Posted by Ensign Rand Farquharson (Yeoman First Class) in Side sim: Matters of the Heart

Posted by Commander Roman Alden (First Officer & Chief Science Officer) in Side sim: Matters of the Heart

Posted by Ensign Rand Farquharson (Yeoman First Class) in Side sim: Matters of the Heart
Posted by… suppressed (1) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)
“My stomach was upset after the surgery on my leg, it was fine by the second meal,” Roman said, waving him off. “Won’t strain anything.” He pushed the bedside table for his meal out of the way and shook his head. He’d has three ribs broken. It wasn’t all of them, no, but it wasn’t pleasant. And Roman had been stubborn then, more so than now. “If I can get up later today with that awful thing I can get up without it. It’s not pushing.” He was using that icy calm, even voice that meant he was controlling his tone very carefully.

And then he was shaking his head. “My discharge orders? Two weeks is already too long, I have work to get back to, animals to care for. I need out sooner, not later.” As he was talking, his heart was reacting to his stress. Unlike earlier, when Rand had first told him two weeks he was hiding his emotions, but the biobed was showing he was nearly as freaked out now as he’d been then. He looked at Elbbirt and then Rand desperately, as if for help. He was stubborn enough, he might try having a walk around the room approval or no.

That was right, Grat was the doctor who performed the surgery. But now Roman was too worked up and stressed to think properly, so no questions came to mind.

~ Roman

“Cmdr I am happy to try and shorten your stay. That is every doctor’s hope that their patients heal well and quickly. But you have to put the work in too. It is a delicate balance, and I am not willing to risk a relapse in your heart. You want to forgo the bone fuser, that’s fine, but it extends your recovery. Think about it and I’ll be back.” Grat started to say ‘another relapse’ but looking at the monitors Alden was stressed enough.

Rand moved back over to his side as Grat, Elbbirt, and Shrine left. Randy sat down on the edge of the other bed. He wanted to be supportive but not make Alden feel trapped. What Grat said was 100% correct, but it was going to be hard for Roman. Rand just sat with him and breathed. She didn’t know what to say.

Rand

Roman heard a slight pause between ‘a’ and ‘relapse’ and he got the feeling there was something he wasn’t being told, but he hadn’t any idea what. Shaking his head he sat up again, one arm holding his chest. Neither option was good for him. He already didn’t want to stay there as long as he had to. But he also hated the bone fuser. He felt trapped and he just wanted away. And that was where he was trying to go. “I need out of here. I can’t stay here.” He said, voice shaking slightly. Then he took Rand’s hand. “What do I do?”

~ Roman

Rand didn’t know what to do. She took a deep breath. “First you are going to lay back.” Rand brushed his hair back with her fingers of the hand that wasn’t holding his. “Why are you holding your arm over your chest? Are you hurting?”

Roman shook his head, he didn’t want to lay down. It was taking all of his control not to make for the door. He could, for once he didn’t have an injured leg. It would be a lot easier than previous Sickbay stays. He nodded hesitantly to answer her second question, squeezing her hand. “It wasn’t when I started, I just didn’t want the bone fuser. Now it does. But it’s okay, I’ll be fine.” Maybe because he’d sat up, he was moving around too much. And stressing himself out.

Rand raised the head of the bed back up so he didn’t have to lay down, but be supported. “No. You will not.” She rested her head on his shoulder a moment and wrapped her hand around his wrist that was pressing into his chest. “You have to try to relax, Roman.” She sighed, “You are going to hear that so much you’ll want to throw things at us and punch something. It’s still true though. Look, no one is going to make you take the bone fuser treatment. Grat said that. I get it. I hate that thing and I know you do to. Amazing equipment, but it hurts.” He needed information. “Ribs take 6 to 8 weeks to heal on their own, right? The treatments take a little over half a week off. So if you forgo them, you have another week and half of healing to do. More if you aren’t careful. Honestly though, you probably won’t feel it this time with all the meds that are in your system. But if you’re careful, letting them heal naturally would only extend your recovery a few days.” Randy nodded but tipped his head side to side. “It would only extend your recovery for your ribs a few days. It’s linked to the recovery of your heart but doesn’t directly impact how long it will take your heart to heal.” Again neither Rand nor Randy were trying to convince him or scare him, just giving him facts, Roman knew how to deal with facts and numbers.

