Coffee Before Medicine
Posted on Tue Jun 16th, 2020 @ 9:48am by Lieutenant Gunnar Arnason & Lieutenant Alan Harrison
1,266 words; about a 6 minute read
Mission:
Equivalent Exchange
Location: Haumea Medical Center
Timeline: MD - 04 : 1000 Hrs
Alan never liked going to the doctor. Not that he didn't like being healthy or appreciate the medical advances of the 24th century, but it always made him uneasy. However, Starfleet regulations made it clear that a check-up was mandatory upon arriving at a new assignment. His first impression of Haumea was that things were in disarray. From the news he'd heard before leaving Earth and on the transport over here, there had been an incident causing a starship saucer section (and only the saucer section) to be nicely placed on the ground near the colony. Starfleet had attempted to make the most of a bad situation by re-purposing this as the new headquarters of their delegation. However, Alan's division was instead located nearby in an actual building. One nice thing about being stationed on a colony instead of on a functioning starship is that there wasn't a requirement to constantly monitor critical systems, so he could leave his assistant chief in charge and step out for a bit to take care of some Starfleet requirements.
After arriving at the medical center, which seemed to be staffed by a mixture of Starfleet and civilian personnel, he was directed to clean, but spartan, exam room and told he would be seen soon.
Before long, the door slid open and a tall, and somewhat harried, man in Starfleet scrubs entered with a PaDD in one hand and a large mug of black coffee in the other. As much as he appreciated the new equipment and personnel the colony was receiving, a CMO did not seem to among deliveries, so he was stuck handling it all for the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, he gave a friendly smile as he came through the door. Most people were uneasy about exams and he knew on first look that the engineer in front of him was among that number, so he tried to help put him at ease.
"Hello, Lieutenant," Gunnar said, setting his mug on the side table. "I'm Nurse Arnason and I'll be doing your exam today. Before we get started, are there any medical issues or concerns I should be aware of?"
"Good morning. The only thing I can think of is my left leg. I shattered it during an away mission back when I was on space duty. It still hurts a bit from time to time," Alan replied, eyeing Gunnar's coffee with envy. He hadn't had a chance to grab a cup this morning, and he'd heard you could get real, non-replicated coffee if you ventured into the civilian part of the colony.
The medic glanced through his file, and began a scan. "It looks like that was a few years back. It might be the beginning of injury induced arthritis. Nothing to worry about," he assured him. "It's treatable, especially when it hasn't progressed too far." Noticing the man looking at his coffee, he added. "In fact, it wouldn't take much longer than drinking a cup of the cafe's special brew - at least if you nursed it bit."
"I'll have to check that out," Alan chucked, feeling a bit less tense than before. "I just arrived planetside yesterday, so I haven't gotten a chance to check out the local fare. But I've heard the coffee here is the real deal." Getting back on topic, he asked "Is that a procedure we can do now?"
"There are a few good places here. Real coffee is a bit rare since the one enterprising colonist to import the plants lost part of their crop when a greenhouse failed last winter, but our botanist has been working overtime on accelerating Arabica growth and yield, so I expect that's a temporary set back." Gunnar checked the rest of the readings. "You seem to be quite healthy otherwise, so there's no reason we couldn't do that now. It's essentially a specialized protoplaser treatment that reconfigures cartilage that's begun to calcify and abrade surrounding tissues. About a half hour of sitting still here, and then take it easy on exercise for the next two days."
"I heard about that wild cold snap you all had. I hope they get back up to speed soon. Without my morning coffee I can only function so long!," Alan exclaimed, half-jokingly. Noticing his leg start to ache a bit, he got back to the issue at hand. "Can I still walk around normally during that time? I'm the new Chief Engineer, so I figure I better know my way around the facilities here as soon as I can."
"You and me both," Gunnar laughed, nodding toward his ever present coffee mug. "I can't even call it morning coffee since I pretty much drink it all day. Fortunately the coffee shop in the cafeteria is really good. Jess, the lady who runs it, is practically a magician - she can make even replicated coffee taste almost real." He considered the sort of 'walking' an engineer typically did. "You'd want to limit tours of the physical plant and surrounding facilities, and definitely keep climbing up and down Jeffries tubes to a minimum. If that's not realistic for right now, we can always schedule for later. It's a very slow progressing condition, so couple weeks won't make any difference as far as treatment is concerned."
"I'll have to check that out - thanks! Might as well get the treatment out of the way now. Otherwise, I'll probably keep pushing it off until I forget. What difference is a few days delay in inspecting everything going to make? We're on a colony on an M-class world, so any systems failures are probably not going to be life threatening anyway," Alan laughed, "Plus, my assistant chief probably knows the colony inside and out already."
"A good call, I'd say," Gunnar agreed. "Your assistant chief made it through an unexpectedly cold winter and constantly rerouting half the systems because of a local creature with a taste for metals eating various parts, so I'd say he knows every inch of this place by now." He brought up a menu on his PaDD. "Here. I have to go get the equipment, so if you place an order, I'll pick you up a coffee on my way back."
Alan raised his eyebrows at the mention of the colony's previous issues, "Well, I guess colony life can be exciting at times. And, thanks, that'd be great!" He picked up the PaDD and punched in his order: standard Earth coffee with light cream and sugar. He'd tried raktajino and other coffee-like beverages, but he hadn't found one that he liked as much as the coffee of his home planet. It was something about its taste when roasted properly.
"You don't know the half of it..." Gunnar rolled his eyes slightly, but smiled. "Which reminds me. There was a virus going around over winter. It's mostly run its course now, but we're giving every new arrival an inoculation just to be safe." He picked up a hypo and applied it to Alan's neck, then retrieved his PaDD and mug. "I'll be back with coffee and your other treatment in a few minutes."
Alan nodded as the nurse left the room. The people here don't seem too bad, he thought to himself. After receiving his assignment to Haumea, he had worried about the monotony of colony life, as opposed to being on a starship. However, the nurse's amiability put him at ease. Figuring he had a few minutes before Gunnar returned, he pulled out his PaDD to check if anything had failed catastrophically in his absence.
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