Little Sickbay of Horrors

Posted on 24 Jan 2015 @ 11:04pm by Lieutenant Tuula Voutilainen M.D. & Ensign Ibrahim Dragovic & Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim & Lieutenant Olsam Mott

3,530 words; about a 18 minute read

Mission: Episode 07 - Sojourn
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 4 - 04-2624 JO - Ibrahim's Quarters
Timeline: MD 42 - 0930 hours

[ON]

Ibrahim woke to two distinct throbbing pains, one in his head and one in his right ankle, both the result of last night's misadventure.

With most of the crew on shore leave, the Galileo was largely abandoned last night, and so Ibrahim figured he would likewise take advantage of the last few days of freedom himself. Of course, not knowing most of the crew, he was forced to get after it himself. Despite his rebellious youth, he was never much of a drinker, preferring what most Novans euphemistically called 'recreational botany' when speaking to off-worlders. But alas, the strict atmospheric controls (and sensors) being what they are on a starbase, such a diversion was patently out of the question. Eventually convincing himself that there were sadder things than drinking alone in a bar, he set out in search of an acceptable watering hole.

He visited six different bars on the starbase until he found one with a bartender that could talked into turning one of the vidscreens to the Colonial Minor League playoffs. After the Terra Nova Cavers won a terrific upset against the New Mumbai Pioneers, he helped himself to several more celebratory beers. Or perhaps they lost and he had several more consolatory beers, he didn't quite remember. What he DID remember was walking out of the bar onto the promenade, only to see a churning swarm of bickering Bolians coming his way. Coming from an almost exclusively Human backwater planet, he knew little of Bolians save for their stereotypically comprehensive diets. Of course he was certain that they didn't eat sentient beings, but alcohol has a way of impairing one's judgment and they way they seemed to snarl and snap at one another persuaded him to extricate himself from the mob's path immediately.

He took a step backward and his haste paired with his advanced state of intoxication caused him to catch his foot on a bench leg and tumble to the floor as the oblivious horde passed him by without a single glance his way. He remembered a slight pain at the time but figured he could walk it off, and the next thing he knew he woke up in his quarters.

But unfortunately the new day brought with it the sobriety required to feel the full brunt of both his hangover and what he now suspected was a sprained ankle. It was considerably swollen and a deep purplish blue.

No matter, he thought as he sat up and swung his legs over the side of his bunk, we Novans are made made of sterner stuff than the typical Earth bureaucra-

"SHALE!!" he screamed as he fell to the floor clutching his ankle the moment he put any weight on it. He briefly hoped nobody had heard him bellowing the Novan profanity, even though off-worlders tended not to be bothered overly much by his homeworld's most vile curse word.

Face up and spread-eagled on the floor, he sighed. "Computer, could you, ah, dispatch medical assistance to 04-2624 JO, Ensign Dragovic's quarters, please? For a sprained ankle." He paused. "Oh! And a physical," he added, almost forgetting the mandatory evaluation that came with a new ship posting.


--Sickbay, USS Galileo--

"...and all three of them were actually quite well behaved," said Tuula as she regaled the tale of her babysitting adventure to Allyndra. "They were very helpful and courteous, and it was so cute how studious they were." She let out a longing sigh. "You know, it might be nice to have kids of my own some day."

Allyndra listened to Tuula's tale. It had been a way for Tuula to actually get some babysitting in so that the EBH could be properly programmed. That whole task had been easier then she had first thought and she thanked the Twins that she had gotten a good set of people.

Allyndra smiled at that last statement, "I am sure you would be a good mother. I wonder what my life would have been like if any of my K'tareth..." Allyndra did not finish as the call came in.

It was then that their conversation was interrupted by a loud chime and the monotone female voice of the computer. "Medical assistance required in room 04-2624 JO."

Tuula's head snapped in the direction of the voice. "Computer, how many patients? What is the nature of the injuries?" she asked as she reached for her medical bag.

"One. Ensign Ibrahim Dragovic. Human. Sprained ankle."

"I'm on my way," replied Tuula as she pushed herself toward the door.

"I will get BioBed One ready," Allydnra said as she stood. That was the surgical one and the one with the greatest amount of instrumentation.


