opnet [OpNet] Healing & other power use: How do you decide?

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

I'm a nova healer. Not a great healer by nova standards, but I'm the real thing. I was reading the forum here and Neil posted something I thought was interesting.

Originally Posted By: Neil Preston

Machina, if you would please put me in contact with your buddy's sister, I would like to see if I could help her out.

I'm sure Neil and I are at opposite extremes. I heal almost no one. I have other work that I view as more important in the long run, so I avoid the clinics that have patents that could use it. I almost never look up anyone outside of family.

I don't turn people away, if someone shows up on my doorstep I'll do what I can... and sometimes I get sucked into the bigger disasters. But it'd be easy to do nothing but Heal. As far as I can tell, there is a bottomless ocean of need or use for Healers.

So Neil or anyone who wants to talk about this. How do you deal with this? Who do you heal and how do you prevent it from consuming your life? How do you decide? Who do you pass bye?

[Trooper]

Now this shit I'm interested in reading.

C'mon skin-stitchers, pony up with some wisdom.

[Neil Preston]

1) Learn to take care of yourself first. If you don't have your own house in order, you are going to make a mess out of helping others. I've already bungled that one pretty good, and I'm trying to get my life back on track.

2) Realize you can't save everyone. There is more harm in the world than any nova has the quantum, time, or ability to heal.

3) Learn to make people better instead of totally fixed. That way you can help more people. As I have become more experienced, I find I'm able to do more healing with less exertion.

Beyond that, a dozen aid organizations have my number, as well as DeVries and Project Utopia. I prefer working for Doctors Without Borders, because I've made some really good friends there, but I go were the wounded are whenever I can.

Lastly, just because someone has the ability to heal doesn't mean they are cut out to be a physician. Don't expect them to be something they are not. Its kind of like expecting someone with the quantum expression of flame manipulation to be an elite. Elites are their own special breed, just like healers.

[Warren Verona]

I can heal.

No, seriously, I can. Not like you guys do mind you, but I can do it.

You see, I can 'see life'. When a person is healthy and strong, I can see it. When they're frail and dying I can see that too.

Basically, it's the same concept as a D-fib, you know, the little devices with the electric paddles that shock your heart. My power works like that. It seals wounds to stop blood loss, and completely stabalizes a person.

I know it may seem that I can 'bring people back from the dead' but it's just a quantum method of doing what technology can already do (I just have a higher chance for success.)

I've never really disscussed it much, a person like me doesn't have much use for saving people.

Q: How do you deal with this?

A: I don't use it.

Q: Who do you heal and how do you prevent it from consuming your life?

A: I don't heal anyone.

Q: How do you decide?

A: Ahh, good question. How does one with an ability like mine decide who to 'revive' and who to let die?

Death is a natural thing. No one dies 'on accident'. If you're dead, it was your time. Suck it up, move on.

I consider the ability to call back someone's soul to be a gift, for me as well as them. With that gift comes the understanding that nature must not be disrupted.

Q: Who do you pass bye?

A: Everyone.

[Lou Anne Burgess]

I’m not a Healer in the sense that Neil or even Revenant are, the ‘touch someone and they’re better or at least stable’ way. I’m a healer in the doctor, surgeon, psychologist sense. Whether that will change and I’ll be a member of both camps is something that I’m considering since the loss of my Father in December. In his case I don’t think that being a Healer would have mattered as I couldn’t physically get to him in time, I could only evacuate him and hope that maybe someone else could save him.

That’s the hardest part though, and something that Neil touched on but didn’t state explicitly. You have to know your limits and you have to realize that different circumstances will change what those limits are.

Using surgery as an example, a dedicated surgeon could theoretically put in a 12-16 hour [or longer] day doing surgery after surgery here in the States. They have access to things that many people take for granted; air conditioning/heat, coffee/tea/soda, a well stocked hospital. That same surgeon might only be able to work for 3-4 hours a day in The Sudan or other third world areas. The environment, lack of light, power, supplies and quite honestly, depression from the conditions people live in down there all are going to take a toll on when exhaustion sets in or when conditions aren’t fit to continue.

