Players: Angelo and Drew Daniels
Summary: Drew has a nagging cough and goes to visit Angelo
Date: January 10, 2011
Log Title: Nagging Cough
Rating: PG
Barnes Academy - Medical Center
The name medical 'office' rather undersells what his, in essence, a state of the art, high-tech and extremely well stocked medical bay and treatment center. There are always orderies and nurses in attendance to handle minor injuries and a doctor is always on call for more serious problems. In addition to a locked medicine storage facility, there are modules for isolating patients, a (hopefully never used) cryogenic storage and stasis module for preserving life (or bodies) when the local team can't stabilize a patient and a pair of ten bed infirmary modules attached to the main area. Each bed and exam table is equipped with the latest Stark-tech diagnostics gear.
One of the drawbacks to being a big company: people get hurt and need medical attention, for whatever reason. SHIELD isn't a big company, it's worse: it's a paramilitary arm of a semi-autonomous governmental agency which may or may not report to the UN, US government, or Some Unknown Masters. In any case it's on the side of the angels.
If it woren't then Angelo diLucci, PT, EMT, and in another year, Intern, would not be working here. He wouldn't be permitted to do so, by those unknown entities who granted him powers (well, imposed them really.)
He's currently in his usual SHIELD issue scrubs, and is currently working on what would be endless reams of paperwork, but electrons and bits take up much less space than full-fledged print. The afternoon slate is clean though; he's open for just walk-ins today.
Making his way into the Medical Office, Drew walks in dressed in his SHIELD-issues uniform sans white cowboy hat. he is coughing profusely as he makes his way in. He spots Angelo and waves and tries to get out "Howdy" but only gets out the first syllable when a coughing fit begins again. When done, "Darnit" he mutters as he frowns.
That earns him a raised eyebrow from the man in scrubs.
"That doesn't sound fun at all. You want me to take a look at it?" Angelo asks permission for this; some people seem uncomfortable when their physician can "cat scan" them with prolonged stare.
Nodding his head, "Yes, please." Drew moves closer and looks about the room, "Do I need to change into a hospital gown or something? I'm not a big doctor visit kinda cowboy." Drew exhales and offers, "I've had this damn cough since I got back from Texas after the holiday. Oh and Happy New Year!" He then coughs again.
"Not for me. Other doctors, you would."
Angelo's eyes, hair, ink, all light up for a moment, there's a hint of wings, and then it all pulls back and he shakes his head.
"You've got bronchial irritation, incipient emphysema, and you're currently low-oxygen. Went back to smoking in Texas, huh?" Ange begins typing furiously at his computer keyboard. "One sec, checking on the recommended treatment. I know I'll be saying to stop smoking, but that hasn't really worked before has it?"
Embarrasingly smiling, Drew says, "Yeah!" He looks down a moment at the floor and around the room not directly at Angelo and then mumbles, "Smoker's Lounge isn't helping much." He shrugs as Angelo lists all the symptoms and sighs and nods, "Yeah it hasn't really worked before. Quitting smoking."
Angelo nods pleasantly. "You're right. I can remove the physical craving but I can't take away the psychological craving. That requires you to WANT to quit, as well as requiring you to have the discipline not to cave in when pressure comes on. I recommended against the smoker's lounge, but the head of the agency is a tobacco addict."
He looks up from the screen, shaking his head. "OK, there's several non-narcotic cough suppressants and I can get you an OK for nicotine patches. Otherwise, you're just going to have to stay completely away from smoke and smoking for the next week, and you should lose the cough. After that, do not smoke, yourself, even if there are people smoking around you. If it becomes an emergency I can help, but you'll need to handle it the slow way unless that happens."
Listening to Angelo, Drew sighs a bit, "Wow. So it's that bad, huh." He ponders, "Well, I suppose I can quit. Or at least give it a cowboy's try." He laughs, but noting how serious Angelo is. He loses the laugh, "Well, What about that electric cigarette thing? I hear it's kinda like smoking without the nicotine? And what about cigarettes like cloves or non-nicotine cigarettes?"
Angelo raises an eyebrow at that. "Electric cigarettes? Never heard of them."
He continues in a patient voice. "If you vaporize or burn anything and suck it into your lungs, you're administering a drug, whether you want to be or not. Let me put this in terms you will understand. You know why you don't brush your teeth with a steel brush and battery acid, or use straight bleach to wipe your backside? That's because the tissues inside your mouth, your lower intestine, your eyes, and your lungs, all of them are very easily scratched, burned, chemically damaged. Clove oil is a carcinogen about five times stronger than tobacco, and it will ruin your lungs six times faster."
Hearing Angelo's lecture concerning smoking, "Well, Alright then. I will quit smoking then." The cowboy looks around, "That was an effective lecture, Angelo. So which is the best way to quit without cravings or anything crazy like that." Drew asks, "So it will be ok to be around other smokers? Just not smoke myself?"
"For a week or so, stay away from other smokers while they're smoking, to let your lungs heal. It'll be hard to give it up when you're around them, and the smoke leaves traces on clothes and surfaces, so even being in the area will re-inoculate you with the tars. In your case, because you had it so bad you were coughing, I'm going to recommend a short course of nicotine patches just enough to take the edge off, not to replace the drug completely."