--Ibrahim's Quarters, USS Galielo--

Still on the floor, Ibrahim folded his hands across his stomach. He briefly considered changing into his uniform for the on duty medical officer who almost certainly outranked him. The basketball shorts and ratty "Trash Toilet" band shirt he passed out in wouldn't make for a good first impression for most Starfleet officers. He looked across the quarters at the closet and his uniform, which was the only item he bothered to hang up. Glancing at his ankle and then back at the closet, it might as well have been miles away. Setting his jaw in determination, he began using his three intact limbs to scrabble across the floor belly-up in an awkward three-limbed crabwalk when he heard the distinctive sound of the quarter's doors whooshing open.

"Ensign Dragovic?" called out Tuula as she rolled into the man's quarters. The name wasn't familiar to her, and judging by the relative emptiness of her surroundings, he had just moved in. Hearing a groan in pain emanating from the bedroom, Tuula headed off in that direction.

"Ensign, are you all right?!" she exclaimed upon seeing the man writhing across the floor of his room.

Ibrahim dropped to the floor and lay shock still and stared at Tuula, trying to will himself invisible. "Ah, yes. I mean no, I must've sprained my ankle last night and I can't put any weight on it." He wriggled himself in something approximating a sitting posture. He held eye contact with her expectantly for several seconds before the pain subsided enough to give him the lucidity to notice her wheelchair and make the logical connection that she probably could not come down to the floor to look at the ankle. "I'll just, uh, grab a seat, Lieutenant." he grunted as he extended himself and grasped at a desk chair that remained just beyond his reach.

"No, don't trouble yourself," replied Tuula, reaching her hand out towards him. "I can treat you better in sickbay. Computer, two to beam directly to sickbay."

--Sickbay, USS Galileo--

Shimmering into sickbay with her patient by her side, Tuula quickly got her bearings in the familiar room. She saw that Allyndra had already prepped the biobed for a patient, as well as lowered it down to a more appropriate height for her.

"Get him onto the bed," she called out as she got herself into position at the foot of the bed. "Careful, he has an injury to the left ankle.

Olsam has shown up in Tuula's brief absence from his quarters just down the corridor. Having programmed the ship and starbase's computers to alert him if there was any medical emergency - literally any medical emergency - involving the crew had proven to be a stoke of genius as it allowed him to a0n excuse to step away from whichever family member had managed to harangue him at that moment.

"Ooo, a patient," Mott said, immediately getting in the way of things despite not even being on duty. Three doctors for one sprained ankle was overkill in any situation, but it certainly didn't stop him from producing his own medical tricorder to get a reading on the injury. Maybe he could find something else while he was at it. You never knew who might be harboring a parasite or kidney stones or an abnormally large and highly fatal brain lesion. "Are you experiencing any headaches, neck pain, nausea, vision changes, memory loss, difficulty moving or any other symptoms associated with fatal brain lesions, ensign?"

Caught off-guard by the unexpected transport, Ibrahim's mind reeled from the commotion in sickbay, exacerbating his already potent hangover. He wondered if he was the first person to be transported while hungover and if making them worse was a known side effect. Although between the transport and what looked like an over-staffed sick bay, it seemed like a lot of commotion. Don't they have hand-held subdermal regenerators, or was that just a holovid thing?

He squeezed his eyes shut to block out the glaring sickbay lights and rubbed the temples of his forehead in hopes of soothing grinding pain in his skull. Amongst what sounded like the clattering of instruments and the warbly beeping of a tricorder, he thought he heard someone ask him if he was having a headache. Thank Stone, he thought, I could really use a pain-killer right about now. "Yes, I am, thank you," he said, looking forward to a jolt of pain dampeners that would let him think clearly.

Pushing Mott to the side, Tuula began scanning the patient's ankle. She was surprised to see him; he wasn't supposed to be on duty at the moment. Of course, he was probably looking for any excuse to escape momentarily from the hell that was being surrounded by forty-seven Bolians. Tuula knew that feeling all too well, relishing the relative quiet of her duties. "Bruising, damage to the ligament, slight tearing of the muscle, possibly due to overextension... how exactly did this happen, ensign?"

Allyndra had gotten the biobed ready and ready to receive when Olsam had shown up. She wondered why he was here since this was not his duty time nor had a major call been sent out. Before she could even ask, the familiar shimmer of transport began and she stepped back away from the bed. Olsam had better do the same and he finally seemed to come out of his focus to do just that. The transporters were good but still there was a bit of uncertainty left in the whole process and the last thing anyone needed was that whole two objects in the same space and time. It made, according to the physics for a REAL BAD DAY.

