Medical Musings

Posted on 29 Oct 2018 @ 12:38pm by Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim & Lieutenant Lake ir-Llantrisant & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Alexion Wylde & EMH Mark X-C "Shirley" & Verity Thorne & LuAnn Lovegood PhD

2,783 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Episode 17 - Crystal of Life
Location: USS Galileo-A - Deck 3, Sickbay
Timeline: MD -181, 0900 hours

[ON]

Allyndra had sent out for everyone even remotely connected to medical department including the counselors and chaplain to report to sickbay for a departmental briefing. In preparation for that sickbay since it was currently empty of patients had extra chairs brought in, covers over a couple of the biobeds had been put on with a selection of fruits, pastries and cheeses. A note on the open office door indicated that the replicator was available for liquid refreshments and or anything else not provided on the small buffet.

This was a somewhat more make sure everyone was ready. There was still not a lot of information on final destination but more to see if everyone had had time or to make time to get to know the new layout of the ship and had time to settle in.

She waited for the first arrivals.

LuAnn didn't plan on being first to arrive. She was a little surprised to walk in and see just the Chief. "Hello," she said cheerfully.

"Good day, please help yourself to anything or there is a replicator in the office." Allyndra pointed to the spread on the biobeds. "We will get started in about fifteen minutes."

"Ooh! Thank you," LuAnn said, going over to look at the food.

Dr. Alexion Wylde followed a moment or two later, nodding firmly first to Allyndra and then to LuAnn, however he didn't stop....his feet took him immediately to find coffee. It was a decent enough remedy for the morning after the party. However, there were people who had been in far worse condition. He couldn't wait to see them so early in the morning after the night of revelry.

In the small medical laboratory, situated behind the CMO's office, Lieutenant Lake ir-Llantrisant was blocking Dr. Wylde's access to the replicator. Given the tableau waiting for Wylde, Lake had evidently just replicated a large tray of flatbreads with a bowl of bright and stewy in the middle. Rather than carry the tray out into the main Sickbay ward like a good host, Lake was hunched over the replicator and sipping from a massive tankard of iced coffee.

Alexion couldn't help himself when he saw Lake and the condition the party host had been left in. He slid his hands into his pockets, humming loudly on his way over to him, leaning in close. "Your head," he said with a firm nod. "Your head looks fragile," he referenced a conversation they'd had at the party the night before, wondering if he remembered it. "And perhaps your stomach. Would you like me to arrange a nice cool, quiet morgue slab for you to have a lie down on?"

Shaking his head, Lake's replied, "I can't..." It came out as a whine, or a whimper, and he couldn't immediately finish the thought. Lake straightened up his posture, but he wobbled as he did it. He set down his iced coffee on an LCARS panel and the way he folded his arms over his abdomen, he clearly regretting standing up so quickly. "I can't even make it to the morgue," Lake affirmed. "Just cut off my head."

Alexion chuckled softly, unable to help it as he shook his head, slapping Lake's arm in a comradely fashion. "Come on. Just get through the briefing and if you're a good boy I'll find you a nice hypo to make it better," he said in a playfully tempting voice.

"Or you can prescribe me the drug now?" Lake replied in that same playfully tempting voice. All the while, his dark eyes pleaded with Alexion earnestly.

"Hm...." Alexion gave a play on thinking about it before letting out a long, heavy breath, as if it was a great task and bother. "Stay here, I'll see what I can do..." he tapped Lake's cheek before moving out to load a hypospray quickly and discreetly. For all of his abrasiveness, he didn't want the man's ego dented too much by drawing attention to the fact he was getting medicine for him. He moved back to Lake swiftly, pressing it to his neck with a small smile. "It will take a significant edge off..."

Be it a placebo effect, or the fast-action of the analgesic, Lake physically sighed with relief. The tension in his brow ridges loosened and his shoulders went slack. "Thank you, Alexion," Lake said, his soft intonation was practically an ecstatic moan; "You're a star." Finally, Lake found the strength to lift the tray of food from out of the replicator slot. As he moved out of the laboratory, he kissed Alexion on the cheek without missing a stride in his trek out the door.

Alexion chuckled as he touched the cheek, his eyebrows lifted with surprise. "Oh, all in the line of duty," he sighed to himself with mock burden before finally moving to get his drink from the replicator.

Verity Thorne strolled into the Sickbay, taking his time as he looked around, smiling to those already there. He'd brought a PADD in case he needed to take notes, but otherwise he was still nicely relaxed from the party the night before.

