If You Need a Doctor, I'll Examine Every Inch of You [Phys Evals; Open]

[meat_mooks]

Ever since the medical briefing on the comms, the medical bay staff has been preparing for an influx of appointments for physical evaluations, as well as a few walk-ins. After that, the hunt will be on for those who've been skipping such appointments.

A few of the staff members are going about their regular duties, expecting patients or simply biding time at the coffee machine until they're called on.

[OOC: please state the name of which med character(s) you want to administer the evaluation in the header to your comment. If you're fine with anyone tagging in, please indicate so. Available characters are Sakura, Howard, Dr. Faiza Hussain, Soren and Dr. Carson Beckett.]

Comments

How-How

[boobhat]

He came in for regular checkups still. Having your stomach torn open by an alien parasite did cause some long-term concerns; he sometimes had very bad muscle spasms in his abdomen that needed some relief in the form of muscle relaxants. He'd also been stabbed, shot, conked on the head, and generally knocked around much more than he should have been, and that wasn't even counting the fact he'd lost his leg before he'd even been picked up by the ship.

Lately, Hiccup had been feeling...off. Not entirely with it. His concentration was utterly shot, and he'd been having trouble sleeping and staying asleep. Occasionally his hands shook--which was a major problem where his blacksmithing was concerned--and it was starting to leave him a little worried about his health.

Altogether, it was too overwhelming to really deal with on top of all his responsibilities, which was why he'd quietly tendered his resignation from the Council and withdrawn from most of the things he was usually involved in other than the forge.

After everything that had happened, he just hoped that this whole shaky hands, insomniacal, foggy-headed thing wasn't something serious--he'd had enough seriousness for a whole lifetime, at this point.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Hey, you've been here before." Howard puts down the new patient paperwork and digs into a filing cabinet until he pulls up Hiccup's file. He gives it a skim. "Jeez, think you had enough awful happen to you?"

Howard gestures to a seat. It occurs to him that it should feel a little odd to administrate any sort of medical advice to the Council (who not only are a position of a authority, but a position of authority that he routinely badmouths for having the audacity to exist). Then again, Hiccup's resigned, so that should mean that they're effectively equals again.

"How's the gut muscles treating you?"

[boobhat]

"As far as awful stuff goes, I'm still waiting to break a new record by maybe falling off a cliff or getting run over by a stampede of alien sheep or something," Hiccup said with good humor. "Or both. But yeah, the gut's not doing so good lately. That's part of why I'm here. Muscle spasms. Also, I've been growing and had to adjust my automail so the leg muscles are hurting a bit, too. I think I need another shot of that muscle relaxing stuff."

Stacy Medicine was a bit more advanced than Howard's time, meaning that usually one shot of muscle relaxant and analgesic lasted a good few weeks rather than the medicine having to be taken daily. Medicine in Howard's time, in turn, was better than medicine in Hiccup's time, which generally consisted of salves, herbs, and walking it off.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"I got bit by a dinosaur," Howard adds, the epitome of helpfulness. "We can do a shot for you. Do we need to up the dose any, or would you rather just come in more often? Or do we just stick with the current routine and you stiff upper lip your way through the rough spots?"

He clicks his fingers for Stacy's tentacles to descend. "Anything else on your mind? You look a little tired, not that that's unusual around here."

[boobhat]

Hiccup just nodded at the dinosaur thing in normal-guy-that-gets-injured-a-lot camaraderie like he had mad respect for Howard.

"Current routine and I'll stiff upper lip it."

Stiff-upper-lipping was what Vikings generally did.

As the tentacles descended, he closed his eyes briefly, trying to quell the waves of nausea and the nervousness he felt at the sight of it. Just because he had to come to the Medbay every so often didn't mean he liked to be here. In fact, if he didn't have these recurring problems, he'd probably avoid the place entirely.

His eyes fluttered open again and he tried to carry on casually.

"Actually, that was the other reason I'm here. I've been having trouble sleeping and staying asleep and some trouble concentrating. That, along with feeling like I was accomplishing absolutely nothing was why I stepped down from the Council."

Oh hey, along with the gut-squirmy feelings he was feeling at the moment, his hands were doing that thing again.

"Annnd also there's this."

He held both his hands out. They were trembling.

"Comes and goes. I've been having trouble doing detail-work with my blacksmithing because of it."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Well, hate to break it to you, but you were accomplishing absolutely nothing."

Howard writes down what Hiccup tells him in neat print, then glances up at Hiccup's hands - and pauses. Because that's familiar. That's something Howard catches his own body doing as often as not, usually at night, usually paired up with the insomnia that seems to be going around the ship like the world's most brainsucking flu.

He gets closer and holds his pen out between two of Hiccup's fingers, judging how much they're trembling.

"Comes and goes with what?"

[boobhat]

"Hey, it wasn't for lack of trying," Hiccup said mildly to Howard's remark about the Council, but then he focused on his hands.

"It just...comes and goes. It's usually worse when I first wake up."

Particularly when he woke up from the nightmares.

"Is it something serious? It better not be something serious 'cause I'm getting pretty tired of serious."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Hey, you were one of the few councilors I liked. Not that I voted for you, but still." Howard will never vote another teen into anything. It's just a rule of his, one borne from watching the teens on his own council in the FAYZ, and it's unlikely to change for anything short of said teen being the only alternative to voting in Hitler.

"When you wake up at night or in the morning?" He furrows his brow and leans in close to the hands, then hands Hiccup the pen to see his dexterity while they're shaking. "Depends on how you define seriously, probably. It's not like, cerebral palsy or anything, if that's what you're thinking."

[boobhat]

"Both. Depends. But it's other times, too. Like right now."

He paused.

"I'll assume cerebral palsy is a bad thing?"

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Yeah. It is." Howard angles his head over to the side and bites his lip. "I want you to play a word association game with me. I say a word, you say the first thing that comes to mind. Okay?"

[boobhat]

Hiccup looked a little confused, but hey, future medicine, right? Who knew how it really worked. He'd follow along if Howard thought it'd help him figure out what was wrong with his hands.

"Oookay. Sure."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Here."

[boobhat]

"Stinks."

Understatement.

And he meant both "here" as in the Medbay and "here" as in Stacy.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard tries not to laugh as he put the blood pressure cuff around Hiccup's arm. "Home."

[boobhat]

"Gone."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Mood."

[boobhat]

"Miserable?"

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

To his credit, Howard manages to cover his mouth before he snorts.

"Sleep."

[boobhat]

"Nightmares."

Hiccup's blood pressure was through the roof. Much higher than it should've been for someone his age and physical condition--and he was in good physical condition now after all the time training with Zuko. His pulse was too high as well.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Every." Howard writes it down without letting it show on his face that something's off.

[boobhat]

"Time."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard makes an educated guess based on Hiccup's file. "Aliens."

[boobhat]

"Pain."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Fear."

He puts the pen between Hiccup's fingers again to see if he's trembling more or less since this conversation started.

[boobhat]

More. He was trembling more.

"Death."