Blood Pressure

Posted on 08 May 2021 @ 2:57pm by Commander Calliope Zahn & Major Minka Mazur, MD (*)

Mission: M2 - Sanctuary
Location: Infirmary
Timeline: MD03 ~1300HRS
1694 words - 3.4 OF Standard Post Measure

“I can check myself in from here,” Calliope said to Lance who nodded as she motored through the entrance to sickbay. She looked back over her shoulder hoping for some kind of shared moment, one where she might try to smile for him, but he stood contemplating the ceiling as he waited for the lift to return. The whole morning of visiting the memorial and seeing their new home… It was a strange few hours, bitter and sweet, and just… out of phase. She felt both profoundly loved and profoundly alone all at once, and left entirely unable to explain the sense directly to Lance for fear of making it worse still.

She couldn’t sit contemplating all of that for long though. Her next appointment with Dr. Mazur was due to begin and Calliope was trying her best to check all the boxes and keep her doctors happy.

Hovering up to the check in, Calliope was directed to a private exam room. Which was nice. Now that more of the facilities were on line, there wasn’t any reason for routine medical to be performed in the middle of everyone’s business in the general medical bay. Calliope was relieved at the opportunity for some privacy in her medical affairs.

She parked her chair to the side of the room and then made her own effort to the exam table with nurse Lorne looking on.

“How’s your week been, Mr. Lorne?” She asked him casually as he began the routine health monitoring, temperature and pulse and whatever other common metrics he was supposed to take. Calliope appeared put together, still wearing a dress uniform and having had her hair wrapped and a coating of makeup to put life into her look. She hoped the scans showed some improvement in spite of the fact that she was actually fighting some queasiness and regret from that tuna sandwich.

“It’s be-,” the man started to reply, cut off by the hiss of the door opening.

Preceded slightly by the bulge in her belly, Doctor Mazur stepped into the examination room at a slow walk and walked resolutely into the room as if determined not to show weakness by taking a seat. She looked between Lorne and Calliope and then waved. “Take her vitals please, Lorne,” she ordered.

“Ma’am,” he nodded, producing a tricorder and getting to it.

“Doctor Walker has been reporting that you’re making progress with your therapy,” Minka offered to Calliope. It wasn’t quite a compliment (though it might have been from anyone else) but it was probably as close as she was going to get to it. “How do you feel physically? Any more dizziness, lightheadedness, loss of motor function or any other lingering symptoms that haven’t begun to fade?”

“Nausea. I’m actually having a little bit of a fight with lunch at the moment.” She volunteered, though she adopted a kind of indifferent tone about it, trying to keep it played down. “I can walk a little further, but not much without support. I feel tired a lot. None of it is worse though.”

“Expected symptoms,” Minka nodded. “At this point you should be seeing the same symptoms only with less intensity. You may find that the things you liked to eat before no longer agree with you. That may resolve itself over time. It may not. It can vary widely by patient,” she explained knowledgeably. Things like this she knew wreaked havoc on a person's entire system, sometimes changing everything from motor function to preferred flavor profiles. Of course, sometimes it changed nothing. Everyone was different.

“Doctor,” Lorne cut in, offering her the tricorder with the readings he’d just taken.

Minka took the device and consulted it for a few moments, absently wincing as the little one in her belly adjusted themselves. It was par for the course but it still didn’t feel pleasant. “Your vitals are improving. Blood pressure still is a bit low…” she said, glancing to Lorne who took the silent command for what it was and stepped over to the hypospray dock and started to work. “Have you tried any measure of exercise?”

“Not as such.” Dr Mazur’s wincing expression worried Calliope for a moment before she realized Mazur was pressing a hand into her belly. Calliope didn’t realize she was staring, her mind wandering off to how she was still supposed to figure out how to have that discussion with Lance about future fertility. How long could she put it off before she needed to give an answer for her treatment plans... “Just meditation.”

“You need to try and get your heart rate up,” Minka answered, “Meditation is helpful. Just walking the Promenade, or the corridors on your deck. The environmental ring is up and running. You could walk the trails at a brisk pace. You don’t need to run a marathon, but you do need to push yourself.”

