23rd Ashan, 717
She'd been working there a while now, since the beginning of the season and she had gotten to know the place, the organisation and the systems. Become familiar with them, she might have, but Faith was not exactly keen on the systems ~ there were massive gaps in them as she saw it. However, that was a fight for a different trial, she knew. Right now, she was the new one and needed to settle in.
This shift, she was working in the walk-in clinic, which meant that she had no idea what she’d meet or have to deal with. Faith had tried to make sure that she was as prepared as always, but the reality with this new place was that, simply put, Scalvoris had a number of diseases which were specific to the place. So, she’d stopped at the library and borrowed a book on them, then went into work a break early in order to try and do some reading up. Having made herself a cup of tea, Faith was just sitting in the staff break room in order to read up, when one of the other medics came in and looked around. She was the only person in the room so he turned and spoke to her, his tone urgent. ”We’ve just had four people come in who all seem to be having some kind of brain aneurysm, and another three who have been trampled by a horse. All hands.”
With a nod, Faith stood, moved over to her small locker, put the book in and pulled out her white coat, which she put on and then moved. Rolling the sleeves up, she considered that no one ever thought about small people, she must look like she was playing at dress up. Still, as she walked through the clinic doors, it was bedlam. The people who had been in the horse trampling had doctors around them, in a bed bay to the left. Faith turned to look to the right and she saw that three of the four that side had doctors around them, but there was one who did not. She grabbed the notes and moved over to him.
The patient was a human man, looking to be in his early to mid twenties. He was sitting in a chair next to a bed,his hands pressed to his temple and was rocking back and forth, mumbling in pain. ”Hello, I’m Faith. I’m one of the doctors here. Can you tell me, what’s your name.” She watched him as she spoke, internally calculating his breathing rate, which she noted down. There did not seem to be any respiratory difficulties, so she put her hand on his wrist, checking his pulse as he spoke.
“Gavin,” his voice was thick with pain and Faith smiled at him, purposely keeping her own tone calm.
”Hello, Gavin. You’re in pain, yes? Tell me about that, what are your symptoms?” His pulse was slightly faster than she’d like, but that might well be in response to the pain and she certainly wouldn’t consider it worrisome. As he replied, she noted the pulse and made notes on what he said.
“It’s my head. The light, the light just hurts. So much.”
Faith’s face did not change from the calm and curious expression. However, that was potentially difficult, because it was a definite warning sign. ”I see. Alright, well that’s something we call photosensitivity. It’s not uncommon and lots of things can cause it. I’m going to go and get you something to cover your eyes, alright?” Gavin nodded and Faith squeezed his arm, reassuringly. ”We’ll get you fixed up, quick as we can.”
She got up from her kneeling position then, moving over to speak to one of the nurses. In a quiet tone, she explained that the patient in bed three was experiencing extreme photosensitivity. The nurse frowned and replied that it was exactly the same for those in beds one, two and four. Faith nodded and replied with a calm voice. ”Then we have to initiate a quarantine.” The nurse looked like she was going to argue and Faith raised an eyebrow and added, with a more firm tone, ”Now. You know the risks.” There was a disease, after all, which attacked the brain and caused photosensitivity like this. It was highly contagious and often fatal. They couldn’t risk it.
Having retrieve a mask to put over Gavin’s eyes, Faith went back to him. As she did, she heard the quarantine order being given and the beginning of it being implemented. She prayed to Famula that she had caught this early enough that no one else should be infected. Putting on a mask which covered her nose and mouth, she moved back over to Gavin. ”Here we are, put this on and we’ll take some observations, alright.” She helped him put on the mask and, immediately, she could see that he was relaxing.
”The other three people you’ve been brought in with, Gavin, who are they?” He ‘looked’ at where her voice came from and answered with some surprise.
“Just men I work with.”
”And where do you work?” Faith hoped and prayed that it wasn’t anywhere public.
“We’re guards. Earth troops.” He wasn’t wearing his uniform, but he answered that with his next words. “We were having a drink together after work.” Of course they were, Faith thought. They had a job where they saw a lot of people on any trial, in a widespread area. Then, they’d gone somewhere with a lot more people who were likely to be a transitory crowd. Why, she considered, was she not surprised? If this was the contagious and potentially fatal disease she was thinking of, it was already out there.