At the same time, those same factors can help keep you going long after you normally wouldn’t be able to see straight. Helping in a MSF field hospital in a war zone, doctors will literally work until they can barely stand or are forced to take a break to eat or sleep. Adrenaline from nearby fighting and the knowledge that lives of people being prepped for surgery could be measured in minutes or less keep you going trying to do as much as you can as long as you can, and then some.

When do you stop and say that you can’t help anyone else? That’s actually easy if you know your limits. You stop when trying to continue will do more harm than good, that harm could be to yourself just as much as to the prospective patient. I will freely admit that I hate to see people suffer, but I have a responsibility to myself to keep myself healthy so that I can treat them. Just as importantly, I have to keep my marriage healthy. Rachel and I will be celebrating our 12th Wedding Anniversary this June and that would simply not be possible if I didn’t know when to stop and go home.

So to bulletize your questions like Revenant did:

How do you deal with it?

By knowing your limits and remembering that a Healer must have themselves as a patient as well. If you let yourself go to pot, how can you help others?

Who do you heal and how do you prevent it from consuming your life?

Everyone that I can within reason. I try to help those in the worst straits possible. As for preventing it from consuming my life, see above for one. You must know what you value and you have to know when those things you value are in danger of harm if you don’t stop. While it sounds simple, it’s not easy to follow.

How do you decide & who do you pass by?

I try to help those whose needs match my ability to heal best. If someone’s outside my ability then it’s best if someone else can treat them as creating false hope for them or their friends and family could be far worse than doing nothing in the first place. Once my limits have been reached, I will be forced to pull back and pass others by, again, to do no harm to them.

I like the Modern Hippocratic Oath as a guide line. I know it’s not for everyone, a lot of medical schools don’t even use it any more (in any form), but it sets a reasonable ethical bar that one can keep in mind.

[Roma]

I think its great you help others. I wish more thought the same way.

[Preston]

Mrs. Burgess, would you mind if I put you on my list of consultants? Knowing multiple decent nova physician is always useful.

[Neil Preston]

Originally Posted By: Revenant

Death is a natural thing. No one dies 'on accident'. If you're dead, it was your time. Suck it up, move on.

I consider the ability to call back someone's soul to be a gift, for me as well as them. With that gift comes the understanding that nature must not be disrupted.

Well, that's a fucked up way of looking at things. I can see people's relative health as well. Of course, to me if the person is unwell, its an indicator that I should aid them because its within my "natural" powers to do so.
Saying it was someone's time to die is like saying you shouldn't get out of the way of falling rocks because its a natural phenomena. No. You move. You make a choice to get out of the rock's way.
Revenant, you have made the choice to not use your QE to help others. More power to ya, but don't go around saying that its "natural" when it isn't. That's just close-minded, fundamentalist crap.

Lou Anne, I actually save more people through my medical skills than I do through exercising my Quantum Expressions. Don't knock the physician as healer. You are the best kind of people in my book.

[Lou Anne Burgess]

Originally Posted By: Revenant

Basically, it's the same concept as a D-fib, you know, the little devices with the electric paddles that shock your heart. My power works like that. It seals wounds to stop blood loss, and completely stabalizes a person.

And can we assume that like a defibrilator, if you were to use this on a healthy person that it would kill them?

Originally Posted By: Revenant

Q: How do you deal with this?
A: I don't use it.

Q: Who do you heal and how do you prevent it from consuming your life?
A: I don't heal anyone.

At the risk of your approval rating going up, how do you know you have it if you don't use it? I certainly didn't get an instruction manual when I erupted.

Originally Posted By: Revenant

Q: How do you decide?
A: Ahh, good question. How does one with an ability like mine decide who to 'revive' and who to let die?...

I never thought I'd say something like this, but... While I can't say I'm a fan of how you expressed yourself, that's all very valid and mostly in keeping with a proper ethical standpoint. Too focused on the death part though. In fact, it's close to a paragraph from the Hippocratic Oath.

Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.


Thanks

Lou Anne

[Neil Preston]

I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

That's the part that always comes back to me and with which I often wrestle.

[Lou Anne Burgess]

Originally Posted By: Preston

Mrs. Burgess, would you mind if I put you on my list of consultants? Knowing multiple decent nova physician is always useful.

Um, Officer Preston, I've been with the Nova Response Team for several years now. I should be in your Rolodex already.

[Preston]

Yeah, I'm looking pretty red in the face right now.

[Lou Anne Burgess]

Originally Posted By: Preston

Yeah, I'm looking pretty red in the face right now.

You have a lot on your mind, I wouldn't worry about it.

[Good Alice]

I do not heal people.I do things that help people,and I have thought long and hard about this question. There is no one answer. No one can know everything, and no can understand what is the best coarse of actions for everyone. I do not even think we know what is best for ourselves. So I do not know if there is not an answer but I do not think there is.

That does not mean I think healing is wrong I just do not know how judge who needs it more, or who does not need it.

[phoenix]

I can heal, and rather powerfully, although I use this gift sparingly most of the time. I am no physician, nor do I wish to lead that life. I heal according to my faith and judgment. I heal those I think will benefit from it, and I mostly heal only to prevent death, because preventing suffering is just as bad as preventing enjoyment, but I do not believe in the universally negative interpretation of death that is most common in society, and, as thus, I don't think that extending life in all situations and at all costs is the kindest action to take towards individual souls.

[Warren Verona]

Originally Posted By: Neil Preston

Originally Posted By: Revenant

Death is a natural thing. No one dies 'on accident'. If you're dead, it was your time. Suck it up, move on.

I consider the ability to call back someone's soul to be a gift, for me as well as them. With that gift comes the understanding that nature must not be disrupted.

Well, that's a fucked up way of looking at things. I can see people's relative health as well. Of course, to me if the person is unwell, its an indicator that I should aid them because its within my "natural" powers to do so.
Saying it was someone's time to die is like saying you shouldn't get out of the way of falling rocks because its a natural phenomena. No. You move. You make a choice to get out of the rock's way.
Revenant, you have made the choice to not use your QE to help others. More power to ya, but don't go around saying that its "natural" when it isn't. That's just close-minded, fundamentalist crap.

Ahh. So, I should be like you? I should meander off at the beck and call of every Tom, Dick, and Harry who scrapes his knee and instead of looking for a band-aid calls Neil Preston.

Why? Well, because Neil will fix it and make it all better.

It's fucking pathetic. Adversity breeds strength. I am the way I am (personality aside people, we all know 'Asshole' is incurable) because I have bled, recovered, and bled again. The pain of every mistake or accident has been a lesson I have learned from and grown stronger from. It has made me realize my limitations and never stop trying to exceed them.

This doesn't just go for me, it goes for ALL people, nova, and baseline alike.

You fuck up the curve Preston. You don't force people to get better, you 'heal' them and send them on their way. When a man gets his leg crushed, you don't slap him on the shoulder and say "Hey, tough break. A few years of Physical Therapy and you'll be hobbling like a pro. Buck up!" No, you don't. You hela em and send them on their way and they have gained nothing from the experiance but a brand new leg and a seed planted that tells them if it happens again, Novas will make it all better.

I don't want to end up like you Preston. With a beautiful woman like Flicker at home that I could be balls deep in (and I'd bang your GF in a heart beat) but instead I'm out spending more time weakening the human race with my Jesus act.

No fuckin' way. Gimme Flicker any day.

But that's just me.

[Long]

I envy all of you that have the power to heal. I agree that it is a great gift, and an awesome responsibility. The good that can be done with it is incalculable.

[Y.T.]

Can I not heal people by stopping others from harming them?

[Warren Verona]

Originally Posted By: Lou Anne Burgess

And can we assume that like a defibrilator, if you were to use this on a healthy person that it would kill them?

