Posted by Lieutenant Hegush Falz (Chief Operations Officer) in Reporting in: Medical

Posted by Cadet Vaarek (Medical Officer) in Reporting in: Medical

Posted by Lieutenant Hegush Falz (Chief Operations Officer) in Reporting in: Medical
=^= Docking bays open, preparing to dock =^= The NE relayed.

Hegush just about jumped in his seat, his eyes shooting wide open. He must have fallen asleep he. He could not remember exactly when he drifted off but it must have been a deep sleep, because for once he hadn’t been woken up by something other than his nightmares. Slightly sluggish still he glanced around the shuttlecraft cabin as he tried to remember where exactly he was.

=^= Acknowledged, when you’re ready =^= came the reply.

The second com was enough to pull the sleep fog from Hegush’s brain. He was on a shuttlecraft to his new posting. The U.S.S Ark Angel. She was a beautiful ship too as she drew closer and closer in the viewscreen as the pilot slowly navigated her way into docking the ship opening wide and gaping to receive them. It was one of Hegush’s parts to flying in the shuttle is just watching it come into port, slowly and surely getting swallowed whole. Eventually there was no more exterior and the shuttle was completely surrounded by the interior of the ship. Taking that as his cue, Hegush stood up, brushing the crumbs off of his clothes as he did and gathered up his few things as he got ready to disembark.

Once he stepped onto the deck of the Ark Angel, his small knapsack in his hand and the two NE’s he had been travelling with behind him. He realised that his legs were stiff and his limp had come back. It would wear off now that he was moving around, but it was just another reminder of the aches of the past. Another reminder that he was getting old. He paused, letting the two NE’s and the pilot step past him so hopefully his limp wouldn’t be quite so noticeable with them walking in front.

“Welcome aboard Lt. Hegush, NE Charlotte and NE L’Pel” one of the shuttle-bay crew members greeted the small group, “I’m NE Edwards, and this is NE Friak and NE Cahson. It’s great to have you all aboard. We are happy to give you all a tour of the ship and show you your quarters so you can drop you stuff off, or…” NE Edwards looked directly at Hegush, “so you can rest. I’m sure it’s been a long trip.”

“Thanks, but this isn’t my first rodeo, just point me in the direction of the Medical and I’ll begin my check in. My bag is light enough I can carry it with me” Hegush replied, more wanting to push through the standard check-in procedures so he could settle into his new room with a nice glass of whiskey. NE Edwards looked doubtful but pointed out directions for Hegush while the other two NE’s let themselves be led off for a tour of the ship. While Hegush nodded his thanks to NE Edwards, slung his bag over his shoulder and headed off towards Sickbay.

~

Thanks to NE Edwards’s clear instructions it only took one wrong turn and a short amount of time before he was outside Sickbay doors. It was enough time for his stiff knee to ease out and his walk return to back to its normal gait. Even so he gave the leg a couple of light kick outs just to make sure before he entered the room to see if he could find an unoccupied doctor or nurse to check him in.

Lt. Hegush COO

In Sickbay, it was Vaarek’s first time to see a patient. Onboarding medical assessments were considered “safe” assignments for cadets to learn and receive supervision on. But as Vaarek pulled up Hegush’s file, he was first struck by the rank and position of his new patient. A lieutenant, chief of operations. Meanwhile, Vaarek was still a teenager, a first-year medical cadet who’d been given leave to do most of his academy work while in deep space.

Vaarek studied the file a bit longer. A Bajoran man. He noted that Hegush was as tall as he, but thinner. There were notes of a history of unfortunate circumstances in a Cardasshian war camp that caused Hegush to lose weight. Vaarek tried to remember what he could about Bajoran physiology and how long-term deprivation of food might affect metabolism and risks for other forms of ill health. He made a mental note to look this up later.

There were also notes in Hegush’s file on incidences of problematic alcohol intoxication, with suspicion of him having potentially met the criteria for alcohol use disorder at certain periods of time. Reading further, Vaarek conceptualised a man with cumulative outcome of early relational neglect, chronic shame, and a history of trauma. Developmentally, Hegush seemed to have been a devalued child in a complex family network, constantly compared to a more favoured twin. To Vaarek, this appeared to be contributing to a sort of psychological pain, characterised, perhaps, shame and guilt. Alcohol seemed to have been a coping mechanism for Hegush.

Training his medical thinking, Vaarek continued his thoughts. From a psychiatric point of view, Vaarek hypothesised a man with probably complex trauma and problematic alcohol use. With well-preserved cognitive functioning and a service record mostly intact, Hegush’s occupational functioning remained likely high. In his assessment, Vaarek would likely try and gauge risk for relapse in alcohol use as well as understanding his trauma triggers. Vaarek was also conscious that a psychological evaluation would be made by a counsellor, but he could not help apply the medical lens so far. However, what stood out in the medical file was the lack of any entries the past six years. That had to be explored.

