Electric Storm

Dr. Bashir's Research

After his shift was done, Julian turned to his computer in his office to do some research. First he went through all of the various treatments that the doctor who was treating Ensign Tracy had tried.

Once he pulled up the list, he whistled in shock. It was a list, over the course of her twenty-four years of living, she had tried over 50,000 different treatments. The seizures had started when she was only a few hours old. Julian read over more of her file.

The current treatment was discovered when she was fifteen. Up until then, she had lived her life in a hospital room. It was too dangerous otherwise. Finally, this doctor had discovered this drug combination that would stop them from happening.

From there, she engaged in a rigorous plan of physical rehabilitation. Her education was able to continue beyond the most basic things. Luckily, she was a genius otherwise, she would be barely literate when the treatment was discovered. Before the breakthrough, she was seizing dozens of times per day, and her physical condition had been quite poor.

'Computer categorize the treatments based on types of drugs that were administered.' The computer worked in silence for a couple of minutes. Julian stretched and prepared to read through thousands of pages of doctors' notes.

He glanced up at the viewing monitor he had placed in Samantha's room. She had agreed just in case the seizures came back or something. The current treatment should work for a week, but this increased pain level suggested that it might not work for as long as normal.

He could see her lying in the biobed, peacefully asleep. Garek was still there, reading a book out loud to her by the looks of it as there was no sound coming from the monitor.

He turned back to the pages and pages of notes with a sigh and mustered up his courage to continue to read them.

After a couple of hours, he had barely made it through any of them as the notes from her various doctors were copious and detailed. Finally, Julian called it quits and turned to his quarters. He had tomorrow off which meant he could spend the day reading more notes.

In the morning, Julian checked in on Samantha, her oxygen levels were better than before but weren't quite up to where he wanted them to be. She would stay in Sick Bay for a little while longer. Samantha was listening to an audiobook while she rested.

Julian spent the day reading over notes and crossing off possible treatments that he had thought of before she came on board. It never hurt to have backup treatments on hand just in case.

Garek was sitting in his shop, sewing together a baby blanket for a pair of prospective parents. It was one of the many Starfleet officers that Garek didn't really pay much attention to. Regardless, he was sewing and plotting.

Julian had complained to him at their last lunch meeting about how he wanted to find a relationship with someone who wanted a long-term relationship instead of a short-term relationship. He had pursued Dax, but she wasn't interested in him in that way. Instead, they had chosen to be friends. One of his medical conferences was on Risa, he spent time with a fellow doctor, but she only wanted a short-term relationship and wasn't interested in anything long term.

Now, Ensign Tracy, there was a curious individual. She had courage and strength in the face of her condition. She had worked harder than anyone once a treatment was discovered, to catch up and surpass her classmates. Her conventional attractiveness was an asset to her. Garek didn't share the same opinions of beauty as those from Earth but neither was he unaware of it. Ziyal was much more to his taste. She, for some odd reason, loved him back.

Garek concluded that Julian and Samantha should get together and that they would make a lovely couple. They were both conventionally attractive and had similar interests. Samantha was curious about medicine, and well, Julian is a doctor. Now, to find a way for them to get together. First, Julian had to find another treatment that would work for her.

Samantha was listening to an audiobook of The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien. It was an old favourite of hers to read. Normally, she preferred the hard copy of a book, but in her weak state, an audiobook would do. She knew that Dr. Bashir had placed her on medical leave for a couple of weeks at least. All she had was time to recover from the treatment. Originally, it hadn't been painful, it had felt wonderful. She mused back to the first time that she had tried this treatment.

At the time, she hadn't been aware of much just fuzzy voices and peoples' hands. The seizures came too often for much to happen. Her eyes were super sensitive to light so she was blindfolded for most of the day to protect them. The doctor's kind voice she could hear as the IVs were attached. Slowly over the next couple of hours, her world had cleared up, the static inside of her head had disappeared. The doctor even removed her blindfold to reveal a clear world for the first time. She looked around at the people in the room. One person a woman must be her mother, and the man must be her father.

Together they had wept in relief. After the first week had passed without a single seizure, Samantha was overjoyed. Now she could do something with her life.

Several teachers came to visit her in the hospital that year as well as many people to help her develop her muscles. It took so much hard work to get to the point where she could at the age of eighteen, three years later, apply to Starfleet academy. As it turns out, having an eidetic memory helps a great deal.

Samantha smiled at the memory of one of her brightest moments. She mused further on her life in the Academy.

She had made friends with the medical staff but when it came to people in her year, not so much. They saw her as a liability with her file specifying that she would be restricted to Starbases or places where medical access could be assured for her. It limited her options.

Somehow, she made her mark and was sent out to DS9. Now, Dr. Bashir was facing the monumental task of finding another treatment in a week. Samantha didn't really want to think about how much pain she would be in if the next treatment went to 10 on the pain scale. It didn't bear thinking about.

She smiled, thinking about how gentle Julian was with her. He was professional, for sure, but before the engineer had come in, he had been reading to her with his lovely kind voice, the beginning of the Lord of the Rings. Then he was called away and so on. But in this moment, she loved the way that he read to her, peacefully sitting by her side.

The one thing about him was that he didn't see her as someone who couldn't be trusted to do things. He had cleared her to work on everything to do with engineering which included high places with a chance of falling. It was so much more than her last doctor had cleared her for.

She took the deepest breath that she could and glanced at the monitors. The monitor laughed at her with its chart reading 90% oxygen levels. Why was this taking so much longer to recover from? However, she did have hope that the intelligent, gorgeous Dr. Bashir would find her a treatment that would work, heck, maybe he would even find a cure.

Julian finally had worked through the list. Now he could review his list of possible drugs that would do what he needed them to do. He came across a drug that had recently been developed on Vulcan to treat a series of birth defects that had happened on the outskirts of their territory. The birth defects had created a series of seizure disorders that plagued the children of most of the women. Now he had to figure out the right dose for Samantha and try that drug next Monday. Then they would be able to tell if it worked.