Posted by Civilian Sair Songz (Counselor) in CMO’s Office- Preparations

Posted by Lieutenant Jasmine Wynter (Chief Medical Officer) in CMO’s Office- Preparations

Posted by Civilian Sair Songz (Counselor) in CMO’s Office- Preparations
Posted by… suppressed (2) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snips)

OOC: Kel’s a nurse, not a doctor, just so there’s no confusion.
IC:
Kel and Sair exchanged a deep look before Sair nodded to her mother. Kel turned her gaze on Jasmine and gave a small, if weary, smile. “The Kobliad lifespan is remarkably shorter than what Sair explained is typical of Humans in this era of medical advances. This is naturally a result of our genetic condition. Each person eventually reaches a point where their metabolism starts to shift and dueridium no longer effectively maintains cell structures. We call this phase of life The Decline. It’s progressive and cannot be stopped. It is something we are used to and expect.

Kel exhaled aloud. “Just before Sair left to come to the Manhattan I started showing signs of my metabolism shifting, therefore putting me in the first stage of The Decline. My symptoms are progressing more rapidly and I told Sair a couple days ago. The Decline is highly individual. So much depends on a person’s genetics, their natural metabolism and other factors in their life.

“Captain Cochrane has generously arranged for myself and my husband Sal to be granted diplomatic status so that we can remain here on the Manhattan as long as we like. As a family we’ve discussed how to proceed and Sal is coming out to the Delta Quadrant and we’ll spend the next few weeks or months together. He’ll likely return to Kobliad sometime after I pass.” Kel looked back at Sair for a moment, who met her mother’s gaze with understanding. “Doctor Wynter, Sair and I are the only Kobliads on board and as health professionals we have been through this process with many, many people. We understand it intimately. It’s a… difficult experience. Painful. So even though this is deeply personal for us, right now the easiest thing for us is to approach this the way we have every other time, and that is to provide the best quality of life for whatever time remains. So do understand that if we seem perhaps more… clinical or detached than the situation might deem appropriate, this is us finding a way to handle this the best way we can.”

Sair herself was fairly stoic, her therapist’s mask firmly in place. She could show emotion but as she had most of her life, the pain was held out of the way for the time being.

~Sair & Kel Songz

Jasmine listened with a neutral expression. The news was shocking but not completely jarring as it was with an unexpected finding no one knew it was coming. A thick knot formed in her gut the way it always did in these situations. Jasmine was uniquely educated on the Kobliab condition, learning everything about it from the material Kel and Sair had provided her. Since it was unique to their race and Kobliab’s weren’t populous among the Federation citizenry, the only source of first-hand knowledge had come from the two ladies sitting across from her.

Letting out a deep breath, she didn’t realize she was holding, Jasmine leaned forward on her desk. “First off I am sorry this is happening to you.” While she did not have a counseling degree, this was not the first terminal case that ever came to her attention. The two women could protest all they wanted about it being expected but it was something that just needed to be said. No matter how prepared you were for an ending, it hit you like a brick wall when it came.

“So you are terminal,” she asked. “That is what you mean by the Decline phase.” It was important to get the terminology correct. It was little things like that which made the difference in situations like this.

Kel nodded. “Yes, it is always terminal, and we’ve gotten pretty good at predicting what that looks like based on a few variables.”

Jasmine nodded as the woman spoke. With their extensive medical backgrounds, this was going to be far easier on her than was typical of the situations. The counseling component was key in situations like this but with Sair’s career choice and having lived with this condition for years, made things more fluid.

Jasmine looked at Sair and gave her a tight-lipped smile. Losing a loved one was hard but in a way, the Decline gave the family a blessing they could not immediately see. They would have time to say goodbye instead of losing Kel out of nowhere like an accident. To Jasmine, Sair’s reaction was textbook regardless of race or culture. It was a form of denying the inevitable because one had a job to do. It would hit the woman later even if that was months after Kel passed. Jasmine would focus on Sair’s needs then; however, right now, there was another patient that needed her more.

“So what do you need from me?” The question was blunt but times liked this called for bluntness. The less confusion about needs and expectations the better. Kel and Sair were far more educated than Jasmine on the condition but that did not mean Jasmine could not add a different perspective.

