BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 » Question-- Just how long was Sherlock in the hospital?

RavenMorganLeigh · January 24, 2014 7:15 am

So, first, Mary shoots Sherlock, he dies on the table, then revives--
Mary tells him not to tell John...
Janine gets her revenge...
Sherlock escapes the hospital and traps Mary into revealing herself to John...
They go back to 221B, where Sherlock collapses, and is taken back to the hospital.

So, at Christmas at Mom and Dad's, it seems like Sherlock hasn't been out of the hospital all that long, and it's been months since John's talked to Mary.

I. Am.Majorly Confused. Help?

besleybean · January 24, 2014 7:27 am

I think the 1st time he was only in hospital over night.
The episode opens about a month after the wedding, so June/July?
So that's 5 months til Xmas.
So he could have been in a wee while.

Last edited by besleybean (January 24, 2014 4:37 pm)

RavenMorganLeigh · January 24, 2014 7:37 am

besleybean wrote:
I think the 1st time he was only in hospital over night.
The episode opens about a monthe after the wedding, so June/July?
So that's 5 months til Xmas.
So he could have been in a wee while.

Yikes. (Can you guess I'm trying to plot a fanfic?) Okay. Here's question #2-- if Sherlock was in the hospital for months-- then how badly was he hurt? How life threatening were his injuries? What kind of complications would he have had to have to warrant that length of stay? And in that context, does that make anyone think differently about Mary? Better? Worse? Just curious.

Last edited by RavenMorganLeigh (January 24, 2014 7:38 am)

Mattlocked · January 24, 2014 7:56 am

Well, he actually died from the injury. In the hospital he needed a lot of morphine to stand the pain. He stood there for months. One could "guess" he was hurt really, really badly.
And Mary? She seems to be an excellent shooter. (Though I still don't understand why she shot him there and not in an.... more safe area.)

belis · January 24, 2014 8:07 am

RavenMorganLeigh wrote:
besleybean wrote:
I think the 1st time he was only in hospital over night.
The episode opens about a monthe after the wedding, so June/July?
So that's 5 months til Xmas.
So he could have been in a wee while.
Yikes. (Can you guess I'm trying to plot a fanfic?) Okay. Here's question #2-- if Sherlock was in the hospital for months-- then how badly was he hurt? How life threatening were his injuries? What kind of complications would he have had to have to warrant that length of stay? And in that context, does that make anyone think differently about Mary? Better? Worse? Just curious.

In my head canon he was in hospital for a couple of days the first time round. I can just about suspend my desbelief to allow him to run around days after major abdominal surgery and cardiac arrest, 24 hours is pushing it a bit to much.

How do we know that he was in hospital until Christams? I missed that line.

In terms of complications that would keep him in hospital for months you could take your pick really. Anything can potentially happen. Here is a possible scenario:

It seems that he started bleeding internally again after running around town. That would most likely mean another trip to theatre for a revision surgery. He bleeds a lot, needs multiple transfusions, ends up with DIC and needs to go to ITU. Then comes ventilator acquired pneumonia and ARDS. Full blown sepsis. Ups. If we are particularly mean he may have renal failure on top. He was young and fit to start with so will survive but it will take him a while to get out of intensive care and than couple extra weeks on an ordinary ward. Plenty of time to drive nursing staff mad. ;)

Last edited by belis (January 24, 2014 8:09 am)

SusiGo · January 24, 2014 8:10 am

I have been thinking about that as well. When the paramedics arrive at 221B and mention the shooting, Sherlock answers that it was last week. So there must have been some days between him being shot and leaving for the confrontation at Leinster Gardens. But after that? He seems to have been in hospital quite a while because his mother says that they are celebrating Sherlock being home from hospital. I suppose she would not say that if he had been home for months.
But as always with this series establishing the timeline is quite tricky.

Wholocked · January 24, 2014 8:18 am

Yeah it was a week before he collapsed again but I don't think he was in hospital for months. I think that's just the first time he was 'home' to his parents since the hospital stay. There'd be no real reason for him to stay in hospital that long

TeeJay · January 24, 2014 9:00 am

I've also been trying to piece this together, and it's really quite the guessing game.

It was mentioned before that in HLV Sherlock says the shooting was "last week" when the paramedics come and get him from Baker Street. In my head canon I made it into five days between the first shooting and that day. It seems reasonable, given the extent of Sherlock's injury and the usage of the phrase "last week".