Once Tuula and her patient arrived Mott jumped into the fray and since this did not look like a titanic medical emergency, Allyndra figured to give the two some room and backed away. She did when there was a moment to remind Mott, "Olsam, this is Tuula's patient. Let her diagnose please."

Ibrahim opened his eyes to look at the human doctor who had first discovered him in his quarters. "Well, I was on shore leave last night, and I must have twisted my ankle when I tried to get out of the way of some-" he caught himself when he noticed the Bolian doctor behind Tuula. "Er, some people," he managed to say, hoping to avoid sounding impolitic. Coming from an all-human world, he made enough inter species etiquette missteps his first year at the academy which landed him in a week-long "remedial Federation integration seminar" and had no desire to repeat the experience. Especially since he managed to be the only human in the group. Of course, this particular doctor bore a striking similarity to the Bolians on the station, but on the other hand he knew so few Bolians he wasn't exactly qualified to judge.

Allyndra brought over a hypo. "May I suggest Tuula that perhaps a bit of anaglesic before getting the rest of the story and initiating the repair." She looked at the man and smiled, "You are in good hands, Tuula is excellent and Olsam is as well."

"Good idea," replied Tuula as she finished her scans. "I suggest Melorazine; I suspect the patient is also suffering from acute withdrawal symptoms, the after-effects of excessive alcohol consumption." She looked up at Ibrahim, a slightly puzzled expression on his face. "That's a hangover, Ensign," she added.

He scowled. "I know what a hangover is, Doctor," he said with a slightly acerbic tone, not recognizing her accent as a Terran one until just now. "We do have schools on Terra Nova, you know. We aren't all complete hayseeds. Rather, I was surprised that you'd call a few pints of sudsy 'excessive.' It's nothing that I couldn't have walked off in my own time but for the ankle. Between that and the transport I'm just..." he paused to flutter his hand around for effect, "discombobulated."

"I'm sure you can hold your liquor, ensign," replied Tuula in an exasperated tone. If the patient was going to be like this, then she had a trick or two of her own up her sleeve. Examining the leg again, she frowned and turned towards Mott. "It looks like a simple sprain, but I'm afraid it's Acamarian necrotizing fasciitis. Had he come in last night I may have been able to save the leg, but... I'm afraid it's going to have to come off."

Allyndra blinked. It was that slow blink which in an Akkadian meant she was confused. She looked at the scans and wondered where Tuula had come up with such a diagnosis. She tapped Tuula on the shoulder. "A word if I may." Allyndra would not question the diagnosis in front of the patient by one of her doctors.

Olsam had heard Tuula, of course, but he was three sentences behind. "Wait, what's a hayseed?"

"There's no time," exclaimed Tuula as she winked at Allyndra. "Fetch me the bone cutter." She glanced down at her tricorder again. "Dr. Mott, we don't have time for anasthetic. You'll have to hold him still, and try to muffle the screaming. I don't want to get distracted by his screams in the middle of this amputation."

Allyndra thought she understood. There was a lot about concepts that she remembered from her training that some species and humans in general tended to play something they called a practical joke. She had never quite figured out what was practical about such things. Thankfully her Counselor training had gotten her used to such things but she better explain to Mott what was going on.

"Very well, if you insist, I will be there in a moment once I have a word with Olsam."
She smiled at the Bolian doctor and said sotto voce, "I believe Tuula is doing something called a practical joke. It is intended to be funny by making another feel uncomfortable. The diagnosis is completely incorrect but I think I understand her reason. Oh, by the way, a hayseed as I remember the concept is a human colloquialism for meaning someone from the country with a poor education and/or gullible. Does that help?"

Ibrahim's brow furrowed with consternation. "Er, shouldn't we at least get a... well, a fourth opinion? And wouldn't they have better appointed medical facilities on the station?" Surely they couldn't be serious? Did people even catch diseases on starbases? He felt a twinge of unfounded panic as he wondered if his original assumption that Bolians did not eat sentients was mistaken. Perhaps the amputation was a ruse for some manner of black market deli operation. He wasn't even familiar with the other doctor's species, who knows what her people eat.

It took him a few moments, but Olsam eventually processed what Allyndra had told him and nodded with a big, knowing grin. He was a big fan of theater, having starred in no less than 47 different productions over the course of his life, and the opportunity to participate in another one wasn't something he could bring himself to turn down.