This is true. When a person is at 'Death's Door' (those precious moments where the brain is still active but the rest of the body has shut down) I have two options.

1. I may perform 'The Calling'. The act where I touch the person and restart their body, mind, and soul. IF their natural lifespan still has some years left in it, most likely they will return. If they have lived all the years they were meant to, there is no power, not even mine, that can summon them back.

2. Imprint the soul, absorb their skills, abilities, and powers. This seperates their soul from the body preventing any sort of revival, enven if they still had eight minutes for EMT to arrive.

Although I always get a kick watching EMT try anyway. Heh. Tenacious group of bastards they are sometimes.

Originally Posted By: Lou Anne

At the risk of your approval rating going up, how do you know you have it if you don't use it? I certainly didn't get an instruction manual when I erupted.

I've always only saw death. People wither, objects decay, shit like that. One day, when a young girl was dying I saw life for the first time since my eruption.

Lemme tell you all something, when all you've seen is nothign but death and decay all around you for almost a life time, even the slightest glint from a ray of life would be eough to make you weep.

An I almost did. Instead I vomited. Kid woke up though, still makes me sick thinking about it.

Originally Posted By: Lou Anne

I never thought I'd say something like this, but... While I can't say I'm a fan of how you expressed yourself, that's all very valid and mostly in keeping with a proper ethical standpoint.

Thanks Doc.

Quote:

Too focused on the death part though.

Uhh... I'm an Angel of Death... it's kinda what I do... the whole... death... thing.

[Angelboy]

Playing healer is a suckers game. I can do it but fuck 'em no one deserves it but me and anyone I feel like giving it to.

Problem with the whole Jeezus bullshit once you do it they always gonna be getting up in your biz, begging you to save 'em or their old lady, or their granny, or someone. Pretty soon you got a line out side your door that ain't never gonna get shorter.

Fuck that shit.

[Leliel]

Though I cannot heal others in any manner, I can appreciate the existence of such people.

I myself am more towards Revenant's view of things. Death is a necessary part of existence for the world, and my own QE puts me firmly on the side of Death.

Touching my energy form can rapidly draw the life energy out of a person, reducing them to a mummified husk. Needless to say this makes for a rather interesting social life...

But Revenant is absolutely correct. Without Death, Life becomes worthless. The tough part is determining when it is a person's time to go.

[Origami]

Well, I can say for one, if your power allows you to revive someone from what resembles chunky salsa, I say go for it if they don't suffer because of your "good deed".

If it doesn't harm anyone, including yourself, it's worth doing.

Then again, there's always that damned "butterfly effect" some people keep ranting about and all that blah-blah. All I care about is what is the right thing to do. If it is better to let the person pass on, that is what is to be. But if they have a chance and you have it in your power to save them... at least by my view it's time to save them.

[Lemmy Chillmeister]

Originally Posted By: Leliel

Death is a necessary part of existence for the world...

Um...for the fucking baseline world maybe. Shit I'm told says I could live for fucking ever if I'm cool little cookie.

[Roma]

Dr Smith you said "other powers". A healer has a hard row. All the world would be their patient if they let it be so. But what of the healers distant cousins, the time breakers?

A healer can cure disease and ease the ravages to the body. A time breaker makes it as if there was never a disease. If there is a span to a life as the Revenant claims, what is the power of the time breaker that she can ignore the span to reset the clock?

[Neil Preston]

Revenant, people come to me because they are in adversity, not to avoid it. I do not deny people their suffering, nor normally deprive them of its memory, though I do bring their suffering to a beneficial conclusion when I can.

Imagineer, don't you think that is all part of the healing process? To restore the body to the condition before its afliction is the purest form of the Healer's Art. The body has an enormous capacity to heal itself. Sometimes, all it needs is the time and if I can give it that, why shouldn't I?

[Doctor Nova Madigan]

Originally Posted By: Revenant

No fuckin' way. Gimme Flicker any day.

Be careful what you wish for.

[Mithril]

Originally Posted By: Flicker

Originally Posted By: Revenant

No fuckin' way. Gimme Flicker any day.

