In Stitches

[Farah]

Coruscant General
Patient Towers, Level 6
Patient Room #221

“What…are you doing in here…?”

Farah rolled her eyes.

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

A pencil thin man was standing in the doorway, looking back and forth between the unconscious bedridden patient hooked up to a whole host of machines and the doctor sitting in the chair across from him. Said doctor was in the middle of eating a salad and scrolling through an article titled ’22 Space Tinder Fails—Number 8 Will Make You Want to Jump into the Void’ on her datapad.

The man in the door—pencil thin neurosurgeon with a head of messy hair and dark goatee—made a noise that was a mix between a sigh and a grunt.

“You can’t keep eating lunch in patient rooms.” “And why not? It’s quiet in here. No one bothers me except…”

She made a gesture to his person as a whole.

“Besides, he’s one of my assignments.” “Oh, really? Tell me his name.”

Farah wasn’t good with names. She was good with case details, but not patient designations.

“Don’t you have brains to save or something?” “What if the family comes in here? It’ll look terribly unprofessional for a doctor not on his case to be eating lunch in his room.”

Dr. Lukas Krieger was a talented neurosurgeon. During residency, he and Farah had been constantly in competition with eachother before diverging off into different specialties. Krieger went to neuro, while Dr. Farah Navarro (as she was known in Coruscant General) worked in cardiothoracics and eventually trauma.

“Hey, don’t try and call me out on a lie I didn’t tell.” Farah had put her fork down now. “I may not know the man’s name but I do know that he’s suffered several cardiac episodes and neurologic degeneration. I’m on this case along with some specialist they’re bringing in for pain management.” She picked up her fork and speared a few greens with it before turning her gaze back to the screen of her datapad. “Now go drill a hole in someone’s head. I need to study up on his case details.”

She scrolled down to ‘5 Outer Rim Fashion Trends That Are Space Chic’.

[member="Irajah Ven"]

 

[Kuzo]

One of those specialists called in was a certain Doctor Calais. Coming up from a low cost clinic, more than a few levels down and in a district far less enjoyable, the Sou Emergency Medical Center wasn't a particularly well known clinic run in a bad part of town. Opening its doors two years ago, it had slowly but steadily been the nexus of change in the poor Agua district. A slow lowering of gang activity, as the clinic became a neutral zone for several local gangs- increased access to medical care- a dip in petty crimes, vagrancy- other near by districts still were plagued, especially that many layers down, but since the Clinic had opened its doors, it had been nothing but a slow climb for the district it called home.

Of course, that was only how it looked from the outside.

Doctor Calais was no small part of that. Known for her friendliness, hard work, and no-nonsense attitude in the face of adversity, her reputation as a Doctor was known only in small circles. Known as a specialist in emergency medicine and pain management, she had been called in to consult on this particular patient, and she was happy to attend.

It was, after all, a fairly intriguing case.

Not merely short, the Doctor was positively petite. Long dark hair hung in a single braid down her back, swaying back and forth slightly as she headed down the hallway toward the room of the patient in question. Her low heels tak tak takked on the tile. Sharp hazel eyes found the room number, reaching up to rap neatly on the door with the back of her knuckles before opening it and stepping inside.

"Hope I'm not interrupting anything," she said. "I'm Doctor Calais."

[member="Farah"]

 

[Farah]

“Nah.”

She took a few moments to scroll to the next picture—good lord that was an ugly vest. Did women in the Outer Rim really wear things like that? Farah was not as fashion savvy as her template but still.

The Zeltron speared some greens on her fork and brought them to her lips, lifting her head as she chewed. Dr. Calais was of short stature and gentle face. Didn’t mean a damn thing when it came to how good of a doctor she was. Farah had to fight tooth and nail to be respected in her field, an experience that taught her not to judge anyone’s ability on their appearance—not the gargantuan [member="Samson"] and not the petite Dr. Calais.

“Good.” She shifted in her seat, chin tilting towards the comatose man. “He’s in an induced coma now—lots of chest pain, went through a lot of cardiac procedures and might need more.” The full detail could be found on the datapad chart hanging from his bed. She paused for a few seconds to finish off the rest of her salad before closing the container.

“Dr. Navarro, by the way. I’m his cardio surgeon.”

[member="Irajah Ven"]

 

[Kuzo]

Irajah stepped forward, offering a hand to shake and a warm smile.

"A pleasure to meet you," she said, the smile and sentiment genuine.

Turning toward the bed and the patient, she reached down, retrieving the datapad. While she had been sent the broad strokes of the case, what had happened, what they knew, this was far more up to date and included in depth test results that she hadn't been given access to until she had agreed to come on.

In the moment, Irajah was absorbed in that. It would take some time for her to connect the long rambling about her creation's life with the Zeltron across from her. Mostly, her attention was on the patient and the details of the case. A small, thoughtful frown flickering over her face.

"Is there a reason he's rejected cybernetic replacement?" She asked, glancing up for a moment, finger flicking through the screens. "So much of this could have been avoided." The tone was clear that she didn't think it was overlooked. The assumption was most certainly that the patient had, for some reason, protested it.

"And the pain is still.... hmm that is strange," she murmured, pulling up the history of scans.

"I'd like to suggest a scan of his brain," she said, tucking the pad back into its nook. "Get a view of which parts of the brain are lighting up to register the pain. I have a theory but the scan would tell us for certain."

