Actually, it is brain surgery

Posted on 03 Jun 2017 @ 4:02pm by Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim & Ensign Miraj Derani
Edited on on 03 Jun 2017 @ 6:57pm

2,179 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Episode 15 - Emanation
Location: Earth - Starfleet Medical
Timeline: MD 04, 1300

ON:

Allyndra had accompanied Miraj to see the neurosurgeon. She was still having trouble with facial recognition though it seemed things had improved a bit. She could recognize some faces and with fewer clues. The spatial part was coming along but still abstract was a problem. While she could have just sent her along, the myriad of faces might just cause even further confusion and thus worry and stress which the pilot did not need.

They had negotiated the corridors the building to one end and found themselves in front of an office. The secretary looked up as they entered.
"Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim and Ensign Miraj Derani to see Doctor Barnard."

The Trill secretary checked and looked up. "Yes, doctor, please," she stood and went to the office door and knocked. A deep baritone voice but pleasant said, "Yes?".

"Your fifteen hundred appointment is here."

"Ah, very good, please have them come in."

The secretary stood back and indicated they should enter.

A human male from appearance, stood there, tall at about two meters, greying hair, soft brown eyes. "Doctor, he nodded toward Allyndra and you must be Miraj. Can I call you that?"

She nodded. no point on being formal. There was every chance he was going to root through her brain. You didn't get much more intimate than that.

"Please have a seat," He indicated. "So Miraj, tell me a bit about yourself. I like to know a bit about patients." It seemed innocent enough but Robert Barnard was looking to see what parts of the brain were intact before going straight to the problem.

"I love flying. I'm a pilot. A really really good one. I know that sounds like boasting, but its true. I'm probably the best in the federation. At least the top three. And I can't do anything else. Its everything I've ever know, and all I want to do, and right now, I can't look at a map and tell up from down. and -" All through her speech her voice had got wobblier as the full impact of what she might be losing started to overwhelm her. She couldn't finish her sentance, and started to sob quietly.

Robert listened and noted the intensity of the plea. The voice had gotten out of pattern but that was emotion. The patient seemed to have other faculties intact. He reached forward and patted her knee. "Well we are going to see what we can do. There is a good chance that we might get something. Now then..." he got up and went over to one part of the wall which had a big monitor on it. "I pulled this up from one of your flights. I am going to play it but I want you to describe to me what is happening."

Miraj watched the first few moments, noting the ship and the objectss on the view screen, and a smile broke out. "That was my evaluation flight for the Academy. The instructor thought I was lying about flying large ships. He said New Orleans classes weren't manoeuvrable. I showed him." The tone of her voice demonstrated clearly that she thought the instructor was a moron. "Look, here I'm backing out of Space dock, and then we have a swallow drop-" The view on the screen swung down suddenly, and proximity alarms began to blare, and the top of a Galaxy-class sped towards the viewer before cutting away sharply. "Then you cut power to the port manoeuvring thrusters, engage full impulse, ramp gravity on the starboard side to add effective mass, and you come about," The Earth flashed past, "I threw her through a one-eighty, just for fun, purely on the horizontal, and engaged warp 1 for a dash to Mars, and dropped the inertial dampeners by 1%" Miraj gave a chuckle, remembering. "So he threw up." Stars started to streak by. "Not long to Mars, should be seeing it any second....now." The ship dropped out of warp to show the ochre stained planet.

Robert chuckled at the description of her flight. "Well young lady, sounds like you certainly knew your way around flight controls. Did you note that you could recall every detail and the relation of things? That means that the cognitive ability is there, no memory or other loss. We are dealing with only new relationships. Now let me bring up some of the scans that were done and I will walk through what i think is going on."

Hearing that her abilities were still somewhat in tact was a relief. But could she be fixed? She nodded her head, eager to hear, hoping, hoping, for the best. It set her bunches swinging. "Please."

Robert reached back and tapped a series of inputs on the pad on the desk. The large monitor changed to show several scans at various positions of Miraj's brain.

He got up and went over and then tapped a spot. "This is where the main damage has occured. This is what we call the fusiform area. Now right here in the middle is the area for facial and to either side, as we look from above toward the front is spatial, and to the rear is shape. Right here near shape is word formation. Since you have no problem, then there is no damage on that side. Now in humans these areas are pretty bilateral in function, in your case young lady it would seem that most of the spatial and object recognition are closer to your word recognition site but there is still some on the other hemisphere as well. Now then...." He tapped another series on the padd and the scan shifted around.

"As in most humanoids, there is connections between one side and the other. A part of the brain we call the corpus callosum. Specifically this area right her the spienium. What I think is happening is that the damaged areas are affecting the undamaged areas. Call it putting noise into the line. What I am proposing is then to severe a part of the spienium, the communication bridge, between the damaged and undamaged areas. The brain should then be able to work only with the undamaged area without receiving 'noise', misinformation if you will, from the other side."

