[open]|Konoha General Hospital

[not_thedragon]

Where: Konoha General Hospital, Konoha Village
When: January 29th
Notes: Open to all

As much as every training he found himself unexpectedly shoved into reinforced the fact that medical ninjutsu was not his natural talent, Sasuke had to admit that it was a chakra workout, if nothing else. His own reserves were hardly inconsequential and still medical ninjutsu was draining unless he focused every ounce of concentration on maintaining perfect control, using only the exact amount of chakra needed for the task. Too little and the healing was incomplete; too much and he risked overloading his patient.

Not that he'd had an actual patient today. He'd thought he'd been done with resurrecting food and housepets, but the grumpy medic-nin who had somehow been blackmailed by Obito into training an unwilling Uchiha had said, in a tone brooking no argument, that there was no damn way Sasuke was getting anywhere near a spinal injury until he'd proven he could handle more complex vertebrates than a fish, and until then he was to leave suspected spinal injuries the hell alone until a professional could get there.

Which meant he'd been resurrecting snakes for the better part of the morning. Where the medic-nin had located this many snakes was something Sasuke didn't particularly want to examine, but he was still picking sloughed skin out of unexpected parts of his chuunin uniform as he walked through the hospital, heading finally for the freedom of somewhere not a sterile office.

Comments

[dangodragon]

"No. It's healed as much as it ever will. He's only lost the highest registers of hearing, and unless it progresses there isn't much to do about it." Tsukiko made a few more notes. She set the scrolls with the blood work aside and walked back over to Itachi purposefully. He folded her hands through signs, and then reached out for him.

"Hands first." Itachi dutifully held out his hands, submitting to the diagnostic jutsu. "Less swelling than last time, but you've been on leave for a while. You've still obviously got the beginnings of arthritis here. Have you started the joint supplement I told you to?" Itachi nodded as she moved her hands up his arms and down to his chest, frowning.

[not_thedragon]

Irreversible damage was hardly out of the norm for shinobi, and slight hearing loss wasn't the worst thing that could happen by far. Still, the patients Sasuke had gotten used to seeing around the hospital with hearing aids and the like were far from Itachi's age, even if Itachi was in turn probably far from needing hearing aids.

His expression was a little too intent as he waited for Itachi's answer to her question, arms folded again once the used cotton was deposited safely into the biohazards bin.

[dangodragon]

Tsukiko ran her hands up his arms, taking extra time around his chest. "Your heart is fine. have you noticed any irregular heart rhythms?"

"No," Itachi reported, feeling very much like a child. Tsukiko nodded and frowned.

"Your lungs are still showing some inflammation. It's not much. It could just be your cold trying to clear out, but make sure it doesn't turn into pleurisy or bronchitis. Have you been having trouble breathing?" Tsukiko's hands moved down.

"Only slightly, but it's been improving as my cold has gotten better." Overall, Itachi didn't think his lungs were an issue. Unless he was sick, he couldn't recall ever having trouble breathing.

"I want them checked before you go on another mission," Tsukiko demanded. "Do you have any morning stiffness in your joints?"

Itachi hesitated. This he did not want to answer. "Usually only when I've finished a hard mission, or when I have to sleep outside in the cold. It doesn't last long."

"Where?"

"Mostly in my hands, but depending how I've slept it can be my knees and ankles as well. Sometimes my feet." Itachi watched as Tsukiko's hands hovered around his feet. She grunted.

"I'm going to suggest some supplements for inflmamation, and we'll see if those help with the joint stiffness. It would be odd for your body to be breaking down now, but not unheard of. You've broken enough toes and bones in your feet that the aching there isn't worrying if the weather is changing. If you notice swelling, that's when we'll worry."

Itachi nodded. He wasn't worried, really. Everyone else was worrying enough about things no one could change and that he could handle. Having regular medication to take meant trouble on long term missions, but he could manage. Hopefully.

"Now let me check the blood..."

[not_thedragon]

Without pen and paper, Sasuke couldn't actually take notes, but if either Tsukiko or Itachi thought that he was doing anything less than memorizing the session, they were sadly mistaken. For all that he'd come to a point where he wanted to equal (maybe surpass, though that was a distant dream) Itachi in strength, he knew his place in the clan: Itachi's job was to run the clan and interface with the village, and Sasuke's was to watch his back.