As such, his thoughts stopped when he understood that the patient had arrived – a few hours earlier than Vaarek had expected. Most new onboarders settle in before their medical evaluation, he had been taught, yet Hegush had somehow come to Sickbay immediately. Curious.

At the same time, Vaarek could not help but think that perhaps this routine case had become far more complex – perhaps more difficult – than Vaarek’s junior capabilities were.

Despite this, he stepped out, and being the only blueshirt available, walked up to Lt Hegush.

“Lieutenant Hegush, sir? Welcome aboard. I am Cadet Vaarek, working under the supervision of chief medical officer Spenn. I can perform your medical evaluation. Do you consent?”

Cadet Vaarek, Medical

Hegush tried not to laugh when Vaarek asked about his consent. In a way he found it refreshing. He hadn’t been asked for his consent in a medical exam quite so formally in a long time, but then he hadn’t had a Vulcan doctor in a long time, and you could always trust a Vulcan to uphold the very strictness of formalities. He had an admiration for the Vulcan people, particularly their ability to stick to logic and never letting emotions distort their focus from whatever task they had at hand. Then again, they might be incredibly intelligent, he had always wondered if the Vulcans on his previous ships knew how to have fun. And this one, this Cadet Vaarek standing in front of him, he did not doubt was clearly intelligent and probably had quite an analytical view of things.

“None other,” Hegush grinned, walking over to an empty bio bed nearby and sat up on it, dropping his bag out of the way so it wouldn’t get in the way of the Cadet. He was tempted to lie down on it but he planned on going to the Counselors after medical and from his experience with Counselors they liked to keep him talking. At least they all had comfy chairs he could lie down on. “I’m eager to get checked in and have no qualms if you are the medical staff member who does it.”

“Work experience?” he asked, wondering if that meant that the Vulcan before him was around the same age as his 20 year old friends (and himself 23) had roughly been were when they did their cadet cruise just before their graduations. Although even that wasn’t quite right. The cruise they had been on hadn’t been a fleet Starship, just an academy ship that was designed to replicate a starship for the cadets to get some experience of what it would be like when they graduated and took on their first posts. The academy staff would create scenarios they would have to solve and even re-enacted some real time scenarios that changed every year.

Was he really that old that they’d changed the system to put cadets on a fully functional starship and released them into space before they graduated? Or was this an exception? Young as he assumed Vaadek was, he was clearly dedicated to his role. He had known who Hegush was as soon as he walked through the doors of Sickbay. That showed a level of preparedness. Or not. Hegush silently amended himself it wouldn’t be hard to spot him out of a crowed of new transfers, an older cynical Bajoran would stand out when the other new arrivals were two puppy eyed NE’s.

“I’ve got my file on me if you want to go through it, but I’m not that young so the quickest way to sum it up is, bumps, bruises, broken bones” at that point he gestured to his nose, “a knee that tells me when the wind is going to change, and an efficient weight loss program that might work but I don’t recommend.”

Lt. Hegush COO

bump

Vaarek noted how Hegush seemed to joked easily. While the jokes were not necessarily careless or aggressive, Vaarek sensed a deliberate function in them. Vaarek tried to understand what the function might be. The file that he had read described starvation, alcohol misuse, physical injury, labour camps. These were heavy and significant things. Yet Hegush spoke of them as if they were weather patterns or old mechanical faults. There was a knee predicting wind changes. There was the off-cut comment of the “efficient weight loss program.” Vaarek understood, intellectually, that humour could reduce distress. He had read this. But hearing it spoken aloud produced a small feeling of imbalance inside him. He could not tell whether Hegush was minimizing pain (avoidance) or demonstrating strength (resilience).

Then he heard Hegush’s question about his work experience. Vaarek felt a brief tightness in his gut at that. He was aware of his age. Indeed, he was more aware than he preferred to be. The other cadets had noticed it. Even for a Vulcan cadet, he was young. Now Hegush had noticed it as well. Not necessarily mockingly, but still… Vaarek became conscious of the rank pips on the man’s collar again. He was a chief operations officer. He was older. He had experience, far more experience than Hegush even seemed to wish to have had. The yoke of that man’s history lay uneasy on his head.

He is evaluating me, Vaarek thought. The conclusion appeared reasonable, and helped Vaarek move on.

“It is a supervised assignment, sir, under the auspices of Dr Spenn who remains clinically responsible.”

Vaarek paused briefly, organising the next thought before continuing.

“I have read your file. You are correct not to endorse labour-camp starvation as a therapeutic weight-management strategy.”

It was not enough to appear as a real joke, but Vaarek wanted to show he tried to meet his patient where he patient was. He wanted to show that he had read Hegush’s file, and knowing the darkness of the story therein.

“Your file does not contain the last six years. I should recommend a full physical check-up, with the aim to examine the long-term effects on your musculoskeletal health and nutritional status. Before we continue, what can you tell me about your health today?”

Cadet Vaarek, Medical