Posted by Lieutenant Sharah Fayth (Chief Star Fleet Medical Officer) in Sacred Heart Hospital- Lt. Gov’s Appt

Posted by Captain Eela Dasca (Lt. Governor) in Sacred Heart Hospital- Lt. Gov’s Appt

Posted by Lieutenant Sharah Fayth (Chief Star Fleet Medical Officer) in Sacred Heart Hospital- Lt. Gov’s Appt

(snips)

Fayth’s touch was incredibly gentle, easing off where it was painful almost before it registered, but not quite. She also seemed to breath in rhythm a half second behind Dasca. A product of using her empathy. After a few minutes she pulled a sheet up over Dasca’s back so she wouldn’t have to lift her shirt again in a bit. “Well, the disk between your L1 an L2 is being compressed and that’s causing inflammation there as well as radiating out to the surrounding muscles and tissues. The blood flow as not where I would like it to be for the area. It’s reversible, as you know, with the right exercises…” Jevra knocked on the door and passed Fayth a hypo. “Jevra get one of our PTs down here and a medical engineer please.” Then she lifted the hypo, “Anti-inflammatory mix to help relieve the back strain.” Fayth wouldn’t give it without permission. “So with the right exercises we can relieve the compression, but if that doesn’t do it, it will have to be replaced. Your brace should have been preventing the compression so I have a med tech coming to look at your brace and we’ll either adjust or replace. These guys are pretty amazing, so if you want, make an appt. They will come look at your office, home, wherever and adjust/make equipment to make you more comfortable.”

Head resting on folded arms, Dasca nodded. “I’ve had occupational therapists do space assessments before. But I suppose the difference this time is that I’ll actually be in one place for a long time.” The news about the disc sat weird with her, but wasn’t unexpected. “The brace probably works, but like you said, needs adjustment. I’ve been in eight different gravities over the last sixteen weeks, and no, we did not adjust it for each place. I’d place odds on that being the cause of the disc issue.”

Sharah nodded, “Make sense, all that moving can also be hard on the equipment as it tries to compensate. So it probably needs a tune up. I imagine eng will only need 4 appointments. Sound like a lot but one for your office and home to see what you need and take measurements and then one each to deliver. I’m not sure if they need you there for delivery.”

“Now I know you don’t want a lot of appointments. I understand the commitment and strain that puts on your schedule, but I would like you to consider adding a message therapy session 3 times a week until the compression is eased. In the evening, they’ll come to your home and you won’t have to travel back and forth.”

Fayth, SFCMO

Eela pressed up on her forearms and turned her head to look at Fayth, even though doing so pulled her spine. It was one of those pains that actually felt good because it was stretching something out, but she was cautious not to overdo it. “So same old drill, got it. Massage was really important in the year I was doing physical rehab. Though when people heard I was getting massages they immediately imagined a day spa.” She snorted. ” Reality was more like feeling like I had been bruised from the inside out.” Already her mind was working out how to manage the appointments that she was going to require and do all the public events that were going to end up on her schedule and have down time to de-stress. Yep, this was not life in the captain’s chair.

But it would be necessary if she wanted to avoid surgery. She obvious didn’t remember the spinal surgery she had had, as she’d been in a coma before, but she knew that recovery would take time and effort. “I would appreciate any recommendations for a massage therapist. Obviously, having people in my home will be a security risk, so everyone on my medical team needs to be cleared if they aren’t already, but the reality is that privacy is already going to be tricky for me. People who understand the discretion required are essential.” Fleet personnel were ideal but she was mindful of optics too. Damned options. She had to balance both Starfleet and civilian interests. With something of a sigh, Dasca lowered her head back down to her arms.

~Eela Dasca, Lt. Gov.

Fayth started to answer her questions when there was a knock on the door. With Dasca’s permission Fayth opened the door. Entering was a much older Tellarite man in a star fleet ops uniform. “This is Master Chief Trond. He’s the most incompetent engineer I’ve ever met and doesn’t know his foot from his snout.” Trond grunted and and fought with a quirk at the corner of his mouth.

Dasca turned her head again to study the newcomer, completely unfazed by the fact that she was lying on a biobed. Fyath had draped the sheet over her, after all, but even then, Eela was rarely self-conscious like that.

“And last week ya tried to use the dermal regenerator on that pumpkin spillin’ it’s guts,” he quipped. He turned his attention to Dasca, “I suppose yer wantin’ me to fix something?” Then began to laugh and actually ruffled Fayth’s hair and she tried not to grin or roll her eyes. The man was old enough to be her grandfather.

“My anti-grav brace for my spine. It’s not been working as well lately. Not as much lift on my spine and I’ve been finding it a bit sluggish in compensating for the transition to sitting or laying and upright. It’s minute, but I notice,” Dasca said.

“So let me look at this brace,” he picked it up from the end of the bio bed and flipped down the eye piece of the wearable tricorder and flipped and rotated and opened panels and then grunted. “Some of the servos are damaged. Give me 20 and I’ll be back with it all fixed.” And he was gone already digging in his tool belt for something.

Was it strange to be weirded out that the brace was elsewhere with someone else? Huh. Separation anxiety over a bit of equipment that had become an integral part of her life? Sounded pretty reasonable to her. Still, she was used to having the brace within reach or at least eye sight, ninety-nine percent of the time, so it was, well, weird.

“When the PT arrives he will arrange for the message therapist. They all work out of or in connection with Sacred Heart. Everyone has been vetted - Fleet, Civilian, Marines, CCDA, Police, all of them. We’ll do it again before they start. If you have a preference for their background we will do our best to accomodate.”

Fayth, SFCMO

That was a consideration, wasn’t it? “You know, I’m so used to just getting who I get that I don’t think anyone has ever asked me if I have a preference.” She sounded almost amused by the fact. “But now that I think of it, when it comes to body work, it’s often useful to have someone with a degree of psi-positivity. Not because it makes them better at it, but because I can drop my guard a little and we can bounce off each other a bit. Haliians are very… connection based and I don’t always get a chance to use that to my advantage, but if it’s an option, it would be nice. So long as it doesn’t put undue pressure on the practitioner, of course.”

~Eela Dasca, Lt. Gov.