[member="Farah"]

 

[Farah]

Farah took the offered hand for a firm shake before leaning back in her chair, lips sealed as she ran her tongue over her teeth to check for stray greens. “Likewise. I’ve heard good things.”

Which was true. CoreGen didn’t like bringing in outside help unless it was truly needed or a physician highly regarded in their field.

“Not sure to be honest.” Cybernetics were easier in that regard—you could program them to do what they needed to do. Organic parts needed to be grown specially, took longer and had to go through compatibility testing. “We wouldn’t have had the time for an organic replacement, either.” Something that would be noted as Dr. Ven flipped through his medical history. “He’s lucky we managed to repair the aortic dissection. I had to crack his chest in the elevator on the way to the OR. Most people don’t survive a dissection like that. Coded twice during surgery.”

She stood now, making her way over the patient and glancing at the charts as Irajah pulled them up on the monitor. “I’d like to go in there and replace the graft, but he’s not stable enough to handle something that invasive.”

Pulling out a datapad of her own from her coat pocket, Farah nodded vaguely. “I’ll contact neuro and put an order in for an fMRI.” Her eyes flickered upwards after typing in the order. “What’s your theory?”

[member="Irajah Ven"]

 

[Kuzo]

Irajah let out a low whistle.

"Yeah that'll do it."

She had been an ER doctor before.... before everything. Before Gideon. Before the Sith. Before her death. She wasn't a cardiac specialist but she didn't need to be to appreciate the situation.

"Pain loop," she said simply, then elaborated. "One of the things I've been finding in my work is that the brain is, in some ways, both incredibly resilient but also incredibly delicate. In the case of such traumatic events, the neurons code into a feedback loop with themselves. I would like to see which pain receptors are being triggered and if it is happening in a pattern. The pain is very real, but it's being caused by a remnant of the original event, rather than due to continued damage. If that's the case and it can be short circuited, which may stabilize the patient. Or at the very least, clear out this background noise and allow you and your team to more easily see into the root of the problem."

The dark haired woman tilted her head, looking down at the still form of the patient.

"This is something different from the chronic pain we often treat at the clinic, but it's still possible that this is an extreme version."

[member="Farah"]

 

[Farah]

“Pain loop, huh?”

It didn’t sound like she was in disbelief. When Farah had first started training, she assumed that pain wasn’t part of the medical equation beyond where it was and what it signified as a symptom. Some people had trouble balancing the emotional and mental needs of patients with the physical ones—for Farah, she’d never cared about the former. At this point though, she was starting to see the bigger picture. Still didn’t stop her from rolling her eyes or scowling under her breath at someone screaming in pain.

Hopefully this pain doc could figure out what was wrong. CoreGen was a prestigious institute and had a lengthy reach as far as feeling out specialists.

A few minutes later, an MRI tech from neurology wheeled an instrument into the patient’s room. He gave the pair of doctors a quiet nod and Dr. Navarro a hesitant glance. The Zeltron was known to be sharp tongued and he did not want to invoke her temper. Unfortunately, her rivalry with Dr. Krieger meant that the whole of neurology suffered. Which was weird because Farah and Lukas were in entirely different specialties.

“So you’re thinking like a phantom limb situation? Without the limb.” She looked thoughtful, attention on Calais rather than the tech as he fiddled with the equipment while setting up the scan. “I didn’t know something like that could happen.” She stated plainly, though not without something of an impressed note in her tone. “Where do you conduct your research?” Maybe she could peek in on that.

[member="Irajah Ven"]

 

[Kuzo]

"It's similar but not exactly," Irajah explained as they shifted focus to the tech. Or at least, Irajah did. She watched him set up, offering a nod and an encouraging smile as he did.

"There are a few manifestations of it I've seen. One was precisely a phantom limb situation. A soldier, had lost it in an accident in a training scenario. Some sort of explosive device- I couldn't tell you what- went off in her hand. While she was gripping it. So beyond the usual phantom pain, the nerves and muscles had been taught when the accident occurred. Their hand never let go. So that tension was there, causing pain up into their shoulders and neck but without obvious cause. We had to 'trick' her brain into 'letting go' of the explosive. Psychological yes, but also deeply linked to a physiological response."

The machine started to whir, and Irajah face drew thoughtful.

"I had another case where a young man had been burned in the war when the Alliance took Coruscant from the Sith..... he had been treated, undergone extensive skin grafts. Medically, he had made a full recovery, every scan showed perfect healing. But he was still in agonizing pain, and when we did a scan like this," she nodded with her chin at the machine, "it showed neuron firing consistent with burn patients that are put into drug induced comas while they heal. His pain was certainly not psychological, it was very physically based, but it was caused by the miss firing of the nerves, rather than due to new pain stimuli. Essentially they had gotten stuck in a chemical rut, so accustomed to simply firing that they continued even after the damage had been fixed."

She didn't elaborate on what happened with that patient.... it had where she had first observed the phenomena she was talking about.

"I do very little clinical research these days," she answered the last question, tilting her head slightly. "Much of it is done in the field, so to speak. I have done some testing in controlled situations, but much of my time is taken up actually treating patients in pain."

Both true and not the whole story at once.

"Mmmm, there," she murmured, indicating the scan. "See that aura? There's no activity in the dorsal horn, but here it is in the thalamus. Pain, but coming from no where, not transmitted through the proper channels. Pain... as a habit. As a rut."

[member="Farah"]