Prescription Please (Part 2, Conclusion)

Posted on Sat Jun 27, 2015 @ 3:49pm by Commander Caleb Ryan & Civilian Aleczandra Naqiis-Ryan & Commander Amia Telamon M.D.

1,656 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Eye of the Beholder
Location: Main Sickbay
Timeline: MD 3/0730

Caleb found he made it relatively well to Sickbay. Luckily the turbolifts deposited them near the main entrance. Aleczandra pushed her rainbow hair behind her ear as she looked around for a doctor.

Amia was doing her rounds, as it seemed she was eternally doing. It was part of how she kept in touch with her staff, her patients, and her own order. Rounds to a doctor in Sickbay were like an engineer servicing his motors, cleaning his tools, keeping in tune with his ship. Amia knew every patient and it took all day to make sure of that. She worked long hours and had her finger on the pulse, literally.

When new patients appeared at the doorway, the nearest medic was tasked to greet and triage them. As it happened, this was Amia today. She had just emerged from the last cubicle in the long row at the end of the main bay.

"Good morning," she smiled gently at the couple. The man was clearly in pain, the puckers around his brows, and the strain under his deep, darkened eyes with narrowed, defensive irises. Amia could clearly see the limp and guessed that was the source of his symptoms, but she was never one to jump to conclusions. It might be something completely different or it might be a combination of many things.

"How can we help?" she asked generically and came forward, tucking her PADD under one arm, pocketing her medcorder, and holding out her hand to shake that of the nearest of the two, the rainbow haired teenage girl, who was looking very defensive. Probably wanting to protect her... father? Their mouths were similar, something about the shape of their jaws, too. Well, if not father and daughter then definitely close relatives. Amia wondered distantly and irrelevantly whether the girl's hair was naturally the same as her father's or if she favored her mother with that, under the rainbow.

It wasn't important.

"Amia Telamon," she introduced herself, being very careful to treat the young woman with the exact same respect and politeness as she would her parent. Age was never as simple as it might first appear. Often the young were older and wiser than their supposed seniors, and it would be a fool who would judge age as a cover for any book, so to speak.

“Hello…nurse?” Zandra asked.

Oh, yes, hello nurse indeed! Kinony echoed in Aleczandra’s mind, admiring the beautiful medic that greeted them.

Shut up! Zandra snapped back, blushing at the things she remembered from Kinony’s life as a high class escort to the wealthy and connected. Where the hell did you learn an Old Earth vaudevillian catcall, anyway?

I love redheads. Due you think the curtains match the drapes?

Huh?

So much to teach you, little grasshopper.

Zandra flushed deeper, and her father arched an eyebrow at her before looking back to the woman.

“Amia,” he nodded at her, not using the more formal rank greeting. “Caleb Ryan,” he introduced himself. “Chief of Security. Excuse mah daughter’s lack of manners,” he took the doctor’s hand after Aleczandra shook it. “Ah seem ta have run out of mah pain medication an’ was wantin’ to get it refilled,” he explained, trying not to lean on the cane or Zandra too much. “This is Aleczandra.”

“Zandra is fine,” the rainbow-haired girl said.

"Nice to meet you both" Amia smiled at Caleb, shook Zandra's hand first and then his.

"I would have to do an examination before I could prescribe...professional ethics," she said almost apologetically. "Do you have a medical sleeve for me? Or are you already on my files?" She glanced at the main monitor and her fingers flashed over the LCARS, looking as she spoke for some information on what was going on with that leg from which he was clearly getting the pain he'd mentioned. "Is that okay?"

Caleb paused and then nodded. “It’s an annoying delay, but yes, fine,” he said. “My file should be in the system. I brought it over when I transferred.” He moved over to a nearby examination bed. “Zandy, Ah’ll be fine now. You should get ta school.”

Aleczandra sighed and looked at Amia. “Take care of him, okay?” she said, lifting her bag more onto her shoulder again. “And if he gives you any lip, just call me. I’ll straighten him out,” she said with a grin so much like her mother’s it pained Caleb. It was just something Mika would say.

