Lt Commander Foster - It's Not Pretty
Jamie LeBlanc
((Sick Bay - USS Constitution-B))
He had just finished with T’Seva and was stretching a crick out of his back, only to look around and see his most frustrating (and beloved) long time patient wheel through the door.
Foster: Commander D’Sena, I didn’t expect you. ::He let his back pop and release before gazing at her.:: What’s on your mind?
D'Sena: Make me walk within the next 15 hours.
So, apparently what it took to light a candle under this woman was kidnapping the ship’s command officer and her personal friend. Good to know.
Still, fifteen hours to accomplish what had not been done in over a year?
Steep. Very steep.
Foster: As I told you before, the physical damage is fixed. The nerves are repaired. Beyond muscle weakness from disuse the biggest barrier is to get your overactive, too smart for its own good brain to connect with the nerves on their level and get them working again.
Which was more a job for counseling than medicine, but here she was and he knew her. He wanted her to walk again and if this was his only chance, so be it.
D'Sena: I don't care what I have to do for it, Cade. I want to get my hands on these people. And you heard the Commander, only able bodied people.
Foster: I did, and we both know Saveron is absolutely serious about that. ::He leaned back and gazed evenly at her.:: Which begs the question are you doing this to save Jalana or to get revenge?
He had put two and two together as the conversation progressed, and now it was sinking in. These were also the people who hurt her.
Revenge was a powerful motivator, one that Cade was not discrediting in this affair.
D'Sena: Both. The main reason of course is to get the Commodore back, but I also want to give hell to the people who put me in this thing.
Foster: Honestly, if it gets you to walk, I don’t care why.
That was true. Mostly. If she said her motivation was murder he would be given pause.
D’Sena: ?
Foster: Again, we’ve worked on this for the better part of a year. You know your legs can hold you, and you know your body is fixed. But you’re Rodulan. And while that’s almost always a boon, it’s not in this case. Your brain controls your body far more than most species, so you not only have to consciously want and need to walk, but subconsciously want and need to walk.
And up to this point he had been slowly breaking down the barriers to walking. Brick by brick and piece by piece he dismantled the doubts, the fears, the niggling voices telling her that she can’t and shouldn’t
D’Sena: ?
Foster: I know, we made progress breaking down the barriers, but that’s slow. And you have fifteen hours. ::He straightened back up again and rocked on his feet.:: But you also have a burning reason to bring your subconscious on board.
D’Sena: ?
He nodded, slowly. His brain was going at warp speed, processing all those obscure medical papers he had read on the subject and cross referencing them with the very slim amount of research on healing Rodulans with nerve damage.
Foster: I have a theory. An idea. It’s not pretty. But it might work.
And he meant ‘it’s not pretty’ – his tone indicated that this wasn’t exactly a preferred method. Not preferred at all.
But again, it might work. And if it did work, it would work quickly.
D’Sena: ?
Foster: If you have the will to fight, and you are completely onboard with getting into able bodied condition in fifteen hours… ::he took in a slow breath:: I can hyperstimulate the area to basically jump start and force your brain to form new bonds with the repaired nerves.
D’Sena: ?
Why hadn’t he suggested it before? It had come up in passing conversation but at the time it had been dismissed. Because again, it wasn’t pretty.
Foster: Hyperstimulation will cause acute pain, which you can dampen by reforming those connections and moving the legs ::he stressed the moving the legs part:: basically it forces your brain to recognize the repaired nerves, and the more you move them the more you bleed off the stimulus, the pain recedes. But if you can’t form those connections? Then you’re in a lot of pain and it will remain painful until the nerves calm down on their own. I give you painkillers and sedatives, you sleep through the mission and we lose ground on physical therapy. So yes, there’s a risk.
D’Sena: ?
~*~
tags/tbc
~*~
Lt Commander Cade Foster
Mission Specialist and Acting CMO
USS Constitution-B
~Julian Beck
E239010ST0