Howard Bassem (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
iselldrugstothecommunity) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
trans_92011-05-19 07:22 pm
iselldrugstothecommunity) wrote in trans_92011-05-19 07:22 pm
Entry tags:
Bad Handwriting and Everything [Open]
The upside to using paper and pen instead of data pads for taking notes on patients is that it's intuitive and you can fiddle with things. The downside is that, at the end of a shift, a lot of the notes have to be shredded for privacy reasons, and the details have to be entered into the data pads anyway. Despite his usual devotion to efficiency, Howard doesn't mind this. It's a nice way to review the day and cement anything he might have learned.
The Quarantine's mostly empty now, which is a definite plus. All those kids were getting Howard crankier and antsier than usual. He brought in a box of toys from the Warehouse, though he didn't bother to check the age ranges for them, so he hopes someone who cares a bit more will take out all the choking hazards before any of the children regress to toddlerhood. He doesn't want anything to do with children; he had enough of that back in that dystopian nightmare he called home. All they do is cry and scream and demand things and kill each other and eat all the food and lie and burn down buildings and generally make life unpleasant. Not that adults are always better, but at least someone's around to enforce order here.
He hums a snippet of Cliffs of Dover to himself, chewing on the end of a Tinker Toy, and starts typing in his notes.
The Quarantine's mostly empty now, which is a definite plus. All those kids were getting Howard crankier and antsier than usual. He brought in a box of toys from the Warehouse, though he didn't bother to check the age ranges for them, so he hopes someone who cares a bit more will take out all the choking hazards before any of the children regress to toddlerhood. He doesn't want anything to do with children; he had enough of that back in that dystopian nightmare he called home. All they do is cry and scream and demand things and kill each other and eat all the food and lie and burn down buildings and generally make life unpleasant. Not that adults are always better, but at least someone's around to enforce order here.
He hums a snippet of Cliffs of Dover to himself, chewing on the end of a Tinker Toy, and starts typing in his notes.
no subject
"No, you took the weight of the ship on your shoulders when you signed up for medical. I'm only reminding you that you are no longer the only one at risk." He arched an eyebrow. "Of course, do as you like."
He shrugged. "Other kids have people to look after them, Conner took a shine to me and me to him, we get along. He's more at risk than some and he's a good kid. No harm to it. And yeah, I like kids." He snagged another biscuit, nibbling on it thoughtfully. "You don't, though. Too much of a risk, must be difficult dealing with so many of them running around."
no subject
"Don't worry, I won't come running to you when my guts start bleeding out," he says before stuffing another whole cookie in his mouth, gagging on the huge bite but swallowing anyway. "No, you're right, I really don't. Why's this Conner kid at such risk? I didn't have a chance to go over his file yet. I wasn't the one who interviewed him, obviously."
no subject
"I would treat you." He'd treated worse idiots in his time, after all. People who had done much more risky thing than chew on a toy. "He's got less time than most. A few quick jumps and he isn't anything anymore." He didn't comment on the choking, wondering if he'd need to be providing some sort of assistance and if Howard would shred his arm like a stray cat for trying. Howard had reacted about as he'd expected to the offer of food, really, gagging included.
no subject
He washes down another large bite with more coffee, swallowing hard and wincing. "It's going so erratically, though. The patients aren't aging backwards at a steady pace. One day they're a few weeks younger, then suddenly they're a few years younger. I mean, there's doesn't seem to be a pattern of it accelerating, which is a good thing, but it's impossible to predict." And of course, that just makes this all even more of a race against time. Howard pulls out another clipboard with notes of it, skimming through the lists he made of ages people deaged to and approximate times they did so. Of course, it was all the more difficult to track when the patients hardly recognized it themselves. "The next jump could be it for any of them, and we don't know when it'll happen or even if it'll happen."
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Rory sighed, settling back in his chair and rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Yeah. Makes it harder, one moment we could have toddlers and the next ovum and no way to support it in any reasonable manner, forget the deaths that some of them have come back from, forget injuries. If we're not careful they could simply deage out of existance. And Conner, well...he's got so much less time to lose."
That was the practical explanation, of course. How much he cared about the child currently in his care had nothing to do with the practical, hands on explanation Howard wanted. He wanted the logical reason, not the emotionally driven one.
no subject
"I've been trying to figure out if there's a pattern that isn't super obvious, but you know, we didn't go over logger -loga - whatever, complicated math patterns in algebra one. And I gave it to Anwei and she couldn't make anything out of it." He furrows his brow and sucks on the inside of his mouth, frustrated again at how forces beyond his ken are wreaking havoc with his surroundings and frustrated with himself for being educationally inadequate to even figure out where to start on things. "And I went through to check if it correlates to really eventful moments in their lives and mostly, it doesn't. So I'm at a loss."
He raises an eyebrow at Rory's tone of voice at the last sentence. "This kid isn't just a patient to you," he says, stating the incredibly obvious.
no subject
"Yeah, same. I haven't been able to find anything. One moment a teenager and the next a child and no middling...if it were progressing with some sort of pattern we might be able to treat it. But so far it barely seems like we can slow it down. I mean, some of them have touched on really big moments, but for the most part it seems like someone just set the rewind button to stop randomly."
He smiled, fetching another biscuit. "Yeah? And?"
no subject
Howard nods, tapping his front teeth. He looks back at his notes, having entered the last sheet into the datapad. The numbers almost appear to be swimming. "I might call it a night. I don't think any of us are getting anywhere on this one tonight. At least, I'd need to take more math classes and that'll happen when hell freezes over."
"I didn't say there's an 'and'."
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He nodded. "Yeah, Amy will get cross with me if I keep working these all nighters. She rather prefers seeing me, on occasion. We've done as much damage as we can." He capped the biscuit tin, putting it back in his desk and draining his coffee mug. "Who's on shift next?"
no subject
Howard checks the schedule, running his finger over it as he does so. "Looks like Faiza'll be in soon."
no subject
He nodded. "I'll stay until she gets here, keep an eye on everything." He didn't offer anything like "go to bed", instead turning his attention back to the reports on his desk and sipping his coffee. "Have a good night."