Angelo shakes his head again. "I'm sorry to give you the bad news. We all like to think we're immortal, invincible and immune to consequences, but it just doesn't work out that way in practice, huh?"
Drew nods, "Yeah, I understand. So don't be around smokers when they smoke for the first week. And probably just avoid being around them when they smoke period." He grins, "Think I can do that." He smiles, "Thanks, Angelo. Oh and I meant to apologize for the last time we hung out at Coyote Ugly."
"Oh yeah?" After nodding at the repeat-back of his instructions, Angelo's eyebrow does that Spock thing again.
"How do you mean apologize?"
"Yeah." He raises an eyebrow, "I mean to apologize by outright apologizing. Sorry." Drew smiles, "Yeah, it was unprofessional and brutish to lash out at that couple."
That gets a serious nod in return. "Well, I accept your apology to me, but they're the injured parties, have you made it up to them?"
Angelo types a bit more, and a printer kicks out two prescriptions. "These are for the cough suppressant. There's a schedule. Three days from now, start the second ones. They have an expectorant, so you'll need to do a set of deliberate deep, sharp exhalations, without coughing if you can manage it."
Angelo demonstrates, sharp, almost barking hard exhales that aren't quite coughing. "Do that four times in a row, if you can, every half hour or so, to clear the gunk out. If you feel like you're going to cough, then don't do it, but it'll help de-gunk the lungs. The nicotine patches - use one whenever you feel that you cannot stand it if you don't have tobacco and you're going to give in. Don't use more than one every four hours, or you'll poison yourself."
"I did indirectly. I had something nice sent to their home." Drew looks over at the prescriptions and begins to imitate the breathing exercises as Angelo does them. He repeats it twice and then has to cough, so he stops to let the cough out. And then repeats the last instruction, "Don't overuse patches. They're potentially poisonous."
"Better if it came from you in person, for a number of reasons, but you did more than many. Don't do those exhalations until after you start the second set of pills, and yeah, the patches have about the same amount of nicotine as three cigarettes, but it almost all gets into the system."
A final click on the computer closes the file.
"So tell me what went on in Texas. You got to go back to visit family?"
Drew places the prescriptions into his pocket and then smiles to Angelo, "Well, I visited with my family during Christmas and then met up with Vicki and we went to El Paso to see the Sun Bowl game. Notre Dame played and won." He grins, "Though it was colder there that day than it was here."
"The stupid neighborhood bait thing? You mean the Mutant Town thing?" He shakes his head, "I heard it was pretty rough.Corrin was there and two of the students, Mike and Rashmi, I believe." He sighs, "I head it was pretty brutal. So I've also heard Magneto and some of the Xavier students spent their holiday break fixing it all up, so that's pretty good. I wonder if there are any leads on the bad guys behind it."
"Yeah. Several of our people were there. It was brutal, all right. Could have been avoided, but I guess Magneto was playing some kind of political game there too. And yes, there are leads, this is SHIELD, they know who was doing all of it."
Angelo shakes his head, frowns. "And I went back yesterday to check on some patients. The buildings were repaired, to some degree, the streets were fixed, but in the aftermath, I counted fifteen dead mutants, four dead non-mutants, and seventy people were injured, some of them aren't going to recover without supernatural help. That was at my treatment station. I don't know what happened elsewhere."
Shaking his head, "Wow that is a high count. Yeah it was pretty devastating down there. I went down myself a few days ago. Met a mutant human-platypus hybrid." Drew hmmmns, "Well glad to see everything is on it. Quetzal said something about investigating."
"I'd check the duty rosters," Ange says drily, "If they're not classified. I'm just an old-fashioned city physician, I don't do spy stuff." Yes, that was a deliberate Star Trek misquote.
Drew smirks, "I see. I'll look up the duty rosters." He coughs some more, but much less than before, "Looking forward to that stopping." He peers about, "Oh, so will you be chaperoning that dance?"
"Don't know. I could, I suppose. Haven't thought about it, I've got fewer students among the dance group and more among the agents lately." Such being the nature of classes that only take a few weeks at a time. Angelo looks over, a pondering expression on his face.
"Why, do you think they need more people? When's it happening?"
"Don't know. I spoke with Jeremy last night. He is on the committee with Caleb and Rashmi." Drew shrugs, "Apparently, Jessica Drew and Emma Frost, the headmistress of the Xavier Institute, want the children to plan the whole thing. We'll just be chaperoning, if they needs us." Drew offers, "It's supposed to be a 1920s theme. Should be interesting."
"Jeremy Inada. Or Rewind." Drew responds, "He is a student. High schooler. With the power to see anyone's past upon skin contact. He has tactile post-cognition is the official wording in the file."
"That guy. Yeah, one of the 'special do not touch' cases. He doesn't need to see my past, unless he'll die otherwise. No fun that."
Angelo stretches, logging out from his computer. "Shift's over, I need to head out. I have a class tonight in thirty minutes. One of those times I'm glad I can fly."