Be careful what you wish for.

O.o

[Matryoshka]

Revenant..Do you think you are alone in seeing death all around you?

I Erupted to visions of my children dying. I saw the world covered in pain. I note saw these deaths. I felt them. I look at someone, and I see them from the start to the end. I wake up everyday thinking I can finally set aside those pains of seeing, feeling and knowing how each person I see will die.

So Revenant, you claim to be an angel of death? You claim to only see dead things. Try only seeing things dying. No, you are to wrapped into your own ego trip to understand that you are not he only one who suffers. If you wish to see the world through my eyes, I show you what it means to be me. Maybe then you understand that you are not alone. Do not worry about replying I know what you will say. One day I will see you along the river too.

[Hugin]

Originally Posted By: Matryoshka

I Erupted to visions of my children dying. I saw the world covered in pain. I note saw these deaths. I felt them. I look at someone, and I see them from the start to the end. I wake up everyday thinking I can finally set aside those pains of seeing, feeling and knowing how each person I see will die.

Oh my goodness. I guess you win.

[Warren Verona]

Originally Posted By: Matryoshka

Revenant..Do you think you are alone in seeing death all around you?

No. Nor have I ever claimed to be.

Quote:

I Erupted to visions of my children dying. I saw the world covered in pain. I note saw these deaths. I felt them. I look at someone, and I see them from the start to the end. I wake up everyday thinking I can finally set aside those pains of seeing, feeling and knowing how each person I see will die.

So... what does this have to do with me?

Should I feel sorry for you or something?

Quote:

So Revenant, you claim to be an angel of death?

In a figurative sense. You are aware Procyon isn't actually the brightest star in Canis Minor right? If that were the case he'd just be a big ball of gas. He's just a mutant with a cool way of describing himself.

Like me.

Although I've been considering 'Lord of the Undead'... whatcha think?

Quote:

You claim to only see dead things.

I have? When?

Quote:

Try only seeing things dying.

Allow me to quote myself from another thread.

"I see death. Everything around me withers and dies the longer I gaze upon it. I've seen most of you at you're oldest, and beyond. This does not work through reflective surfaces, I've never seen myself grow old and die."

Are you reading, or just waiting to reply?

Quote:

No, you are to wrapped into your own ego trip to understand that you are not he only one who suffers.

Ego trip? Pot. Kettle. Black.

Fuck, I know I'm an arrogant, egotistical asshole. I'm just comfortable enough with that fact to not have to try and cover it up with bullshit half spoken, and often misquoted, wisdom.

Quote:

If you wish to see the world through my eyes, I show you what it means to be me.

I'll pass. I still have some dignity.

Quote:

Maybe then you understand that you are not alone.

I know I'm not alone. Many novas share an affinity with Death. But none will ever express it the way I do, and I will never express it the way they do.

As such, we are all individuals, and therefore alone. Yet through a common affinity we are always unified.

That's you don't see me trying to goad Leliel into a dick waving contest.

Quote:

Do not worry about replying I know what you will say.

But this was just too good to pass up. Besides, I get bored easily.

Quote:

One day I will see you along the river too.

Indeed you will because it will be my boot that's on your face holding you under its current.

[Warren Verona]

Originally Posted By: Flicker

Originally Posted By: Revenant

No fuckin' way. Gimme Flicker any day.

Be careful what you wish for.

<vigorously rubs a magic lamp>

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[Trooper]

You know what? You healers aren't all you're cracked up to be so dont' bother with the angst fest.

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

Originally Posted By: Lou Anne Burgess

That’s the hardest part though, and something that Neil touched on but didn’t state explicitly. You have to know your limits and you have to realize that different circumstances will change what those limits are.

See, that's the part where I start to feel guilty. Or maybe I just think I should feel guilty.

I'm no where near my upper limits. I know I could do far more with my Healing power than I do. The reason I don't isn't even that I don't care, or that it isn't a priority. It is a priority, it's just fifth or so down on the priority list. So it doesn't get done.