"Don't worry, you big ol' hayseed, we get a general sense of how to do this during our training. I'm sure Dr. Voutilainen has seen at least one of two holovids," Olsam said to Ensign Dragovic as he stepped up to the biobed and placed big, meaty blue hands on his shoulders. "You know, I haven't cut someone's leg off since that epidemic on Nafw'q VII. That was a nasty bit of business. I remember one patient... I forgot to cauterize his femoral artery - oops! I couldn't for the life of me figure out why all that blood was spurting out of the wound, you know? Well, needless to say, we should just be thankful for the synthetic blood compound that field hospitals keep on hand. Speaking of which, didn't we exhaust our supply of that during the last mission? I should probably get around to reordering it. Mental note, Olsam, mental note."

"Ah such a waste of good blood," Allyndra remarked. "As far as the synthetic, no we had some left but I do believe I finished off the rest." She flashed for a moment those sharp inner teeth. She looked at the Ensign and then Tuula and quipped, "I could bite him, the pain might be less that way. Your call."

"That would be most helpful, doctor," replied Tuula. Flicking a laser scalpel off and on, she looked down at the ensign on the table. "Now, hold still, Ensign," she said as she brought the scalpel closer to his leg.

Allyndra moved around to the Ensigns head but kept a watchful eye on Tuula. She was fairly sure what was going on but ready to put a stop to the current situation. It was not normally in her nature to tease someone but she figured that Tuula knew what she was doing, or at least she hoped so.

Ibrahim's mind raced and beads of sweat formed on his bald pate as the scalpel inched closer. She seemed to be moving extra slowly but there was no time to think about that now. Surely this wasn't standard procedure in Starfleet Medical? If this was some sort of criminal enterprise, he saw only one way out of it.

"HELP! SECURITY!"

Tuula flicked off her laser scalpel and turned back towards Ibrahim's face. "Relax, Ensign, as much as it might be fun, we're not going to cut off your leg today. I'll repair the damaged tissue in your ankle, and I hope you've learned a valuable lesson about being snippy with the medical staff."

"Wait, we're not?" Olsam asked, looking from Tuula to Allyndra to Ibrahim. "Right. We're not. Of course. Definitely not cutting off the ensign's leg. That's not ethical. We were just teaching him a lesson. Lessons are totally ethical; unnecessary amputations are not."

Ibrahim blinked several times. "Wait... what?!" If anything he found himself more wound up than he was before. "So this was what, a prank?! I'm not like, a square or anything, man, but what the hell kind of joke is that? Holding what amounts to a high-tech knife and saying 'I'm going to cut you.' What if I was some Marine meathead that completely wigged out and attacked you?"

"That's why we have sedatives," replied Tuula nonchalantly as she traded the laser scalpel for a muscular regenerator. "And restraints."

Ibrahim rolled his eyes. "Is that right? I would've assumed your narcotics and restraints were for your own twisted recreational purposes, since you all seem to like to have fun here in the sickbay."

"Only after our shifts are over," replied Tuula in a deadpan voice. "Now hold still."

Ibrahim didn't quite manage to conceal his smirk as he felt his indignation away, disarmed as he was by the witty(ish) repartee. Maybe it was a little funny.

Allyndra was finally relieved to see the knife flicker off. She had been getting a little worried herself just how far Tuula was going to take this 'prank' as humans called it.

Tuula's last comment though took her off-guard. There should not be any such use of narcotics and especially not out of sickbay but then maybe she was making the 'joke' again. It was always odd that for as much as one was around others not of her own kind and you thought you knew most things, then something popped up that could blind side you. She sighed.

"Sometimes sir, I think our good doctor is trying to get us aliens to...what is the word that you use? Lighten, yes, that is it, to lighten up. I guess Mott and myself sometimes take thing too literally," Allyndra said and applied a bit more anaglesic as she watched the monitor and noted the pain level rise a little.

"I have no interest in lightening up," Olsam said seriously, frowning first at Allyndra and then at Tuula. He seemed genuinely upset, as if he was being pushed into something he didn't want to do. "I'm happy with my weight the way it is, doctor."

[OFF]

LCMDR Allyndra illm Warraquim
Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant Olsam Mott, M.D.
Assistant Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant (J.G.) Tuula Voutilainen, M.D.
Medical Officer
USS Galileo

Ensign Ibrahim Dragovic
Astrometric Officer
UUS Galileo

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