(http://daamanagement.co.uk/images_client/main/249_Josette_Simon-Square.jpg)<br/><strong>Jen Godly "V"<br/>Sickbay<br/>Wondering how in the hell so many people manage to catch STD's and how long the antibiotics can possibly hold out.<br/></strong><br/><br/><br/>Make do and mend. Words to live by. There was a lot of that going on lately. There had to be. With very limited supplies and not enough, well, everything to go round everyone was having to find clever and innovative solutions to all kinds of problems.<br/><br/>Wrap it before you dip it. Also words to live by. This was the third case of the clap today. There seemed to be some kind of epidemic going on. Did everyone on this ship just jump on the first willing set of genitals to walk past regardless of who they were attached to? It was enough to put someone off of the whole idea for life. Plus there was the inspections to go through.<br/><br/>She had been picking up a lot of new medical knowledge on this trip so far. They were short staffed in the medical department on board ship and in the division so any and all medics were pulling all kinds of extra duty. She now knew more about general practice than she felt was strictly healthy. Breaks were few and far between since signing on with this insane bunch of septics. (1) This latest patient, it seemed, had been living with the burning and a nasty itching for at least three weeks and could very well have been responsible for a lot of the social diseases on board. The inspection was an eye opener, though a little man, apparently from somewhere called 'The Bronx' according to his 'Bronx thugs for life' tattoo, had the biggest equipment Jen had ever seen. It was quite frightening. If the man was a grower instead of just a shower he would almost certainly have been causing tearing.<br/><br/>"I am afraid this had gone well beyond oral medication." Jen lied, this man needed to be taught a lesson. Though quite what that lesson needed to be was currently just out of reach, she was very tired. "It will have to be an injection to the infected area." Well, she had already been forced to put on latex gloves and handle his junk, she might as well stick a needle into it right?<br/><br/>"You what? Nah, man, I..." The man started trying to back up, which was complicated by the dark brown skinned woman who was currently holding onto him by a rather delicate part, her other hand already reaching for the hypodermic.<br/><br/>"Has to be done. Don't be a baby. Look away if you can't bear to watch."<br/><br/>This was only the third time she had seen a grown man faint dead away. Having made certain that he hadn't injured himself in the fall Jen jabbed him in the junk and swabbed the needlemark with antiseptic before asking an orderly to hoist him onto a gurney.<br/><br/>There was, as Jen was writing up her report, a request on the tannoy for members of her Troop to assemble in the Enlisted mess. The report done Jen collected her things and gave the head of staff present a nod, "Gotta go, his masters voice and all."<br/><br/>"I heard what you did to that specialist." The Captain currently in charge of sickbay was all smiles, "That story you are telling me later. In detail. I want to hear about the look on that boy's face when you pulled out that needle."<br/><br/>"You want to hear about the look on my face when he dropped his bloody trousers." Jen countered. "Later. I have to go play house with whatever wankers they put me with."<br/><br/>Things were pretty informal between the sickbay staff, a minor advantage of all the long hours and having shouted at each other enough times. All the kinks in the relationships had been worked out and everyone was comfortable with each other. They knew each others limits and what buttons they could push without causing meltdown.<br/><br/>The walk to the elisted mess took Jen past all kinds of strangeness, still the whole world had gone pretty strange lately and it was warmer and safer here on this ship than it was back in blighty. Her country was so badly wounded it would never be the same. The US was supposed to be slightly better, though not by too much. Still there was a lot of open country there you could just vanish into. Never a bad thing.<br/><br/>Arriving in the mess in question Jen wandered to the back of the room and took a seat, opening her battered copy of Tintinalli's Emergency Medicine she had blagged from one of the permanent med staff on board, Doctor Jackson. Jackson drank way too much and tended to cheat at cards, but she did both only when she wasn't likely to be on duty for a good long time. Consequently she had done neither the entire trip. She was however also one of the nicest most caring people Jen had ever met. Fun and effervescent with a bedside manner that would put the incomparable Florence Nightingale to shame.<br/><br/>The words were a little blurry and Jen rubbed at her tired eyes. Shit, she needed sleep, what was she doing awake and sat in this room for again?<br/><br/><br/><br/>(1) Cockney rhyming slang - Septic Tank = Yank