His face expressionless, Lake ir-Llantrisant strode out from the CMO's office, his face was all composure. It took every ounce of effort to appear restrained and composed, which let no other part of his thoughts or feelings tell through his eyes. Between both hands, he carried a tray of viinerine and flat breads, which he placed prominently among the other prepared foods.

Deeper into Sickbay, the Emergency Medical Hologram materalized beside the primary surgical biobed. Her uniformed frame was petite compared to most of the gathered officers, and her fire-engine hair was styled in a page boy style on this day. "Please state the nature of the--" the EMH started to say, but she trailed off into an, "Oh," when she saw chairs and snacks and empty biobeds. And then when she saw Doctor Allyndra, she said, "Oh," in a tone that implied she was saying, that bitch again. Straightening up, the EMH recalled her last conversation with Allyndra, and she said, "I'll make sure everything is up to spec. There are plenty of people and things to familiarize," and she scampered away to mingle.

"Hello, you," the EMH said to LuAnn as she approached the woman. There was an manic edge to her voice, making it uncertain if she was pretending to know who LuAnn was, or if you was simply a term of endearment in her personality matrix. "Can I help you with," the EMH asked haltingly, "what... you're... doing?"

"Hi!" LuAnn said cheerfully. "I'm here for the meeting. My name's LuAnn. What's yours?"

The EMH smiled back at LuAnn in a way that put lines on her face. The expression was closer to a cringe. Sounding lost in thought, the EMH said, "My creator called me Shirley." --She made intent eye-contact with LuAnn for a moment and then she looked to the ceiling-- "I don't know that I feel like a Shirley anymore." --Looking to LuAnn again, the visual quality of the EMH's holographic eyes appeared to contain an entire galaxy within each iris-- "After the death of Galileo, I feel... changed."

LuAnn was fascinated by the eyes and the way the EMH looked. "A lot of people changed after the Galileo. Change can be a good thing. What do you feel like being called?"

"I can't... That is to say..." said the EMH, struggling to collect her thoughts in a perfect mimicry of how a Human may struggle with articulating a big emotional concept. Her eyes lit up and she looked right at LuAnn. "I don't know yet?" the EMH said.

"Oh!" LuAnn smiled. "That makes sense. I come in sickbay fairly often. When you do decide, would you let me know so I can call you by name?"

The EMH winked at her. "I will," she said. "I promise."

Allydnra waited until everyone more or less got something and then rang a small bell she had replicated. "If I can have everyone get seated and we can get started."

Glancing back over his shoulder at the sound of the bell, Lake said, "Ah," as it took him a couple of seconds to understand what it meant. After a quick detour to retrieve his iced coffee, Lake made a point of taking a seat near the front, as close to Allyndra as he could.

The EMH lay her hands on a chair and shook it a bit to test how steady it would be. At first, she frowned at the furniture, but that expression eased, and she sat herself down in the chair. She pivoted her neck to watch Allyndra begin her briefing.

"To catch everyone up, we are in an escort to a new base of which the Federation seems to be keeping the information brief. It is called Regula One and it is designed for primarily science observations on the edge of little known space. It will be this ship's primary call base as we began exploration of the region. Right now there is no expected problems. That being said, I would like to run some simulations to make sure that we are familiar with the new ship."

"Oh, good. I love simulations," LuAnn said.

"What kind of simulations?" Alexion asked, slightly wary as he sipped his drink. It was no secret that he wasn't a fan of them. Perhaps it was spending so long putting students through their paces with them.

"Various medical ones including situations such as happened on the previous Galileo. That would be having many injuries with complete system failures. I am open to suggestions. I would also like everyone to sharpen surgical skills as well if you are interested."

Alexion nodded slowly in thought, already running through a mental file of surgery training scenarios. He'd certainly prefer to be on that side of the simulation than participating in one. He was pretty sure that Allyndra had worked with him long enough to know that too. He'd never been shy of speaking his mind, afterall. The slow nodding finally became one firm nod. "I can design a few options."

"If I may suggest," the EMH said, "a quarantine simulation be considered." She emphasized the I more than any other word in that sentence, and sounded mildly put-out, as if she had been waiting for a personal invitation to partake in the conversation. "Perhaps with a widening zone of contamination," she said, "given the unhygienic way your bodies don't evaporate while sleeping."

"Quarantine could be fun. And power outages," LuAnn said. "I wouldn't mind brushing up on my triage and emergency first aid, either."

Alexion sighed softly to himself. The words 'fun' and 'quarantine' and 'triage' and 'simulation' didn't go together in his vocabulary. He sat back, looking into his cup with a not unusual frown for the often cynical doctor.

