Bad Medicine | Dakota

[Ashley Bates]

“What do you mean your head hurts?” Ash asked a Dionysus kid who had wandered into the infirmary a few minutes ago nursing a hangover with a self-professed splitting headache. Ash wasn’t much of a doctor but he had a pretty good idea that if you drank until your body physically rebelled against you a splitting headache was probably the least you deserved. He also didn’t know what kind of infirmary this was but he was pretty sure that the camp had more important things to worry about than people coming in with self-inflicted migraines and tummy aches.

“Well what did you expect would happen when you drink like a drowning man in the ocean?” He said before the camper could even get out a response. “What would happen if a monster attacked while you are nursing your swimming head? Would you cry their pardon and ask them to come back later when you had control of your senses? Bah!” Ash threw up his hand in the campers face before he could mount a defense for his actions. Perhaps he wasn’t concerned about such things but they didn’t need this fool being the weak link that broke apart at the first sign of trouble.

“Aspirin?” He asked as he saw the camper’s eyes drift to the medicine bottle on the stand beside him. “No you can’t have any aspirin. Go dunk your head in the lava flow at the wall. Maybe that would clear it up for all the good it does you. Now out!” The camper seeing that he would be getting no sympathy from the son of Apollo today wisely turned tail and ran / stumbled from the infirmary to seek solace elsewhere.

Ash watched him satisfied that he had cleared out another bed for a more deserving patient. Such had been the case many times since he had started helping around the infirmary and on a whole Ash was pleased that things seemed to be running a lot more smoothly. No longer did they have to worry about slackers coming in and hogging up the attention of the workers to bandage up insignificant cuts and scrapes. Now the seriously injured could be taken care of in a timely manner and wasn’t that what the infirmary was supposed to be about? Ash thought so and he was making it his one man mission to make it so one patient at a time.

[Dakota King]

Dakota was surprised that Ash agreed to helping out in the infirmary. It meant that would be able to spend just a little bit more time together than they were already, but it was proven to be difficult. The infirmary was somehow seeing less patients than usual and people kept complaining about Ash and his bedside manner. Dakota was in denial for the longest time, but on one particularly slow day, she decided to just observe Ash. But she saw the whole thing go down with the Dionysus kid and she couldn't help but shake her head as she approached him.

"Hey, Ash?" she said as she got closer as she crossed her arms over her chest as she was trying to figure out the right words to say to him. "You really..." She pursed her lips together before she continued, "You really shouldn't tell patients to dunk their head in the lava flow. That's not very good medical advice."

[Ashley Bates]

Ash had begun to busy himself with cleaning up after his latest patient. He didn’t understand why the infirmary was even letting this rabble in the door. The camp had enough to worry about without having to drain their resources taking care of those who either didn’t really need help or were stupid enough to injure themselves. At least this one hadn’t stuck around for too long but gods alive he couldn’t imagine all the work they would be putting in if they helped every one of these so called patients.

Dakota’s voice behind him interrupted his activities and caused him to turn around. She was standing there with her arms crossed and her lips pursed. She did not seem happy for some reason though Ash didn’t really know why. He had just run off another lazy camper trying to get out of a day of training. That should have at least gotten him a kiss. Instead she was telling him that he wasn’t giving good advice. “Perhaps not.” He said after some consideration. “But I have called things as they are my whole life and that camper needed some hard talking if he was going to get his act together.” He paused again wondering what might really be the issue here and then continued. “Are you alright Dakota? You seem tense about something.”

[Dakota King]

Dakota knew this wasn't going to be an easy conversation at all, but it was one that had to be done, especially if lava dunking advice was being given. She pressed her lips together as she tried to search for the right words as Ash was considering what she just said. Sure, some people needed some hard love, but sometimes Ash was a little too hard. But he could tell that something was wrong and brought it up. The jig was up. She had to tell him. She sighed as she loosened up her crossed arms a bit. "Ash, I love that you agreed to help out in the infirmary, but I don't think it's a good match," she finally admitted with an apologetic smile. "You kind of need a.... gentle touch around here and the other campers don't think you're that gentle." She nodded her head towards where the other camper ran off to. "Besides, it's a matter of time we hear from Chiron about that because that guy complained."

[Ashley Bates]

Dakota relaxed a little as she continued talking but her tone of voice told Ash that this wasn’t going to be a good kind of conversation. Even as she tried to soften the blow Ash frowned at the direction this conversation was going. A gentle touch? Ash wasn’t especially well known for being gentle and so what if the guy complained? Perhaps he would have to explain to Chrion why he was getting drunk at camp and wouldn’t that be an interesting conversation. Still, Dakota was not pleased with him and that Ash didn’t like.