Lorne returned with the hypo and she took it, stepping forward and pressing it to Calliope’s neck. “This should assist with your blood pressure. Try to do that exercise a few times a week. Fifteen to twenty minutes. Break a sweat,” she explained as if it was nothing at all. As if she herself could run a 5k at a moments notice. She certainly could have seven months ago, but nowadays, walking from one room to the next was as good as climbing Everest.

Calliope touched her skinned palm. She’d barely managed her balance to make it to the bench across the path at the memorial. A twenty minute brisk walk seemed completely out of reach. “Right yeah.” She wasn’t sure. Maybe her balance would get better with more practice. Or support. “Do have anything like, maybe a brace. My knees, they get weak when I go very far. And…” Maybe this was the time to press it. “The Environmental ring is a great idea. I just don’t really have anyone free to take me regularly. Lance had the morning off today, but maybe I could check myself out of the recovery ward?”

Petty Officer Lorne cleared his throat, turning both their attention to him, “I’d be happy to go with you, ma’am,” he smiled. “There’s actually a few of us that have been meeting after our shifts to walk the ring trails. You’re welcome to join us.”

Minka looked at the man for the first time like she didn’t want to strangle him and then back to Calliope, gesturing at Lorne, “There you go. I would rather not put braces on your knees. You need to rebuild that muscle naturally. I can replicate you a cane, but you’re to use it as a walking stick and emergency support. Not a crutch for every step,” she said, wagging a finger in warning.

“Sure, I’ll tag along.” Calliope was curious who Lorne met with. But she still had a few other ideas, pursuing some of the dirt she’d just turned over looking at records. “I’d still like to make it out of the ward a few hours earlier, though. If it makes you feel any better, I can wear a monitor.”

“Your commbadge is your monitor, Commander,” Minka answered, clearing up the hypo and tricorder and giving both back to Lorne. “I need to see you again in three days, Commander. I want to see heart rate up between now and then.”

Calliope decided to take that as permission granted and would talk her way through the check out if needed. “Three days,” she echoed. Exhaling, she slid off the exam table, maintaining poise which was helped to great effect by the dress uniform. “There’s one other thing I wanted to ask you, Doctor.”

Minka hadn’t really moved, nor would she have if she’d been more mobile. It was a common joke amongst practitioners that the real medicine didn’t start until the patient was on the way out. It was never just a check up or just what they said they were there for. The real reason always waited until the very end. “Yes?”

“When the Infirmary was breached… was there a robot? Four arms? About three or four meters tall?”

Certainly not an image she’d get out of her head anytime soon, the mere mention of it sent a slight shiver down her spine. That whole day had been one of the few times she’d been legitimately scared for the life of her baby. She knew she’d muscle through it, she was too stubborn to die like that. But her little one wasn’t going to be so resilient if she took a major injury. She wasn’t forgetting that robot anytime soon.

“Yes,” she managed simply. “What does that have to do with your treatment?”

Calliope swelled with a feeling of validation. She hadn’t imagined it. “I need to know where it got to. I’ve got some questions I think it can answer.”

Minka harumphed and shook her head, “I’m sure Captain Finn knows its whereabouts.”

Finn. Someone else who probably never wanted to talk to her again.

“Commander. Some free advice,” Minka offered as the woman paused in the door. “Leave it alone. For once.”

Calliope wanted nothing so much as to find the curtain to peel back on everyone in the shadows behind that attack. There hadn’t been anything in the investigations of the captured combatants that had led to the organizers. They’d sufficiently limited everyone’s greater knowledge and the string had stopped unwinding a couple of steps up. Which meant someone knew exactly what they were doing. What she couldn’t understand was why Mazur didn’t have the same desire. Was she afraid of what might get stirred? It was hardly a Marine trait to shy away from looking to strike back. Maybe it was the defensive posture of a medic. Or a mother.

“Thanks for the advice, but,” Calliope pulled her shirt straight. “Nothing gets better by looking the other way.”