Roman leaned into her and then back against the raised bed, listening to them both. They were giving him the straight facts. He wasn’t exactly known for being careful. Then again they seemed against letting him sit all the way up at all, it didn’t seem like he was meant to be moving much. “Hang on– what meds?” Roman complained, before he realized, probably heart meds, like the one Rand had talked him into letting Randy give earlier. His chest was hurting, he was sort of dizzy, he didn’t exactly feel good. He gave a long sigh, shaking his head. “I don’t want to extend my recovery. It’s just… the bone fuser… It…” He broke off and looked at Randy. He’d talked about it before, briefly, during their sessions. It wasn’t just that it hurt, because it did, but it stressed him out on its own, likely because it reminded him of that time in his life.

Rand slipped onto the bed beside him, one arm drapped carefully along his waist. “I am not telling you to have the bone fuser treatment, but you only had 3 left.” It was information to help him be aware. “Your heart needs time to heal, but maybe your ribs will be healed at the same time? I don’t know. You will have to take it easy. It’s hard, Roman. I know, I do. You want to do something, anything, but at first you get tired easy, so you listen, and then one day you aren’t tired anymore, but everyone tells you to stay in bed, but you just want to get away and breathe. So you do…and you wake up in the hospital again.”

“I should tell you what happened, but..do…do you want to rest first?”

Rand

Broken ribs would take six to eight weeks to heal naturally. With three bone fuser treatments left, there could be as many as three to five weeks left. And his heart had a week and a few days left technically two to three weeks but after the second week since the incident it would be safer to let him rest in his quarters, as long as he figured out how to take it easy.

When she finished what she was saying he looked up at her. He remembered Randy once mentioning Rand’s heart had had a relapse and she’d ended up in the hospital again. But it was her story to tell, and he’d never asked, so he hadn’t heard the whole tale. He shook his head. “What happened?”

~ Roman

Rand leaned back, kind of pressed herself closer, already feeling the panic the memories invoked. “I couldn’t move, when I woke up. I was hooked up to this machine, I could feel it or more like I was aware of it, and the sounds and the smells. Doctors and nurses, Randy, my parents would stand over me and tell me to relax and calm down. I had no idea what they were talking about, I wasn’t doing anything, I couldn’t move. I could feel my heart beating, and then it would stop or race or stutter, and it hurt, and then the machine would shock me. Trying to regulate my heart. It didn’t hurt really but the sensation was scary. Sometimes it would happen several times in a row and then I could breath a little easier, other times I blacked out because my heart would try to give out.”

“When I was finally able to sit up, I still couldn’t move, not much. I wanted to, but everything I did set the alarms off, made my heart work too hard. The room was always dark. Every time the door opened I could hear the media outside, they wouldn’t leave me a lone. One even got into my room when Randy went out. We couldn’t open the window because there were drones trying to take pictures. The situation wasn’t good for me. Kind of like yours right now, just in a different way.” Randy shifted in his seat slightly, but if they cared to look at him, he was haunted. “Eventually my parents convinced the doctors to let me go home, and they arranged to get me out of the hospital. I had to go by ambulance, and when I got home, it wasn’t home. My bedroom had been turned into a cardiac unit. I mostly slept the first few days, after that my frustration got the better of me. I wanted to get up, but I couldn’t. Just sitting up on my own was exhausting and scared me because my heart would start pounding. I couldn’t even go to the bathroom alone. I tried once and almost blacked out. Everyone tells you to relax, calm down, don’t think about what’s upsetting you. It’s true but it’s frustrating because you don’t know how. And no one would talk to me. I might ask upsetting questions about what happened to me, or want to talk about topics they thought was too stressful.”

“But then one day you wake up and you feel amazing. I wasn’t tired anymore, I knew where I was, my chest didn’t hurt, I could breathe easily, my fingers and toes were warm instead of cold. I felt good, wide awake, I could remember everything that had happened. Yeah it was scary, but I wasn’t confused. I had energy, I was hungry, I could yell for Randy from my room and not feel like I had run a 10k. I wanted to get up, but was told no. Don’t push it. I just wanted out of that room. I would have laid on the couch, I just wanted out of the isolation, to breathe away from the machines. “

Rand

Roman sat quietly, leaned against the bed but pressed towards Rand as he listened intently to her story. He was already doing better than she had, his chest would only hurt when he let himself get stressed out like this, or at least, so far. He was able to sit up, briefly, though listening to her he realized if he’d stood like he wanted to, he would have probably blacked out. She described a lot of how he felt, he’d only been awake a few hours and yet he felt exhausted. He’d thought it was because of Sickbay, because of the stress. That probably didn’t help, but his heart had to do with it too. He’d set off the alarms himself multiple times, either by sitting up and making his heart pound or by stressing out and making it beat too fast, work too hard. At least he’d been able to eat. It sounded like he was lucky in some ways, and that made him feel… Kind of bad. He sat quietly and listened as she spoke, her voice helping to relax him like when she told stories even though this one was so upsetting for both of them.

~ Roman