Posted by Lieutenant Commander T’Aria (XO / Navigation Officer) in Sickbay – Kastarak’s simple ailments clinic day (anyone may join!)

Posted by Ensign Kastarak (Doctor) in Sickbay – Kastarak’s simple ailments clinic day (anyone may join!)

Posted by Lieutenant Commander T’Aria (XO / Navigation Officer) in Sickbay – Kastarak’s simple ailments clinic day (anyone may join!)
Posted by… suppressed (1) by the Post Ghost! 👻
OOC/TLDR: Basically Kastarak is playing a local GP, dealing with the little issues. Feel free to join in, all patients welcome!

Today was a good day in Sickbay. Due to a Starfleet nursing conference, for which all nurses had been given a leave of absence and the physicians and medics agreeing to take on some extra nursing duties during the time, Kastarak and Symar had planned for a good staffing situation during today, and for the next few days.

However, the conference, scheduled to be held on a distant Federation monarchy planet, was cancelled due to the death of the local monarch, and the planet was placed in mourning. As such, the nurses stayed on. This meant that Sickbay today, and for the next few days, would actually be on 150% capacity!

For everyone except the two resident Vulcans, it was a delightful time. Plenty of time for staff to socialize in between patient visits. There was laughter and smiles among the coworkers (again, excepting the two Vulcans working there), and it was almost, Kastarak mused, as if he had returned to his rural clinic back on Vulcan (minus the smiles and laughter, of course).

Because of this strange over-staffing situation, there was more time to deal with the crew’s more simple, yet perhaps annoying, ailments. Now was the time to cure it all. Bad sleep? That slight tension?

Kastarak was the on-call physician for today’s morning shift.

The door to his office chimed, and his first patient appeared.

– Ensign Kastarak (Doctor)

Kastarak’s doors parted with a metallic shriek, exposing a lithe figure adorned in command gold.

T’Aria stood with tousled hair and restless creases that tormented her tunic and trousers. Her eyes, half-lidded and sunken, drifted to Kastarak. “Doctor,” she lifted an ashen hand touched by irritated green blotches, “am I interrupting you?” She advanced with an awkwardness that exposed the fatigue in her voice and the dull ache attacking every fibre of her being. But even the ache was no match for the throbbing sensation in her temples.

“Not at all,” replied Kastarak, standing up as he greeted her. “Come in, sit down. What is the reason of your visit?”

“Thank you,” T’Aria rigidly bowed and moved to sit across from Kastarak.

Was this what humans endured every winter?

“I awoke with mild rhinorrhea,” her nose and cheeks were flushed with rubbing, “and a negligible fever. Naturally, I assumed it was a product of my dander allergy, but the antihistamine did little to soothe it.” She pinched her eyes shut to quell the prickling pain in her neck… and the sneaking suspicion that her visit with Crewman Hidalgo had wished this upon her. Why were human illnesses so virulent?

“I believe I contracted a rhinovirus,” T’Aria observed. Her training bestowed an acute awareness of the ailment, but T’Aria could not recall a time she treated it from a patient perspective. She often found herself conducting brief examinations only to prescribe mild anti-inflammatories, rest and honey or ginger-infused tea. Never had she expected that she would be the patient. Fighting a yawn, T’Aria added, “do you have time to confirm?”

— T’Aria

Kastarak listened carefully to T’Aria. Her self-described symptoms were rhinorrhoea and a mild fever. At the same time, T’Aria appeared fatigued.

“Of course,” he replied to her question. “Are you in pain? If so, where?”

“Yes,” she responded, “I am experiencing mild myalgia and sinus pressure.”

“I see,” replied Kastarak. “Mild myalgia and sinus pressure.”

He then picked up his medical tricorder and pointed it in her direction. “I wish to measure your temperature. Do you consent?”

T’Aria voiced her consent and leaned into the chair, awaiting his scan.

Heartbeats elapsed before his tricorder displayed her primary vitals. Her heart pumped at a steady 251 BPM, blood oxygen peaking at 94%, with a blood pressure of 78/40. Though the tricorder provided four distinct measurements, it reported a mean temperature of 34.2 C, noticeably outside the established range.

“Your heartrate is a slightly higher than the normal zone, 251. I see from your charts that your normal resting heartrate is 220. Blood oxygen saturation could be better, probably affected by a more laboured breathing. Your temperature is almost two degrees higher than the established range. That is not a neglible fever, that is a clinical fever,” said Kastarak’s tone. His voice came out more as a Vulcan pre-school teacher than a doctor arguing with another doctor. He realized his mistake in tone, but decided not to make a thing out of it. He moved on:

“I would also like to test your hypothesis that your ailment is virulent and not a cause of allergy. Another possibility is a bacterial infection. I wish to take a sample of your mucus. You may blow your nose on this cloth.” He handed over a sterile cloth to T’Aria. “Do you consent?”