Verity glanced over to Lake for a moment, remaining silent. This wasn't the Chaplain's area at all. He had a huge respect for doctors, people who could really heal and make a difference in people's lives. He knew a lot of hard work and training went into it though.

Lake made a point of smiling at LuAnn when she made her suggestion, and then he made eye-contact with Verity too. Lake thought he recognized that look in Verity's eyes, but he couldn't be certain. He remembered to ask about it later, and then he looked back to Allyndra.

Allyndra caught the look on Alexion's face. "In addition, we should make sure that people with emergency medical training are up to date and also teach a few more. Doctor Wylde would you be up to the task of teaching?"

Alexion looked to her with mild surprise for a moment. He wondered if she knew what kind of a teacher he'd been. Strict, demanding, blunt, unafraid to tell his students the hard truths of life and death. "I can teach, Doctor," he nodded to her as he sipped his drink, already considering where to start. The difference was these were professionals and not students. That would improve the situation.

"Very good, I will leave the setting up of curriculum up to you. Might I suggest that one person should be our chief of the boat. His background was hospital corpsman."

"As good a place to start as any," Alexion used the human phrase as he nodded lightly. The Vaeron could be a hard taskmaster, but he also got results. He'd keep it quiet from his son though. Laeon had been asking for a little while to get some basic medical training, a step up from just having watched his father at work, and he in turn had refused each time. He didn't want to encourage that path to him.

"Now anything from the counseling department? Any suggestions to pass the time or offer training or?" Allyndra left the question open.

Sitting upright in his chair, Lake projected his voice to speak to the group. "We would appreciate volunteers," Lake asked, "for anyone who would like to facilitate small workshops on coping with stress. I'd like to offer them to the crew on a regular rotation. We can all benefit from new strategies." --He lowered his voice, just briefly to add-- "That don't involve alcohol..."

"I could facilitate a moonlight walk through a forest on the holodeck," LuAnn said. "We could talk about plants and how nature helps you relax. Moonlight swims would be optional."

"Nah," Lake said, egging LuAnn on, "I say we make moonlight swims mandatory. Have the holodeck place the arch on the other side of the pond."

LuAnn smiled beatifically. "I'll do the walks and you can do the swims. That way, I won't get in trouble for making them clothing optional."

Lake was quick to say, "Deal. Already done."

"Well that sounds interesting, walks are nice, wings and water do not mix well but if your swimming will allow for water dancing count me in." Allyndra got in a word.

LuAnn's eyes sparkled. "Ooh! That would be wonderful. If we could get a large enough lake there could be both swimming and water dancing." She looked at the doctor speculatively. "I wonder if we could alter the hologram's program so that others could have the sensation of water dancing? Maybe you could teach people to water dance?"

"I have done that before. One can simulate it also with very light gravity."
Allyndra responded.

"Then we'll definitely add that," LuAnn said. "I want to try water dancing."

Still speaking to the group for the most part --while slightly angled towards Allyndra-- Lake suggested, "In developing simulations for the crew, we might consider an alien mind-control scenario? Test the crew's ability to identify individuals based on what they know, rather than who they appear to be, and put our quarantine protocols to the test when the sensors can't detect a psychic infection."

"Almost sounds creepy," Verity had to admit, laughing softly as he shook his head with a slight shiver, trying not to fully imagine the scenario in technicolour.

Chuckling along with Verity, Lake replied with excited fascination and fateful resignation betraying his mixed feelings on the topic. "Think of how creepy it will be," Lake said, "once it happens to us too. No Starfleet career is complete until you've been subject to a psychic invasion."

"Maybe we could insert aspects from classic horror movies into the simulation?" LuAnn asked. "Just for variety?"

Lake stared at LuAnn, and he frowned, and then he shrugged. "I don't understand that reference," he said, not knowing what a horror movie was, nor what criteria would make one a classic. "Perhaps the computer can advise me."

"Well Lake if you have some ideas how to simulate that on the holodeck feel free to set it up. Well everyone, I think plenty of ideas and work to keep things busy with us and the rest of the crew. Anyone have anything else?" Allyndra looked over the small group.

"Well then enjoy the small buffet for a bit longer and then let us get to work," she made a gesture to the layout and headed toward the office.

[OFF]

--

Cmdr Allyndra illm Warraquim
Second and Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo-A

Lieutenant Lake ir-Llantrisant
Chief Counselor
USS Galileo-A

Emergency Medical Hologram
Medical Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC ir-Llantrisant]

LuAnn Lovegood
Counselor
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Sandoval]

Doctor Alexion Wylde
Medical Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Blake]

CH Verity Thorne
Chaplain
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Blake]

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