Posted by Lieutenant Siegfried Abel (Chief Medical Officer) in Side sim - I’m not a Medic, but I play one… (CMO)
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He looked at her with a look on his face of ‘Really? Ya think?’ and then smiled and shook his head. “One moment.” he said and went back to the cabinet and returned with a hypo spray. Dialing in a dose, he held it to her neck and pressed the activation. A short hiss, and he put the device in his pocket.

“There. Give that a minute and you should feel better.” and he moved a chair and took a seat next to the bed. Still looking at the monitors, he said “I overheard the nurse say ‘again’. I take it this is a normal occurrence, then?”

Abel, CMO

Her return look was a shrug and ‘what did you expect?’ but she silently took the pain killer and closed her eyes a moment to will it to work faster, despite knowing it wouldn’t work. When she heard the chair move, she opened them and looked at the Doc. “The hand? Well, usually its the hand or arm.” She took a deep breath and sighed as she turned to her head to look up at the ceiling, wanting nothing more than to escape. “There is a sparring program I use with the safety a bit on the low side. Not ‘off’ mind you, but still. You can’t learn if you can’t get hurt. Right?” She looked at him for validation on the thought process.

Lissi
CE

He looked at her, a combination of humor and confusion on his face. His to e was that of addressing a friend who just said something a bit foolish and he was ‘calling them out’. “What? No! Of course you can learn without getting hurt. That’s the whole point of learning, to do it right with limited error. Perhaps you should focus on mastering the basics before you lower the safeties. At least then, you would be able to practice more often without time off for injury. As is the case…” and he held both of his hands out palm side up as if presenting the regenerator on her wrist for the first time “… right now.” and he smiled and shook his head, looking back up at the monitors.

Abel, CMO

She frowned. “I have the basics down. You can learn all the moves, all the counter moves. But until you are in a real time, real situation,” she closed her eyes a second and laughed. “Or rather, simulation,” you can’t get the muscle reflex. You can’t train your biceps to press back against the smack of their blade on yours. You can’t train your other muscles to tense on a strike. That’s just flexing. But without resistance, without the slamming down of steel on steel, you can’t learn it truly.” She looked at him and her words were filled with the past failings of her life. “You can learn what to do at any given moment, your whole life. But you can’t know it till you experience it.” She glanced down at her wrist still encased in the small machine.

After a sigh, she glanced back up at the ceiling and shook her head. “And if I miss of working the sim again cause I sprained my wrist, so be it. It’s better than laying on this bed for a week while you rebuild my leg, or arm, or spine…” her voice dropped slightly, “or worse…”

Her left hand, hopefully tucked out of sight as she thought of it, was clenched tightly to keep from railing. He didn’t deserve it.

Lissi
CE

“You broke your wrist. Broke. As in the bone is broken. So either you *haven’t got the basics down as much as you think you do; or your safeties need to be turned up a notch.” and he looked at her and grinned. “In a week, of course.”

Abel, CMO

She didn’t like it, and she didn’t have to agree, but she nodded and took the veiled order for what it was, a healthy dose of ‘slow the heck down’. “I’ll turn the safety up a notch. Will that satisfy you for now?” She looked at him, there was a slip of ‘something’ behind her eyes. It wasn’t anger. At least, not directed at him. She then had a thought. “Next time, in a week of course, I will run the same sim in slow motion to learn where I misstepped. And I will, learn,” the word emphasized with a nod in his direction, “what I did to cause this. And next time will know not to let it happen again.”

She watched him as she spoke. There was more to this man that mere kind bedside manners. She admitted she had never met a Doctor she actually ‘liked’. The last CMO she had managed to find a neutral area to professionally coexist in. But that was all. And the reason she usually came in and saw to her own injuries.

Lissi
CE