“Of course,” T’Aria took the cloth without protest and turned to blow her nose. Though she was well-acquainted with sinus pressure and post-nasal drip, this sensation was distant and nearly unfamiliar. That is, save for the hay fever she endured in her first month at SFMA. T’Aria prefered natural remedies to benchmark drugs but never had she been so relieved to take a hypospray. Tucking the thought into its designated nook, she slipped the specimen into a biohazard bag (or whatever container he selected) and shifted her attention to Kastarak.

“Is that all?” T’Aria inquired with intent to provide Kastarak as intricate a ‘picture’ as his diagnosis required.

After taking the biohazard bag, he placed it under analysis in the computer. While waiting for his results, he turned to T’Aria…

Kastarak took a deep breath, something he would almost always do before needing to ask something that was private. In Vulcan culture, privacy was highly guarded, and there was always a hesitation before Kastarak would ask a private question, even if logic dictated that he needed to ask them, as in this situation.

“You have described your symptoms adequately. You have not, however, described the presence or lack of any neurological or neuropsychological symptoms. State whether you exhibit such symptoms, and if so, describe them.”

– Ensign Kastarak (physician)

Kastarak’s question provoked an inherent reluctance in T’Aria that contradicted her effort to divorce Vulcan beliefs around vulnerability and its innate sentiment. She wavered and reminded herself of his position. He would not examine her neuropsychological state if it were unnecessary.

“I noticed mild disorientation shortly after waking,” she explained, “but it resolved itself within the hour. I admit, too, that I have not preserved my sleep and meditation regimens. Although I have not detected any concerning changes, I suspect it has reduced my ability to resist illness.”

She kept her words simple and concise, trusting he would request clarification if he found something curious.

— T’Aria

“Mild disorientation,” he echoed T’Aria’s words, and listed her symptoms, “fever, rhinorrhoea, myalgia, and sinus pressure.”

The computer beeped, finished its analysis. The analysis had taken longer than expected.

He walked up to the computer, got out its goggles, and looked into the specimen while the computer displayed data.

“Curious,” he almost exclaimed. “You are correct in your hypothesis, Commander. It is a virus. Look here, at the RNA, and the analysis suggests it is endemic to the wildlife of Romulus. This is some kind of Romulan influenza. It must have affected Romulans, perhaps they are immune due to millennia of living in that environment. You are not immune, and that is why you are suffering from influenza.”

“See these interactions here? This suggests the virus has adapted to Vulcan – or Romulan – physiology quite uniquely. I have never seen bondings like this before. See how the cells have been invaded in such a novel way? Curious, is it not? This bonding should be unique to Vulcans and Romulans, the humans, Betazoids, Andorians and other species on board should not be effected, but we had better run some tests.”

Suddenly Kastarak went quiet. “If it is Romulan, then neither you nor me, as Vulcans, would carry antibodies to it. We must quarantine, lest we might infect others of our species on board. We do not know its incubation period. The question, however, is how it got on board. What do you think, doctor?”

Kastarak suddenly experienced enthusiasm for something novel. It was not allergy, and flu-like symptoms among Vulcans was rare. This was exiciting, it peaked his interests, reminded him of why he had chosen to study medicine in the first place. He was fortunate that his patient was a physician by training as well. Even in quarantine, they could cooperate in examining the virus and its properties. The first priority should be to see how bad it could affect them.

“I wish to test your blood for antibodies. Do you consent? I shall test mine as well.”

“But I emphasise: we must stay in quarantine.” Kastarak summarized: “At this point, we do not know the severity of this virus or its disease, nor its means or ease of transmission. We do not know if it poses a threat to non-Vulcan crewmembers’ physiology, though probably not. However, we must be cautious. We need to run tests. We do not know its origin, but the most likely is from Romulan bloodsplatter on the returnees from the surface, that somehow passed the biofilters, and then, in some way, came close to you. After all, it is not as if we have any Romulans on board.”

Kastarak spoke faster than usual. He sensed his heartbeat going faster. Perhaps his heartbeat now fully mirrored T’Aria’s, he thought, though for different reasons. Surely he could not have been affected already.

“Will you assist, as a physician, to the best of your physical and neuropsychological abilities, and under these unique circumstances, in answering these questions?”

Kastarak walked back to the computer, synthesized a mix of medication into a hypospray.

“In the meantime, this hypospray should alleviate some of the acute symptoms of pain. At this point, the fever is clinically important, as the inflammation helps your cells to do away with the foreign agents, and ––” Kastarak stopped himself, realizing he was explaining medicalese in simple terms to an actual colleague. “Of course, you already know. But should the fever rise – we will monitor it – there are, as you know, ways of bringing it down. But at this point, I see no reason of bringing it down, as it might actually make the infection linger in your body longer than it should.”

– Ensign Kastarak (Physician)