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

(snip)

Alden had also been part of the circuit, the most damaging way to be electrocuted. That meant electricity hadn’t just passed through in one go, but continued to travel through and do damage until the ship’s overload detection had stopped it. While his heart had restarted itself, it couldn’t have stayed that way long on its own, and the lack of sufficient blood flow would have caused damage to vital organs or the brain. It had been a concern they’d just lose him during surgery but it was a risk that needed to be taken or he wouldn’t have made it anyway.

Roman looked at his hands again when Randy said he was electrocuted. They were still bandaged, but lightly, and near the edge of the bandage on the left he could see part of the scar from the burn, healed by the regenerator while he was asleep. And then when Randy said the current had in fact stopped his heart, but it had managed to restart itself, he frowned and put a hand gently over his chest, over his heart, feeling it beat. It didn’t feel quite like it normally would, Roman couldn’t tell exactly what was different. He never paid much attention to his own heart beat.

Roman had to smile a little bit at what Randy had said. Simply willing his body to cooperate typically worked just fine for him. Until his last Sickbay stay, when trying that for much longer than he had would have killed him, or caused permanent damage to his leg. “I don’t want to be stuck in bed for the next week.” That applied to both, his ribs would keep him in bed longer if he wouldn’t take the bone fuser treatments but his heart could, too, whether he took those treatments or not. “What if we see how the first one goes? If I won’t feel it much anyway?”

Randy nodded, “It’s up to you. Ellbirt, Rand, and I try to get you to take meds and treatments you don’t necessarily want because it’s the best course of treatment. Grat is the same. In the end though it is your choice. If the fuser is going to cause you distress then we won’t do it. But yes we can try one treatment and see how you feel after.

Rand slipped onto the bed beside him, one arm draped 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

“Every day I felt better, I was awake longer, I was weaning more and more off the medicine. I started sneaking trips out of bed when no one was looking. To the kitchen, the bathroom, to stare out the window. At first I could tell, when I stood up or sat down how the movement messed with my blood pressure and heart rate. I figured it out though, how slow and fast to move, when to rest and to be near something I could hold onto. I was getting better though and…” a sigh escaped her, “I felt I knew my body better than the doctors. I was annoyed and bored and cooped up and stubborn. I didn’t want to sit in bed anymore. I didn’t want to go to work or run or anything like that. I just wanted normalcy. So when no one was paying attention, I left the house.” She looked over at Randy, “Tha mi cho duilich.” Randy shook his head and smiled at her. “I went for a walk. It was wonderful and freeing. I only walked, I didn’t do anything else but breathe the air and keep walking.” She moved around, uncomfortable with the memory. “Everything was fine, and then all I remember is suddenly my chest felt like fire and I couldn’t breathe. I....I woke up in the hospital, several days later, back on the machines, back on the meds. They kept me on fall and elopement watch. And sedated, so I wouldn’t do it again and being back in the hospital would stress my heart into another relapse. I set myself back months, and I didn’t get to leave the hospital again for 3 months, until they new I was completely healed.”

Rand

She sounded so much like him that Roman started to laugh. The movement of his chest caused some soreness, but the secret walks were exactly the kind of thing he would do. Except, he’d not care if someone found out or saw him. He’d tell them he was going and that’s that. He was very stubborn that way. And then he shook his head. On fall watch, sedated, and an extra three months? No, thanks. He hugged her, tightly but carefully. “That sounds awful. And precisely the sort of things I did when I was in Sickbay after…” he knew she’d know what he meant.

But what he said next would surprise her, because he never, ever, talked about his time in Sickbay after the Ardent’s attack. “I could, through stubborn determination, limp around on my leg, about a week after… what happened,” his voice shook and caught, but he went on, “and I’d wait until the nurses had someone else to deal with, then get up and limp my way to the observation deck and just look out the window. I ripped stitches twice and set back my recovery… probably a long time. I would get up and go somewhere anytime I had the chance.”

~ Roman

Rand was laying there, next to him, eyes closed, face turned into him, dealing with her own bad memories. Her hand wrapped around his and squeezed though as he talked. Her next words weren’t argumentative or pointing out anything, simple stating her fear. “Except now instead of ripped stitches your heart could stop and away from the machines they may not get you back fast enough.” She had been lucky someone had found her out on the dirt road.

Roman hugged her tight, trying to comfort her. He knew how much those memories bothered her. At her words he squeezed her hand back, out of fear, but also to try and comfort her. “I’m sorry. I wish it were easier for me… But it isn’t going to be. Everything is going to make me want to fight or run. And it’s hard for me… just to be here. Being confined in here…” He shuddered.

Randy was careful not to show it, but he was both surprised and proud of Roman for being able to voice how he felt and how he was likely to react. Rand let out a deep sigh, “You can only expect so much of yourself. The important thing is that you tell us when it feels to much. I don’t know what all we can do with…all this, but we’ll be here with you, you won’t be here alone.”

Randy nodded, “Now on the ship normally, once you are doing better,” he held up a forestalling hand, “It’s not even been 12 hours yet, so hold it. Normally once you are better we encourage short walks to build your endurance. However we have to contend with our security issue now. So that changes things. How much I don’t know yet because you aren’t ready for short walks away from sickbay just yet.”

Randy

“When will I be?” Roman wouldn’t think anytime soon. “With any luck, they’ll have caught whoever’s responsible by then.” Roman pressed an arm back over his chest, it was hurting again. Then he reached for the controls and lowered the head of the bed some. “And I won’t have to worry about you two leaving to do your jobs, that you might not come back.”

~ Roman

Randy looked at his chart then at the read outs. “I would hope less than a week. We’ll get you up and moving around the room tonight maybe, if Grat is satisfied with your cardiac read outs. But as Rand said, when she got up it changes your heart rate and blood pressure. You can black out, dizzy, or your BP could drop and you faint, or beat so fast that other things happen. So how fast you progress depends on what your heart does when you start moving around. Just a warning. Once we start weaning you off the cardiac meds, you might feel frustrated like you are losing progress as your heart starts working on its own. You won’t be, but just be prepared for it.”

Rand

Roman nodded. “Then let’s hope for tonight and that it goes well.” He squeezed Rand’s hand again as he said it. The better it went, the sooner he would be out of Sickbay, he hoped. Then he yawned and blinked, trying to keep his eyes open. Now that he was relaxing again, he was feeling tired. “And that means I get to leave in a little over a week?”

~ Roman