"I'll try to handle him on my own, but you'll be the first to get a call if I can't!" promised Amia with a wink.

She turned to her patient. "Right, you. I'm told I'm to take no nonsense from you." Again a wink and a smirk as she finished scanning the file on her monitor and switched to a medcorder with which to do a proper exam. "It doesn't say how you got this. Well, not specifically," she said as she ran the scanner over his leg.

"War wound?" she asked, hoping to get him to elaborate as she measured the scar tissue and the depth of it. She mapped out the damage and creased her brow as she wondered where he could have been that such a poor job had been done of attempting to fix the wound at the time of first healing. She also wondered and was working out the best way to approach the subject, of how to persuade him to let her redo it and make a better job of it this time.

“You could say that,” Caleb said wryly. “Personal grudge.” He flexed his leg. “It’s not usually so bad,” he said, “if Ah keep active. Just stiff in the mornings. Piece of shrapnel was embedded in there. Had ta walk on it for a week. Ah didn’t dare take it out.”

"Nasty." She shuddered at the thought. "Would you like me to take a look with an eye to removing it now?" she asked nonchalantly without looking directly at him so as not to put him under pressure over it.

“The shrapnel is out now,” Caleb said. “Got it out once Ah stumbled out of the jungle in a fevered haze. But not before it tore the muscle up somethin’ fierce. Ah admit Ah might not have been in the right frame of mind ta really do mah rehab faithfully,” he said sadly. “Guess it’s mah own fault,” he said with a wry smile.

"Okay, but that was then and this is now. You clearly didn't have a surgeon as talented as me and if you've already removed the shrapnel then all I'd have to do is repair the muscle, tendons, and flesh that were originally damaged," she stated matter-of-factly, putting down her scanner and looking right at him at last.

“Lots of scar tissue now,” Caleb said. “Had to take a lot of the muscle out. Infected or dead tissue. What’s left does extra work, so it gets tired and cranky.” He rubbed his leg, stretching it out. “But if ya want ta take a look, Ah won’t stop ya, if ya think ya can do something.” He shrugged, not willing to get his hopes up too much. “I’m lucky Ah got ta keep what leg Ah had left.”

"I'd like to. If it's okay with you?" she replied. "It will take some considerable time, as I'll be regenerating it layer by layer. I'll anaesthetize the whole thigh and we'll have to do it in several sessions with a few days, perhaps a week, between each to allow your body healing time, but if you're up for it, I'm good enough to rebuild the whole section eventually." She hoped that didn't sound arrogant, but it was fact. She could do this. If she wasn't fully confident, how was she going to build his trust? And anyway, she had the truth on her side.

Caleb considered it for a long moment. “Ah guess Ah’m not averse to it,” he finally agreed. “Ah don’t want it to interfere with my duties, though,” he told her. “Ah don’t want to be laid up. Ah’ve already got off on the wrong foot with the captain, and it’s only my first week on the job. Getting laid out on my back likely wouldn’t reflect too nicely on me.”

"I understand your concern, but with it fixed you'd be even more impressive as an officer of this crew, right?" She grinned. "And doing it in sessions with local nerve-block anesthesia will mean you can have it done off duty -- providing you promise faithfully to rest round until your next shift properly -- and then a few days later we can do another session, and so on. If you really want to keep it as minimal as possible I could do more sessions, but smaller amounts each time. That way you'd get less tired between them. Spread out the healing?”

Caleb nodded, considering. “That may be the best solution,” he told the doctor. “Ah want to be off my feet as little as possible. There’s a lot Ah have ta catch up on, and it’s a big station.”

"Then I'll schedule the sessions and sent you a plan with it all set out. You can present that to show if any of them clash with anything and keep it as a reminder. Or better still, give it to that lovely daughter of yours so she can remind you!" Amia smiled at him and began some preliminary scans to file for use when she started the work.

FIN

A JP Between:

Lt. Cmdr. Amia Telamon
CMO

Lt. Cmdr. Caleb Ryan
Chief of Security/Tactical

Aleczandra Naqiis-Ryan
Daughter
NPC Caleb Ryan

 

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