Let's look at some of what I think we can assume are facts. We discussed this elsewhere already, and I think it's safe to assume that Sherlock's main injury was to his liver. The placement of the bullet seems to suggest that is the most likely scenario, and it also makes sense. There are many large blood vessels in that area, and even if none of those were injured, the liver is still connected to many smaller vessels, so if you have an injury there, you ooze blood internally. Potentially lots of it.

I'm also pretty sure Sherlock had surgery that first time around. If he had enough liver damage to warrant bleeding to death, they must have had to repair that damage. He also has a wound dressing of some sort when you see him in the hospital bed that wound suggest a larger cut they made. Given the amount of pain he was in in those first few hospital scenes, I think the fact that he could get up and walk/climb out of the hospital within five days of surgery is not that unlikely.

What happens afterwards gets a little more sketchy. He's clearly in pain when he's walking around at Leinster Gardens and Baker Street, which is not surprising since he just had surgery a few days ago. When the paramedics come, he says his heartbeat is erratic and he's bleeding internally.

That would suggest he aggravated the damage they repaired and he's bleeding from the liver injury. So that would mean more surgery. As to how much and how severe is anyone's guess. We don't really know how bad the relapse was. Did they have to reanimate him again in the ambulance? How much internal bleeding was there?

In my mind, I find it hard to imagine that, given the indicators we saw, he was in the hospital for more than two months that second time, and even that seems long. At first I was gonna say: It's the UK. They have NHS (National Health System). They would kick you out of there as soon as they think you're halfway fit to leave. But I'm sure that Mycroft would have pulled some strings, so I don't think Sherlock would be getting the NHS treatment. Plus, he seems to be in a private room, which I don't think you'd be as an NHS patient.

But anyway... back to the liver damage. Even if the second surgery was more complicated, he would've had to have major complications to be kept in the hospital for more than two months. Of course post-op infections are a possibility, something that would require monitoring in the ICU for a week or longer. Then of course there are things like sudden blood clots that can cause major problems.

However, I don't think it's very likely that there were major complications, if only for the fact that I presume they would have mentioned that in passing somewhere. Also, I believe some time would have passed between Sherlock's release and Christmas at the parents'. When you see him move around, there is no trace of pain or discomfort or wincing. I'd like to think by that point, he's been out of the hospital for at least a month.

So if the wedding was in May, you could stretch the shooting out to September if we assume that John and Sherlock were in loose contact after the wedding/honeymoon but that they gradually grew further apart in the weeks after. (They mention in HLV that John hadn't talked to Sherlock for a month.) Add two months hospital stay and you're in November, and add another month of recuperation at home until Christmas. Or put the shooting in August and have Sherlock be out of hospital for two months before Christmas.

Does that sound reasonable?

shezza · January 24, 2014 10:24 am

I do wonder why they changed the wedding date on the blog. Methinks they realised the timeline wasn't making any sense the way it was. If the wedding happened early August, J+M honeymooned for a couple of weeks and a month elapsed, the shooting happened around late September (which would actually fit with the way everybody's dressing on the show). Janine had enough time to realise she had been duped, cry her tears and phone every single newspaper in the country (and start doing interviews), that makes me think she visited him a few days later after his operation (4-5?). Sherlock collapses the very first few days of October, another operation, maybe some complications and voila, he stays another couple of months in hospital which sounds a bit far-fetched but is way more acceptable than five months.

The problem of course is that the show says the wedding happened May 18th. That could be resolved if we assume that John and Sherlock did keep in contact throughout the summer and then got lost in their respective businesses for a whole month (after all there is nothing in the episode to indicate that they didn't see each other the month following the wedding). This would also make the whole Janine story more believable, imo. So wedding in May, summer, shooting in late September, etc.

Last edited by shezza (January 24, 2014 10:47 am)

zeratul · January 24, 2014 10:47 am

When Sherlock phones Mycroft from the wedding, you can also see a date on Mycroft's phone. I think it's May 18th.

But it can also be a mistake, as it would show a different screen if you are in an active call??

Last edited by zeratul (January 24, 2014 10:50 am)

Lily · January 24, 2014 10:54 am

shezza wrote:
The problem of course is that the show says the wedding happened May 18th..