Miraj went over to the screen, head tilting fingers touching the screen as she tried to figure it all out. Her orbital arches furrowed so deeply her eyes were barely visible. She wasn't sure she understood any of it, but one thing was bothering her, assuming she understood it. "But if you cut that bit.-" she put her finger on the corpus callosum to keep track of it, how does it fix the bit that won't work? I mean, if its causing interference, shouldn't you be fixing it, rather than...putting it on mute?"

Robert looked at the scans and shook his head. "I wish we could but there is some necrotic damage there." He pointed to darkened spots. "Places where the tissue has died. As good as medicine has advanced it cannot bring back dead tissue. We do not have to do this, but I think the surgery has a good chance of getting you back to being able to handle objects and spatial relationships."

Just a chance. Miraj didn't know whether to be relieved she might have something back, or despairing as she could be permanently impaired. "I want the surgery. I can't be like this forever. I need to fly. No point to anything if I can't fly. How soon can I have it?"

Robert nodded. "I could get a team together and book an operating room for two days hence. It is your final decision and if you wish to talk to your ship's physician first then go ahead."

Miraj thought about it. For less than a second. Of course she was going to have the surgery. "Is it dangerous?" Not that it mattered at all. She was going to do it anyway.

Allyndra spoke up. "Any surgery can have problems, and we are dealing with the brain here. I am sure though you will be in the best hands possible. It is your decision of course but if it was me, I would agree to hopefully gain back that loss."

"Can we wait till the day after? My Dad should be here by then." She didn't want to put it off, but she wanted her daddy to be there, just in case. "I don't mean to be awkward."

Robert nodded, "Of course, you are in the driver's seat. I will make the arrangements."

Miraj looked at Allyndra. The end, one way or the other, was in sight. It felt almost too easy. “So what will the surgery actually involve?” she stroked one of her pink bunches unconsciously. “Do you do, like, open brain surgery or something?”

"Well it will involved opening the skull, and that means you are going to loose temporarily those pink locks of yours. We make an opening and then use computer guided probe to go to the area and then make tiny cuts. You will be awake during the procedure because we will need to know if we have gone far enough. That is have we achieved what I told you, will the working parts then be more on line as it where. So there will be testing while in the surgical suite." Robert knew that most people just pretty much went under and done was done, but it cases with the brain functioning that was a different story. You had to be sure that you did get what you needed done, going back a second time or more time was very dangerous.

That sounded quite ghoulish, being awake. But if the doctor said it was needed then Miraj wasn't going to argue. She wondered how it would feel, have people rooting around inside her skull. "Sounds like fun." Her tone of voice showed she wasn't quite sure about that. "So, come back in seventy two hours or so?"

"Not or so, seventy two hours, check in at main medical," Robert replied and then nodded his chin, "Your choice if you want to shave off those locks yourself or wait until we are at prep."

"I don't think I could," Miraj loved her hair, was vain enough to enjoy how it stood out amongst so many species, and modest enough to feel guilty about enjoying it. She turned to Allyndra. "Will you be there." Given her condition, they'd got dispensation to meet despite the prohibitions on contact, so Allyndra could act as her physician. But now Miraj was being handed off to a specialist, she might not be allowed to see her again.

Allyndra looked to Doctor Barnard. "If I may, I would like to observe."

Robert nodded, "Considering the patient will be awake and the nature of the problem, a face that she might be more able to pick out will be calming. If you do not mind, then doctor, perhaps you can run the visual tests." He looked to Miraj. "Would that be acceptable to you?"

"Absolutely." Miraj definitely wanted a familiar face. She couldn't bare to think she might not recognise her own family again, didn't want to ever look at her father or brother like they were strangers. There was no way on Earth she'd be able to justify asking for Luke, no matter the circumstances. Allyndra would be a more than comforting alternative. "As long as it doesn't get you into trouble." she wanted to give the Akkadian a chance to back out, rather than make more problems with Starfleet than they already had.

"As long the head surgeon has given his permission which he has, there should be no other problems." Allyndra paused and then added, "For what it is worth from what Doctor Barnard has shown, I think this has the best chance of getting you back to flight status in the shortest amount of time. I think if it was me, I would say yes in heartbeats."

Miraj snorted. She'd said yes about five weeks ago, but the debriefing situation was delicate and she didn't want to make anything worse. "Good. Thank you." She turned back to Doctor Barnard. She knew there would be all manner of forms to fill in for this sort of thing. "Where do I sign?"

Robert chuckled. "I will have my aide get you all that you need." He held out his hand and said, "We will get you flying again in no time. I am pretty sure about that."

Miraj nodded urgent agreement. No time at all was about twice as long as she needed it to take, but you couldn't have everything. "Thank you."

Robert turned to Allyndra and said, "Doctor, see you 0500 in 72 hours. Miraj, you need to report to surgical intake at 0530 same time frame. My aide will give you details as to what to prepare for ahead of time." He nodded and said, "It was a pleasure."

[OFF]

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Ensign Miraj Derani

Cmndr Allyndra illm Warraquim

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