Poor Jaana...

Posted on 23 Aug 2015 @ 4:06am by Lieutenant Tuula Voutilainen M.D. & Ensign Jaana Voutilainen & Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim & Petty Officer 1st Class Eric Anderson
Edited on on 23 Aug 2015 @ 4:08am

1,683 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Episode 09 - Empires
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 3, corridors
Timeline: MD 03 - 1010 hours

[ON]

After a long shift in sickbay tending to the various minor and not-so-minor injuries of the crew, Tuula was finally returning to her quarters to check on the damage. While she was fortunate enough to not have a hull breach in her quarters and have all her belongings -- and Gilbert -- sucked out into space, she knew that between being knocked around and subjected to zero gravity, it would be a mess. Not that it was particularly clean beforehand, though.

But as she made her way towards her quarters, she was shocked to see a blue-shirted crewman unconscious in the hallway. However, as she approached, she recognized the woman lying in the corridor. It was her sister.

"Jaana!" she gasped, quickly pushing herself towards her sister. Instinctively, she reached down and felt her pulse; it was there, albeit not particularly strong. But the first rule of triage was that if the patient was unconscious, it was bad. "Computer, emergency transport, two directly to sickbay!"

A few seconds later, the two of them appeared in sickbay. "Help!" shouted Tuula, as she reached for her medical tricorder, her voice even more distressed than usual, "we have an unconscious patient!"

Allyndra was reviewing the various charts that had suddenly like tribbles seemed to have reproduced at an alarming rate. Thankfully with the power being more stable they could set up the holodeck as a sickbay and shift patients out of here so that this one was ready just in case for more inflow. A lot of contusions, a lot of head bumps with various problems from the loss of gravity seemed to be the majority of cases. One expected that with species that were not used to three dimensional movement, the loss of gravity had proven that. There were some serious ones as well including one that had to be put into stasis for the moment. She had hoped things were starting to get sorted out when she heard Tuula shouting. Allydnra could not help but groan a moment but she was already pushing away from the desk and put on her professional face as she headed quickly out.

She hurried when she saw Tuula and another woman. "Come," she offered a supporting arm which thankfully the woman was not heavy. "Biobed one," Allyndra indicated. It was their best most equipped bed.

"I saw her in the hallway," replied Tuula, the shock still evident in her voice. As Allyndra gently placed Jaana on the biobed, Tuula adjusted the sensors and pulled out her medical tricorder. Waving it over her sister's unconscious body, she was shocked at the results. "Low blood pressure, liver damage... stomach irritability... signs of vomiting... is it possible that she had some kind of food poisoning?" asked Tuula.

"It is a possibility, let's get her blood pressure up and get her on support. Also check her blood sugar, let's either rule out or rule in possible diabetic ketoacidosis." Allyndra remarked getting the life support equipment ready.

"I'm detecting some hyperglycemia," replied Tuula, continuing to wave the tricorder over her sister, trying to unravel the mystery, "but diabetic ketoacidosis does't make sense. Jaana isn't diabetic; she would have told me if she was diagnosed with something like that." Tuula sighed and took a moment to pet Jaana on the head. "Don't worry, Jaana," she said quietly, "I'll take care of you."

Eric stepped in to prepare the equipment, freeing up the Doctor to study the patient herself. Ashe glanced at Tuula, he was careful to choose his words as he knew that they might cause upset, "Doctor Voutilainen it might be best for you to step back. We can call Doctor Mott to give us a hand if we need a second pair of hands." He didn't mean to upset the the personal relation between the sisters meant a conflict of interest to allow Tuula to help in the medical treatment of her sister, a headache no one needed right now.

"But she's my sister!" protested Tuula as she turned towards the nurse with a tear in her eye. "I have to take care of her."

"Let her stay for a moment," Allyndra said. "Do you know any particular medications she might be taking? I do not see on the scan here any particular toxic reaction to her stomach contents. Nor do we see a pregnancy."

"Nothing major," replied Tuula. "I think she said you prescribed her some thyroxine, but that's it."

"Yes, yes, but that should not be a problem here..." Allyndra mused.

"Eric if you would be so good we need to start a saline drip and get her blood sugar down. Let's try 15 units of insulin please."

