Posted by Captain Willow Taylor (Commanding Officer) in Part 3 - Treatment Plan

Posted by Lieutenant Drake Marshall (Emergency Medicine/Chief of Surgery) in Part 3 - Treatment Plan
Drake came around to his mother’s bed. “Drake. It’s good to see you. Instead of Dr Antoine. Or Dr Yelchin. Or that Intern, Summers.”
“Well. I’ve looked at every kind of image we have from every angle I can. You’ve heard it all before. It’s late stage, I can barely see the pericardium at all. Any doctor on earth could safely perform a transplant, and then you’d just be on monitoring in case it had metastasised.”
“No transplants. I want to keep my heart.” Drake sighed. He turned over a PaDD and showed his mother the scans. “I can’t safely cut this away. Not yet. It’s too large.”
“So what do we do, Drake Marshall, M.D.?” She said with a slight grin. “There are couple medications, mixed together they can shrink the tumour.”
“Chemotherapy.”
“That’s a thing of the past. Just in books now. These are more like antibiotics or antivirals. They attack the cancer cells, but eventually the tumour becomes resistant. So we get rid of as much as we can, take new images, and hope that the drugs did enough. If I can get enough space around the sides, it’ll be operable and we’ll proceed with surgery. So. Any questions?”
“How’re you doing?”
“I was more thinking medical questions.”

“Drake. I know you and your brother got into a fight a few days ago. That’s why we’ve been getting the cold shoulder.”
“Life’s complicated. Your family throws you out until you’re useful to them and then it’s all hunky dory. Not exactly my style.”
“We didn’t mean to throw you out. Things… got out of hand.” Drake laughed. “Really? Did they now? The Marshall family always needs a scapegoat. Dad died on a Starfleet shuttle, blame Starfleet forever. You get sick, blame the doctor. A 25 year old kid in the middle of the worst assignment in Starfleet, blame him.” Things went deadly quiet. “I thought about calling a lot.”

“And what stopped you?” Drake asked. “I knew this is how you would feel. I remembered all the times we fought when you were young. Stubborn young thing. And almost always right. I tried to talk you out of Starfleet and look at you now. You have your own department. I told civilian doctors you’re my son and they were amazed at just how well you turned out. You wrote some paper on how to fix people’s backs with fake nerves? I didn’t understand a word. But some doctor told me your ‘artificial nervous tissue could revolutionise modern medicine.’ I only understand the second part of that sentence. But you’re out here, doing more good than you ever could have on earth.” She smiled.
“Jesus Christ mom. If you’re going to drop all that-“
“And you’re going to take the Lord’s name in vain.” Neither of them could hold it together at that. The Marshall house was far from a religious one. “You know this doesn’t make the last two years okay.”
“I know. You never told me how you are though.”
“I’m fine. Life in space is complicated. But I get by.”
“Any grandchildren in my future?”
“Ma!” Drake’s old New York accent hinted back. “Well? Nate has his wife, but no kids, she doesn’t want kids.”
“Aren’t there enough humans on earth?”
“You’re not on earth.”
“I promise to notify you if anything happens. But at the moment, it seems unlikely. Now I remember why I didn’t visit before.”

“What about a girl? Or a boy. I don’t judge.”
“Yes you do. Liberally. Not about that… but everything else. There is someone… but I don’t want to talk about it. Complicated starship life.”
“She’s special. I can see it in your eye.”
“I’ll be in my office.”

In his office, Drake mulled over what had just happened. He’d had a conversation with his mother, at least part of which wasn’t horrible. I say starship life is complicated. Life is complicated. I just live on a starship.

-Dr Drake Marshall, Chief of Surgery

Ooc: nice post Sam!

OOC: Thanks!