“Okay.” He said simply as he wrapped his head around the fact that she was essentially firing him from his duties. Ash had never been fired before and he wasn’t looking forward to it now especially considering the fact that he still thought of his actions as being fairly justified. Instead of giving up though he decided to give it one more shot. “Show me then. Let me shadow you for a while and see what you’re talking about. Maybe I can learn the ‘gentle touch’ I’m supposed to use.”

[Dakota King]

Dakota had no clue how this conversation was going to go or how Ash would take the news. Not only that, but she was concerned how it would affect their relationship since he only took on shifts in the infirmary to spend more time with her. However, it seemed like he was willing to learn a gentler touch, which brought Dakota relief. She wasn't really sure how she was going to go about firing her boyfriend from infirmary duty anyhow.

"Okay," she said as she nodded her head. "There isn't any harm in shadowing me." She visibly relaxed as she nodded over towards the back of the infirmary. "I'll start off with showing you how I deal with the stubborn one back here."

[Ashley Bates]

Ash knew that he wasn't a healer. He could hit a bird on the wing at 60 yards with relative ease but his father's healing song he did not have. He wasn't sure why he struggled with it so much but perhaps it had something to do with what Dakota was talking about. Maybe this so called gentle touch was required but if so could he learn it? He guessed they would soon find out.

"Alright." Ash said as he glanced over at the patient Dakota was referring to. He had noticed that one when he had come in. Ash hadn't been able to make it over yet but he probably would have before too much longer to run them off. It was better to free up the extra bed space...but that wasn't what they were going to be doing. "I'll follow your lead but I still think it would be better to kick him to the curb." This was going to be interesting.

[Dakota King]

The stubborn patient in the back came in earlier after a session on the climbing wall went wrong. Even if Ash thought they needed to kick him to the curb, Dakota was determined to help this patient out and show Ash that gentle touch. Dakota was pretty sure the patient had a dislocated shoulder and possible fractures to their collarbone. She nodded to Ash towards the patient as she walked over to them. "And how are we doing today?" she asked as she approached the patient. She smiled as she put on examination gloves and started touching the patient along the shoulders. "And what exactly happened?" And while they were going off, she was able to feel which shoulder was dislocated. She waited for them to take a breath before she moved it back into place without any warning. They cried out in pain, but she had a smirk on her lips as she fetched a piece of ambrosia out of her pockets to give to them. "You would've complained if I warned you," she said as she glanced over at Ash. "But eat up. You should be healed up in an hour and be ready to go."

[Ashley Bates]

Ash followed Dakota over to the patient who was complaining of the shoulder pain. In Ash’s opinion they could give the kid some ambrosia and a little over the counter pain killer and he thought the kid would be fine in a few hours but he wasn’t the professional here, Dakota was, and for now he decided to sit back and watch his girlfriend do her job as she saw fit. Maybe he could pick up some tips and tricks after all.

As it turned out watching Dakota work wasn’t such a bad thing. Not only did he get to admire the pretty nurse in her natural element but she also handled things quite efficiently. As the camper was going on and on with their whining about their injuries Ash watched as Dakota got prepared and slammed the camper’s shoulder back into place with satisfying force. Yeah, that was his girlfriend right there. She knew what she was doing and the little smirk she wore as she explained her methods made it all the better.

Ash waited for her to come back over nodding his approval when they finally got far enough away not to be heard. “That was very informative. I like how you didn’t give him any warning. It was effective and if he had known he would have complained about you doing it.” He frowned a little bit though as he thought the matter through. “Why let them leave when they want though? We could use that bed for another patient. Surely that’s more important than giving them an hour to nurse their wounds.”

[Dakota King]

Dakota was a bit satisfied with how that encounter went with that patient as she walked over to Ash. Hopefully he learned a thing or two from that. She pulled her gloves off and tossed them in the trash as she looked over as Ash was asking her a question. Why keep them longer than they wanted to be? She shrugged as she looked over at Ash.

“Mostly to make sure there's no complications,” she said with a bit if a sad smile. “It's probably more common in mortal medicine, but they keep them longer to make sure there isn't a allergic reaction or any more issues that were underlying. I know everybody here thinks it's not necessary, but I was in nursing school before this demigod stuff came up.”

[Ashley Bates]

Ash considered the wisdom of Dakota’s advice and slowly nodded. He couldn’t say that it was the most efficient way of handling things but he supposed that it was better than the injured coming back to them later with a worse injury all because the medical staff hadn’t been there to observe them. He decided to let the issue go for now and at least see if her advice would pan out. She was pretty much in charge here in the infirmary so it was worth following the advice.

“You never told me you were claimed so late.” He said as he leaned back against a cabinet and watched her. He supposed it didn’t matter but he did find it a little interesting since most of the demigods at camp arrived as younger teenagers. “I guess it’s good to have some background in both human and godly medicine but what do you think you’re going to do about the rest of your schooling?”