Still hesitatant that this was the right place for Tuula, Eric pushed his personal thoughts aside as he begun to help his boss.

"Tuula is there anything you can think of. Any unusual behaviour, anything that might lead to this. I see that some of her serotonin levels are a bit off."

"No, of course not," replied Tuula. "I'm the unusual one, she's been acting normally this whole time. I can't think of anything--" she froze for a moment; Jaana did seem shocked when she walked in on her and Jynn, but that couldn't cause her to faint so many hours later, could it? "Nothing. I mean, I think she has a crush on someone, but that's normal, right?"

"I would think so. However, to get this kind of serious disease symptoms would something going on for awhile. One's liver does not tend to look like this unless something very toxic." Allyndra was puzzled. She thought a bit more and asked, "Have you noticed any changes in eating habits?"

Tuula thought long and hard. "I wish I could say," she explained. "Because of how our shifts line up, we don't share a lot of meals together. But I haven't noticed anything odd."

"Alright, well we will have to figure it out later. As I said, I do not see anything foreign that would be toxic. Let's get her stabilized and then figure out what might be the cause. The liver damage is the most serious. Luckily liver regenerates well. Keep an eye on vitals please while I review something."

Tuula kept one eye on the monitor on the biobed and the other on her sister. Gently, she brushed Jaana's hair as she tried to choke back tears. She couldn't bear to see her sister sick like this. "It's going to be okay," she said softly, "I'm here."

Allyndra pulled up the logs for replicator use. She was astonished by her find. If Jana had been Bolian like Mott she would not have blinked an eye. This was a very unusual amount of activity for a normal human appetite. However it did not match Jana's weight which was normal or even slightly less than normal. There was something from the book that Mott's brother had given her.

She came back and asked Tuula, "Hold her mouth open a moment. I want to examine her teeth."

"Her teeth?" asked Tuula, looking up at Allyndra. Seeing the seriousness on her face, she complied. "Okay," she said, holding Jaana's mouth open.

Allyndra used a small mirror and took a look at the back of Jana's front teeth. The evidence was there and she pointed it out. "Here I read this in Olsam's brother's book on dentistry. Frequent vomiting causes the stomach acid to erode the enamel off the back of the teeth." Allynda pulled the mirror out and added, "I took a look at the replicator log as well. She has ordered large quantities of food at a time and yet her weight is normal. How would you diagnose large food intake with obvious signs of vomiting frequently?" Allyndra had pegged a diagnosis but she wanted her colleague to come to the same conclusion.

As he listened to his boss speak, Eric's eyes were drawn to Tuula. This was the exact reason he felt that she shouldn't be here. If there was a possibility that what the boss was saying was right, the patient had an eating disorder. This wasn't something which should be discussed with fellow family members as something psychological needed to be dealt with with the patient themselves.

Recongising that his thoughts would be no use as he was only a nurse, he just occupied himself with watching the patient's vitals and fetching whatever the boss needed.

"That doesn't make sense," protested Tuula, unable or unwilling to accept the conclusions in front of her. "Jaana isn't bulimic, I... I..."

All at once, a million little thoughts flowed into Tuula's head. How could this be? How could she not have known? How could Jaana keep it from her? Was there anything she did which made it worse?

"Can you repair the physical damage?" asked Tuula, a nervous wreck. "And wake her?"

"Most yes. Liver is going to take a bit longer but what she is going to need is a lot of counseling. There is obviously something that is driving this behaviour." Allyndra turned to the nurse. "Let's get a major tissue regenerator set up please."

Nodding his head as he moved away from the table to gather the equipment they would need, Eric couldn't help but look back at both sisters for a moment. He wondered what could drive such a beautiful woman to allow her her body to starve. She didn't need to loose any weight, in fact with the removal of some clothes he could see that she needed to gain some. It didn't deter from being able to see her natural beauty; the elegance in her face.

Shaking his head as he moved the trolley with the equipment over to his boss, he just hoped that she would be ok. Starving yourself wasn't a pretty way to die.


[TBC]


Petty Officer 1st Class Eric Anderson
Nurse
USS Galileo

LCmdr Allyndra illm Warraquim
Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

Lt. (JG) Tuula Voutilainen
Medical Officer
USS Galileo

Ensign Jaana Voutilainen
Medical Officer
USS Galileo

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