Jasmine Wynter CMO

“Support in specific areas,” Sair said. “Most of the symptom management can be done outside of Sickbay, but regular monitoring is key. I’ve requested my mother’s records to be sent over and we’ll need fresh scans. Between the two we can use some standard calculations and figure out how much of a deuridium supply my father will need to bring with him. A lot of treatment in The Decline revolves around palliative care. and giving the best quality of life we can.”

“The sickbay is yours of course and I will do everything and anything to support you guys through this. Again for what it is worth I am sorry it is happening to you.”

Kel nodded and gazed at Sair for a moment before taking in Jasmine, sighing slightly. “And there’s no one I trust more than Sair to see me through this, but I have been a nurse for over forty years and I have sat with more patients and their families than I can count as they went through this. One is that as things progress, emotionally it will get harder. I need someone else to be able to step in and help manage the medical side of things because the natural inclination to to try and retain control over something that we ultimately have little say in. And I know my daughter, Doctor Wynter, she gives everything to her patients. You have to make sure she doesn’t, not this time- because I’m not her patient, I’m her mother.”

“Mira,” Sair whispered, holding back tears.

But Kel simply reached over and took Sair’s hand and kissed it with a warm smile. “It’s okay, I know,” she said before she looked back at Jasmine. “There are also protocols and choices that need to be established now while I am still cognizant enough to make the decisions. We always get them into the official record so that there’s no confusion towards the end.”

~Sair & Kel Songz

“We can get them down on record,” Jasmine began to assemble the patient’s rights paperwork. While she would not ever admit this to the women across from her, the three of them knew how vital this paperwork was usually in this type scenario. The paperwork prevented some of the complications that could arise at times with other parties in this such as a child against a parent at the end but Sair and her family seemed to know the stakes and the cost. It tugged at Jasmine’s heart slightly. Countless generations back on Mintara a plague had almost wiped out the original colony. It was now just a footnote in their history but the effects had shaped their society into what it was today.

“I can have anything transferred to your quarters you might need to make this…transition as smooth as possible.” Already the polite terms and word play were coming out. No one wanted to use words that were less polite.

Jasmine Wynter CMO

Kel had not let go of her daughter’s hand. “Once Sal arrives we can tackle certain things more directly. I know it’ll be easier to have a medical bed in my quarters sooner rather than later, but that’s not an issue yet. Mostly right now it’s mobility. I’ve moved recently into the second of four stages and I’m more tired. Everything takes drastically more energy and some days are rough and I might not be able to get out of bed easily. On the days I can, or am even feeling quite well, I can tire suddenly without a lot of warning and I worry about my stability on my feet. Mobility aides are the logical next step.”

“We can get you a hover chair which would be the best and safest and before you say no the last thing we need is for you to collapse and further injure yourself or stress your systems more since we are talking about palliative care. We can also move you into larger quarters if you would like instead of just the guest suites. That will allow you to have a space but also the ability to entertain and when you need to retreat to a quieter area and allow people to remain in the space. I will tell Cochrane you need the double bedroom suite which will allow for Sair to have space also.

Sair remained quiet, letting her mother speak to her own needs. Her own thoughts were fixed on her mother’s knowing words about Sair’s likely reactions. She wasn’t wrong and that was what was hard about it. Of course she’d do anything she could to avoid feeling so helpless. Anyone in her position would. So it was going to take a whole lot of work on her part to go with things as best she could. Whatever that looked like.

~Sair Songz, CNS

“As for the exhaustion, we can administer modafinil and methylphenidate which will help will the fatigue but it will be a bandaid and give you a better quality of life for as long as we can. I will also prescribe fampridine. It is safe but has recently been used in patients with conditions like yours to increase mobility. As your condition progresses it will work less well but let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.” Jasmine was a matter of fact in her treatment plan for Sair’s mother. There was nothing anyone could do but preserve what she had for as long as possible. This situation was not about fixing or blind hope but giving the patient more good days than bad. It was all a numbers game but life was all about numbers. The day you were born. The day you died and all the days in between that made up the whole of someone’s fleeting existence in this galaxy.

Jasmine Wynter CMO