Dr. Tanna Lanvin- Personal Update

[Nicolas Lepage 0]

Tanna shook her head slightly and frowned at the small news vid device sitting on the table before her. "DOOMED" screamed the headlines in letters so large, they filled the entire screen of the pocket sized machine Tanna carried it with her everywhere. She looked up for a moment trying to decide if she should scroll down to the article hiding somewhere below the garish headlines. She quickly decided to at least skim the reporter's story even though she already knew what it said.

 

It had been just over six weeks since the Rixian delegation completed their mission on the huge Federation station called Skyharbor Aegis. Within days of their return, all hell had broken loose on her homeworld. Tanna thought perhaps things would settle down after a week or so but that hadn't happened. Instead, the Rixian crisis had worsened. Even the development of a temporary vaccine had done little to quell the panic that now gripped every corner of the planet.

 

Tanna's personal situation had taken a turn for the worse as well. She had been the first recipient of "The Drug" as it had come to be known. The medication was doing precisely what Dr. Lepage said it would do. It slowed down the progression of her disease, the dreaded Rixian Plague. It was not a cure. No one ever claimed it was. But it bought her some time and it was now doing the same for millions of patients on Rixis.

 

The initial clinical trial, scheduled for a brief sixty days, was shortened to a mere twenty-five days because of the overwhelmingly positive results shown in the twenty-two hundred test subjects, Tanna included. The side effects were minimal and easily managed. Even before the okay was given, every pharmaceutical lab on Rixis geared up to mass produce "The Drug." The new medication was now widely available and, for a short time, brought back an element of hope to just about everyone on the planet.

 

But each day, more and more patients were diagnosed. A week ago, Tanna received word that her mother, a cousin and two of her cousin's young children had joined the ranks of those infected with the disease. Her superiors were gracious enough to grant her a one week leave so she could visit her parents and oversee her mother's initial treatments. She also made arrangements to see her cousin, Ulina, to insure she and the children were receiving proper medical attention.

 

Tanna was close to her father but she had always considered her mother arrogant and overbearing. At a very young age, she made a conscious decision not to behave the way her mother did. Yet, when she learned of her mom's illness, Tanna was far more upset than she ever believed possible. She hadn't yet told her parents that she too was a victim of the plague. She had struggled with how to break the news to them, convinced her mother would see her illness as a sign of weakness unbecoming the Lanvin family.

 

She finally told them the evening she arrived at her parent's home, the same house where she had lived until going off to university. Both of them seemed to handle the news fairly well. Later, she found her father in the backyard, crying. She understood his tears. His wife of over thirty years was afflicted with an incurable disease. Now he learns his daughter is suffering from the same illness. He was understandably distressed. Tanna sat down with him and told him about the research, the new medication and her hopes for developing a cure. They talked for over an hour. She had a similar conversation with her mother the following morning. It had not gone well. Her mother was willing to begin treatment but had no hope of living long enough to benefit from a cure. She had resigned herself to her fate. The same fate several of her friends were now awaiting. The same fate that other friends had already met.

 

Tanna gave up trying to help her mother feel better. The truth was, Tanna herself wasn't completely convinced a cure would ever be found. Her mother may have sensed that. She had hoped she would be more successful when she visited her cousin but she came away from Ulina's home with a deepening sense of dread. Tanna glanced again at the headlines. That word...doomed....as hard as she tried, Tanna couldn't help but wonder if it was an accurate description of what was going to happen to her people.