According to the wedding invitations May 18th is a Saturday - May 18th 2014 is a Sunday. So that's not really that accurate anyway...

miriel68 · January 24, 2014 11:02 am

Well, since they were shooting in 2013 (18th May = Saturday), I think they simply made a mistake.

sj4iy · January 24, 2014 12:05 pm

A week the first time. With reaggravating his injuries, he may have needed additional surgery, which would have increased his time in the hospital. And it's obvious that he kept coming and going as he wished, so that probably didn't help.

The Doctor · January 24, 2014 12:20 pm

Mattlocked wrote:
And Mary? She seems to be an excellent shooter. (Though I still don't understand why she shot him there and not in an.... more safe area.)

Check out Mary's firearm and especially its super-short barrel. There is no sharpshooter on this planet who could aim accurately with such an unsuitable weapon on a distance more than half a meter!

Wink wink - I know, movie magic!

Willow · January 24, 2014 2:40 pm

My impression is that Sherlock has only recently stopped driving the nurses insane; that seems to me to be the explanation for why Mrs Holmes says:

'We are here because Sherlock is home from hospital and we are all very happy.'

I don't see a problem with a few months in hospital; the longest I have been incarcerated is nine weeks and I hadn't even been shot. As Belis has pointed out there are a million and one things which could keep him in hospital a lot longer than that, and it's difficult to imagine Sherlock being prepared to wait until Christmas for his deal with CAM if he were able to act more quickly.

After all, his client Lady Smallwood was going through hell at CAM's hands; from all we know of Sherlock's character he would have wanted to try and help her quickly, and the only reasonable explanation for him not doing so is because he couldn't....

besleybean · January 24, 2014 4:43 pm

But hang on.
He also had to plan and have the opportunity...for putting everybody to sleep and grabbing Mycroft's lap top!

Willow · January 24, 2014 6:00 pm

besleybean wrote:
But hang on.
He also had to plan and have the opportunity...for putting everybody to sleep and grabbing Mycroft's lap top!

He didn't need to put everyone to sleep to get Mycroft's laptop; for that matter he didn't need Mycroft's laptop at all. After all, the only thing which Sherlock needed was a copy of Mycroft's laptop which would look plausible; it was password protected, and Sherlock specifies that he will only provide the password if he was provided with the documents he wanted.

By Christmas it was too late to help Lady Smallwood, so Sherlock didn't ask for the letters; he asked for Mary's documents instead. I simply cannot reconcile what we know of Sherlock with him faffing around whilst his client's husband became more and more suicidal; he would not have abandoned her. Logically, therefore, he could only act at Christmas because he had been in hospital up until then, and he took Mycroft's real laptop because it was there and the GPS would enable it to be tracked. Sherlock had no intention of ever providing the password, and John didn't know it, so CAM was never going to get into it.

People keep forgetting that Lady Smallwood was Sherlock's client; they assume that it was all about Mary. But Sherlock would never have forgotten her; he had already intervened, as he thought, to stop her killing CAM, and taken a bullet from Mary instead. If Mary hadn't shot him then Sherlock could have saved the life of his client's husband, and he would certainly have acted long before Christmas if he could.

So, logically Sherlock has just come home from hospital, as his mother said...

SusiGo · January 24, 2014 6:21 pm

Sounds quite plausible to me, Willow.

Btw, I have another question regarding the timeline here - when do you place the scene in the restaurant with CAM?I was wondering because he is still wearing the silly hospital gown you only wear immediately before or after an operation - and it is open at the back. Just saying. I mean, this is Sherlock Holmes who owns a whole range of elegant dressing gowns.

Davina · January 24, 2014 6:27 pm

Sherlock could, of course, have discharged himself from hospital the second time. Also here in the UK it is true that patients are discharged ASAP (many reasons for this). I fully expect that Sherlock would have been a terrible patient! I assumed he was still recuperating from the injury at Christmas.

Willow · January 24, 2014 6:43 pm

SusiGo wrote:
Sounds quite plausible to me, Willow.

Btw, I have another question regarding the timeline here - when do you place the scene in the restaurant with CAM?I was wondering because he is still wearing the silly hospital gown you only wear immediately before or after an operation - and it is open at the back. Just saying. I mean, this is Sherlock Holmes who owns a whole range of elegant dressing gowns.

I suspect they confiscated all his clothes to cut down the chances of him going AWOL again; it's much harder to make a break for it in a hospital gown open down the back.

But he would have spent a lot of time in the ICU, or the HDU, and pyjamas and dressing gowns are not typical in those environments because of infection hazards; if he was going to wear anything at all it would be one of those less than elegant gowns...