Some times I'll be waiting for results of some sort so I'll stop by, or I won't need the mega-intelligence at full speed so I'll create a clone and send him over... but two weeks out of three or so that just doesn't happen.

[Machina]

Oh, man. Violin music for Trooper, huh? Personally, Danny Danzig, I think you should call yourself the Lord of the Undance. Got a nice ring to it, huh?

Man, am I fucking glad I can't heal people. That's more responsibility than I man like me ought to have.

[Doctor Nova Madigan]

Originally Posted By: Trooper

You know what? You healers aren't all you're cracked up to be so dont' bother with the angst fest.

Don't call my number when you need a combat medic.

[Roma]

Originally Posted By: Neil Preston

Imagineer, don't you think that is all part of the healing process? To restore the body to the condition before its afliction is the purest form of the Healer's Art. The body has an enormous capacity to heal itself. Sometimes, all it needs is the time and if I can give it that, why shouldn't I?

I fancy that idea. It makes time breaking seem less unnatural.

Thank you.

[Doctor Nova Madigan]

Originally Posted By: Neil Preston

I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

That's the part that always comes back to me and with which I often wrestle.

My copy of Problems in Medical Ethics is on the bookshelf in the study. The bastards switched to the 4th edition after my term, so I couldn't sell it back to the bookstore.

[Regina Newcastle]

A rather convincing argument can be made that every unit of currency spent for oneself on anything other than the bare essentials is an act of rank selfishness and social iniquity. I do not think anybody here abides that argument. At best, there are people like Neil, who appear for all practical purposes to spend every waking moment of his life attempting to fix that which is broken. On the other end, we have those like Revenant, who have the power and seem to take joy in witholding it.

Going back to the debate on selfishness and enlightened self-interest from months back, it could be said that both men, and everyone along the spectrum, is doing what they perceive as correct and right. Everyone does what they believe to be the best and most satisfying course of action, that which makes the ideal marriage between giving the most personal satisfaction and being the most ideal reaction to the world. But nobody is purely and totally altruistic, and not everybody can or indeed should be saved.

I am unwilling to divulge the details of specifically what I can do, but the fact that most of you will have no idea of what I speak should tell you a great deal about the frequency with which I use my quantum gifts. For my part, I seem to sit on the spectrum somewhere between Dr. Troll and Msr. Revenant. With exceptional cause, I would and have used my abilities to help and heal. On the whole, however, I see no purpose in vainly and impotently attempted to heal the world, nor do I feel as though it is my personal mission to eliminate death and suffering from the world. As Msr. Revenant pointed out, adversity and pain breed a stalwart spirit. The world is not made of nerf, and you should get poked, cut and occasionally injured by the corners and rough edges. Pain is the contrast by which we define pleasure, and I would rather have extremes of both than a constancy of innocuous pleasantry. At the same time, my work precludes my being able to seek out those who would seek my aid, regardless. I spend the bulk of my time cloistered in academia. Even if I were to help everyone who sought me out, I would spend nearly all my time with would-be patients, physiologically and intellectualy drained. My work, I hope, will pay off dividends in the future, and it is there I hope to do the most good. More still, even if I sought out people to help, that seems drastically unfair. There are so many people in this world suffering and toiling every day. How could I ever decide who to help? As wretched as it makes me feel, I am presently incapable of making that decision. If I am to manipulate in the devices of Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos, it must be for all or for none at all. And in time, I hope that my research will lead to a greater benefice than if I were to spend my every waking moment and my every superfluous dollar on something and someone other than myself.

[Trooper]

Originally Posted By: Flicker

Originally Posted By: Trooper

You know what? You healers aren't all you're cracked up to be so dont' bother with the angst fest.

Don't call my number when you need a combat medic.

Hell, it's probably Karma. I gack a doctor and then I get radically fucked.

[Trooper]

Originally Posted By: Regina Newcastle

I am unwilling to divulge the details of specifically what I can do...

That and that alone would make you one of the smarter folks here.