To Mend Wounds

Posted on Sat Dec 7th, 2019 @ 7:40pm by Lieutenant Jonas Nomad & Lieutenant Sonia Kapoor

1,433 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Pirating Typhon resources
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: Current Mid-Morning

Nomad limped into the Sickbay holding his right wrist as he winced in pain. "Doc, I'm back again." He bellowed as he made his way over to one of the biobeds. As he crawled onto the bed, he noticed the clean pristine floor of the medical room had been tainted with droplets of his blood. "And I've made a bit of a mess."

A nurse two beds away looked up, frowning at the noise. When she saw who it was, she sighed and went back to work on her own patient.

Sonia recognized the voice immediately, and she shut down the records program. Seconds later, she looked at the occupied consultation beds and found Lieutenant Nomad. Making her way toward him, she shook her head. "I've told you before, this is not supposed to be your home away from home. Let me see what you've done to your wrist."

The nurse called over her shoulder, "And he was limping, Doctor Kapoor."

"Limping is a strong word." Nomad as he looked over to the nurse. "I would say I walked with a casual gait, wouldn't you say?" He winked at the nurse.

She gave a snort and ignored both the engineer and the doctor.

Nomad grimaced with pain as his wrist felt as if it was about to be torn off from his arm. "If you can't save the hand Doc, can you give me a robotic hand like that fella from those old space movies? What were they called? Space Wars?" He asked with a smile on his face.

Dr. Kapoor looked at him in confusion. "I don't know. I don't watch movies. However, your hand is in no danger of being lost." As she scanned the tissue to determine damage, she realized he had been teasing her.

"Oh, you were kidding, weren't you?" she smiled weakly. "I'm sorry. Some people tell me I have no sense of humor." She put the scanner down on the table nearby and pulled open the drawer. "Let's get some pain medication in you and then I'll manipulate your wrist and fingers while you can't feel it." From his frequent visits to her medical facility, she already knew he wasn't allergic to analgesics.

Pulling out the hypospray, she reflected that she'd used it often lately for just this purpose. She looked at the engineer and tapped the hypospray against her hand, running the choices through her mind. Asinolyathin? But this wasn't a muscle spasm. Hydrocortilene and Morphenolog were more for headaches. She'd better stick with terakine. She dialed 15 cc's because this was a little more than the average wound, and she was going to be twisting it a bit.

"Here we go," she said, trying on a smile as she pressed it to his neck. "This should take care of the immediate pain in less than two minutes."

Nomad almost felt instant relief after the Doctor's hypo. "Thanks, Doc. Where would I be without you?"

"Ah ... in a world of hurt?" That was one of those questions that people often asked, and it was always confusing. Truthfully, she wasn't the only doctor on the base, or even in Main Sickbay. The answer to the question was really, Someone else would have helped you, but she'd found patients didn't appreciate that answer so much.

After a moment, she took his wrist in her hands and gently manipulated it, feeling no resistance that shouldn't be there. She began the same examination of his finger bones. "You want to tell me how this happened? You're becoming a regular in here. I feel I should be giving out reward points or prizes of some kind."

"BWAAA HA HA!" Nomad responded, leaving a huge smile on his face. "So, if I make it in a third time this week, do I get a toaster?"

"Maybe an ice cream," she said. "Or perhaps it should be detention. I shouldn't encourage you. People will start to talk."

"All joking aside? It's this blasted Starbase. I am beginning to believe that some of the systems here are cursed. I have been working on the intake manifolds all week. Every time I make an adjustment, the system fries itself and something falls apart."

Laying his hand down, Sonia stood back and crossed her arms in front of her. With a smile she asked, "Are you sure it's the base, and not the engineer?"

Jonas smirked as he looked at Sonia. "Of course I'm sure. I mean, I am the best engineer in the fleet. Besides, how many times have I had to come in and replace some of the medical panels for you and your crew?"

Kapoor shook her head, "Point to you. Hopefully, they're all in good shape now. We've spent the last two days putting all the supplies back again. But to business."

Picking up her PADD, she made notes in his file as she spoke. "You don't have any broken bones. The wrist is strained, so be gentle with it. I can wrap it for you, and maybe you won't be tempted to overuse it. However, you do need to lie still for dermal regen on the cut. Shouldn't take more than, oh, half an hour."

Looking him directly in the eye, she warned, "Don't forget, that healing is on the surface, so there may still be soreness underneath for a few days. Now, what's with the limp? Is there another injury there?"

Instantly, Nomad became solemn and looked down toward the floor. Hesitation set in his mouth, but he found the words to say. "I wrenched it when the manifolds went up. I pushed one of my engineers out of the way of some falling debris. She almost died because of some faulty equipment."

"I imagine she thinks you're a hero, then, and so she should," the doctor said. "Let's see how much that cost you." Patting the bed, she asked, "Can you lift it up here with muscle mass, or should I have my lovely assistant help?"

The nurse glanced over at him and winked before turning back to making notes as her current patient departed. "I'm free for a moment, Ma'am, if you need me."

Nomad attempted to lift the injured leg onto the bed, but instead yelped out in pain. "I don't think I can get it up there, Doc." He looked sheepishly over to the side, somewhat embarrassed.

Kapoor nodded to her head nurse, who became completely professional, and came around the bed to gently assist in lifting the Lieutenant's leg onto the bed. The doctor pushed him back to a relaxed prone position, and said, "Let's see what the scanner tells us, then."

She ran it along his leg, frowning and backing up to check one area. Setting it down, she told him, "Good news is you haven't been walking on a broken ankle. Bad news is that it is sprained. I'm going to set a muscle regenerator for treatment, but it's subdural damage, so you're still going to have to take it easy for a few days. The pain will be minimal as it heals, but if you re-injure it in the next week, I'm ordering a hospital bed for you, and three days in it. Any questions about that?"

Nomad gave a nod to Kapoor. "Hopefully, this should be near the end of these types of visits from me. We have rebuilt over half this Starbase. Everything should be in good order coming up really soon."

"I certainly hope so. At this rate, I'll have to clone a new engineer by the end of the year! She leaned against the next bed, folding her arms and crossing her ankles. "Now, tell me. Have you always been accident prone, or is this a recent development?"

"Recent development, actually." Nomad said as he chuckled a little under his breath. "As I said before, I think the station doesn't like us trying to repair it."

Nodding, she said, "Then most likely you aren't developing any number of diseases which could account for a sudden clumsiness, but I'm going to take a blood sample and run it through the analyzer, just to be sure. Any other odd things going on that you'd like to report?" Kapoor asked, as she stepped over to the cabinet next to the bed and prepared a quick-draw tube.

"Nothing out of the ordinary, Doc." Nomad replied as he rubbed his leg. "So am I good to go?"

"As soon as I draw the blood, you are released to have another accident," the doctor agreed.

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