Medical Evalutation

Posted on 09 Oct 2016 @ 7:52am by Commander Jayla Kij & Lieutenant Commander Camila Di Pasquale

1,461 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Click Three Times
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: MD 8 || 1600 Hours

Camila left deck seven after a glance at a chrono and knew she was well into her second shift in a row and that her biomonitor was probably reporting the stress and fatigue she was feeling, but she still had a duty and had a good two shifts ahead of her that she could sleep. Right now, though, she would keep going until she either fell over or accomplished her goals and got all of her reports in to the Captain.

She entered the turbolift and stopped as she tried to remember where she was going. Finally, she snapped her fingers as she glanced at the biomonitor on her arm. "Deck Four, medical," she ordered and leaned against the wall as it took her to her destination. When the door opened, she glanced at the PADD and made a note on it, then headed down the corridor to enter Medical.

There, she looked around before she headed for the Chief Medical Officer's office to see if her friend were present or if she were doing her rounds.

In fact, Jayla was in her office, going over medical files. She had put Vorian in quarantine after the debacle in Sick Bay, but hadn't been able to get a good read on his condition because the sensors in quarantine were still down and it was difficult to get any information through the walls. She was finishing up some work before joining him in the quarantine booth until he awoke.

She heard footsteps approach her door and glanced up to see Camila. "Hi," she said, giving her a cheerful smile. "How are you handling things, sir? Or do you prefer ma'am?"

"I'm putting one foot in front of the other," Camila answered honestly. "Neither, actually. You outrank me even if I am the acting Executive Officer. Between you, me and the walls, Camila will work better. I just came in for an evaluation and readiness report, Jayla."

Jayla opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it again, brow wrinkling in concentration. "Readiness report," she muttered. "What did I do with that.... Hang on." She shuffled through five different PaDDs, shook her head and started one up to look at the contents. "Nope," she said, chewing her lip and she closed it again and opened another. "Ah!" she said. "Here it is! Basically, the vital areas of Sick Bay are working perfectly and some non-vital areas are up and running. The scanners in quarantine are still down, which wouldn't be a problem except I've got a patient in there, hiding from the rest of the crew's emotions- long story. It's in the report. All medical staff is healed and most of us are back on regular schedules- there's still one or two who are restricted for a couple more days, but they should be back in no time at all."

"If the sensors are down in quarantine, then how are you doing any effective treatment of personnel in there?" Camila asked. "It seems counter productive and you have no idea what results you're achieving."

"He's all right for now," answered Jayla. "As I said, he's just hiding. I'm getting ready to go in there with him, actually, so I can get a good reading with the tricorder. I've got a nurse keeping an eye on him right now."

"Just hiding?" Camila asked as she made a note on her PADD and looked back at Jayla. "If he's classified as being alright, as you said, then he should be returned to normal duty. Who is it?"

"Lieutenant Vorian Sulvai," answered Jayla. "He's medically all right, but mentally is another story. I'm afraid that's partly my fault. You see, he's got strong empathic powers and all the input from the crew overwhelms him. I'm trying to help him find something better than sleeping pills and vodka to deal with the overload of emotions, so he had to leave off his previous methods for 24 hours so we can start testing neural suppressants. There was an... incident in Talons earlier, so I opted to put him in quarantine as everyone with strong mental powers says that being in quarantine is like having cotton in their mental ears. That's the short story. The full one is in my report. Subsection D, under patients."

Camila noted the name on her PADD as well as Sulvai's his need for sleeping pills and vodka and thought for a moment. "I'm not a Doctor and never claimed to be one, but shouldn't he be in counseling if there's nothing medically wrong with him? Since that is the case, he should be taken off duty and sent to the counselor until such time as he's declared mentally fit."

"That's complicated," Jayla replied, rubbing the back of her neck in thought. "His mental issues are physical... I'm afraid I'm not explaining it very well. I think I've been working too much. Currently, the problem is an overload of information coming in. As soon as I find a medicine that will work for him, he'll be okay. Hopefully, we'll have some luck later this evening, after he wakes up. What I meant by nothing medically wrong is that he's not ill or injured."

"Mental issues cannot be physical issues," Camila pointed out. "Those lines will never cross. Either his problem is mental, or his problem is physical. Also, was this problem documented while he was in the Academy and if so, why was he not properly trained at the time on how to block emotions of others? Is his history of sleeping pills and vodka on record and if so, how long as he been self medicating without supervision?"

"As far as I can tell, his whole life," answered Jayla. "I found very little mention of the issue in his medical files, save for the Academy entrance physician, who stated that the issue seems under control by whatever means he has been using and left it at that. Frankly, I'm astonished nobody has bothered to explore the issue before this," she added, slightly disgruntled. While she knew it was true that most doctors were slightly overloaded, she was still appalled that none of them had seen fit to spend a few hours researching neural suppressants and doing an allergy test to see if any would be usable. She sighed and shook her head. "As for the mental versus physical issue, the problem is currently mental- he just needs rest- but long term, it's physical. And, as I said, hopefully we'll have it sorted well enough later tonight and completely sorted within a couple of weeks."

"When you get the results of the testing, I want him to be drug tested routinely for any sign of the sleeping pills," Camila said. "If he continues to use them, it could result in disciplinary action. I'll take your report to Captain Geisler in the meantime."

"Of course," replied Jayla. "The only reason I didn't bring it up with the captain myself is that there seems to be no abuse. The amount of sleep aides in his system was well within normal limits. As for vodka, he may have been joking. I've found no evidence of alcohol in his system, but when a patient says they've been doing something like drinking, I tend to believe them."

"Sleep aides and vodka don't mix well under any circumstances and if they are found in his system while he's on duty, there won't be an option that will get him out of being disciplined," Camila said.

Jayla nodded. "Understandable," she said. Honestly, she hadn't considered that he would have had vodka while on duty. She seriously hoped that wasn't the case. "Was there anything else?" she asked.

Camila thought for a moment to see if there was anything she may have forgotten, then shook her head. "Not that I can think of," she said. "And keep me updated on the status of Medical because I have a bad feeling your department is going to be swamped very soon. Is there any particular needs that I can expedite?"

Jayla sighed. "Not aside from getting us back home," she replied. "And I'm afraid that's going to take longer than any of us really cares for."

"We'll be back before you know it," Camila said and wished she believed it as she collected the reports and her PADD. "As for me...I need to go see Doctor Abrams before he comes for me. See you later, Jayla."

"Yeah, and I've got my own patient to attend to," Jayla said. "Don't let Doctor Abrams be too hard on you, hey?" And she headed off towards Quarantine.

With a smile, Camila turned and headed back out to hunt down the behemoth doctor.

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