anything was wrong, he was not pointing out attention to it yet. After about 30 minutes the test was over and Ivan went over to his computer to compile the results for a bit as both him and Ion continued their conversation.
After compiling the results, Ivan sent the final diagnostic image to the ultrasound screen and went back over to Ion who was now sitting on the edge of the exam table. Placing his hand on Ion's shoulder, he gave Ion the unwelcome news that his aortic valve was failing, only closing to about 57% and that his mitral valve was worse than that, at an almost failure rate of closing 23%. Ivan told Ion that he required a fairly serious surgery almost immediately or his heart could go into total failure. Ion now becoming overcome with stress, anxiety, nervousness and fear, started to panic a bit with the news as his heart rate and blood pressure started to sky rocket. Ivan then embraced his son, trying to get him to calm down, as his vitals were getting too high and with his condition could cause cardiac arrest and with Ion's special qualities, would require a thoracotomy to get his heart beating again, which Ivan didn't want to put his son through that again.
Calming Ion down a bit, Ivan lead him to another room with a bed where he put Ion down to rest while he made arrangements with the Hunter's Special Hospital to get Ion booked in. Ion's mind raced the whole time he was lying there, with all the worry of about what he now ahd to go through. A few hours latter, Ion was surprised and delighted when Zephyr entered the room, where he gave Ion a sarcastic speak of I told you so, but saw Ion was not in the mood. He kept Ion company and reassured him until the evening when Ivan came back in and after making all the arrangements, told Ion that Meeka would perform his surgery the next day early in the afternoon. After getting Ion dressed, both Ivan and Zephyr accompanied Ion on the train back to the capital city where the hospital was, so he could go through with the next step of his treatment. ~