If that meant making sure that he paid attention to Itachi's breathing and movement and saw to it that Itachi both received and actually took his medication, then so be it. It wouldn't be the easiest, and Itachi shied away from spending much time at home as it was, but it needed to be done.

Not for the first time, Sasuke thought to himself with some irritation of how much more convenient things would be if he could just get that jounin promotion and go into the field with his brother once in a while.

"Are you going to be staying in the village long enough this time to get into a routine of taking your supplements?" He asked as he moved out of the way for Tsukiko to get to the blood-drawing kit and the alcohol swabs.

[dangodragon]

"Yes, Sasuke, I am," Itachi replied with obvious resignation as he gave his brother an almost baleful look. "My goal is to avoid needing further medical care, not get myself admitted because I won't take my vitamins."

"Your brother is an awful patient," Tsukiko said as she picked up the scrolls she'd set aside and examined them. "Most of the higher ranking ninja are."

[not_thedragon]

Sasuke returned Itachi's look with a raised eyebrow of his own, because he strongly suspected what Tsukiko confirmed in the next moment: that Itachi was a terrible patient. There were many things to admire about Itachi and Sasuke knew of all of them, but there were times when the calm confidence that he had exuded for as long as Sasuke had been aware edged over into stubbornness. And shinobi in general were poor patients, as Sasuke had learned quickly in hospital.

Something about the presence of stern medic-nin wielding needles and treatment plans reduced some of the toughest jounin into Academy brats fleeing to escape punishment.

So Sasuke nodded in a knowing way at Tsukiko's words. "I know. I'll stay on him to stay on track."

And then with perfect conviction in his brother's invincibility, he added: "With that and a break, you'll be fine."

[dangodragon]

With anyone but Sasuke, Itachi would have been more exasperated. Sasuke shouldn't have to worry about Itachi's health at all, but at least he was taking it better than Itachi would have if their roles were reversed. Sasuke had faith in Itachi. Itachi would have only put his faith in the worst possible outcomes. Itachi gave Sasuke a rueful grin and tried to poke him on the forehead.

Anyway, Itachi would have to remember to take everything if he expected to function at optimal levels, which was something his job demanded or he could end up dead. Worse, he could end up getting someone else killed, so he was probably lucky this intervention had come before something serious had convinced him he needed to be checked out.

He still wasn't enjoying any of this.

"Mmmm..." Tsuiko looked at the scroll. "It looks like your calcium levels are up, so make sure you don't skip that supplement." She set the scrolls aside. "And...it looks like your T-cell count is now ridiculously low." The woman frowned. "It's not due to HIV, we ran all of those tests last time." Tsukiko tapped the scroll and then pinned Itachi with a look that wasn't a glare, but wasn't comfortable either.

[not_thedragon]

One of these days, Sasuke would both see that poke coming and completely want to avoid it -- today was not that day. He flinched back late, Itachi's fingers landing smack in the middle of his forehead, and was in the middle of smacking Itachi's hand away and shooting his brother a deeply aggrieved glare when Tsukiko continued with her review.

The lighthearted, if annoyed, expression fell away to one of seriousness when she mentioned T-cell counts, the worried frown returning easily to his face.

"What else could result in it?" The fact that his training was mostly in on-the-spot, battlefield medicine was telling here: there had simply not seemed to be a need for him to learn about anything less immediate than a stab wound.

[dangodragon]

"Quite a few diseases and then things as benign as malnutrition and being too tired." Tsukiko frowned over her notes. "I'm going to suggest you don't run any hard missions for a while, and gain some weight. And I don't mean more muscle. Eat several small meals a day and get plenty of rest. If that doesn't get the count up, we'll try some drugs."

Itachi grimaced. He couldn't be dependent on medication if he were going to be undercover. He was gone for weeks at a time, and he couldn't guarantee he would have access to what he needed even if he brought it with him. He'd lost everything on him one year when he was caught in a flash flood in the mountains. It hadn't happened since, but who knew.

If it kept him from needing a steady dose of medication, he would take it easy for a while.

Or try to.

"How long will it take for you to know if it's something more serious?" Itachi asked.

"Let's give it three weeks, then I'll do another check," Tsukiko suggested as she wrote a few notes. "And take these supplements in the mean time. They'll take care of any nutritional problems you have."

"Thank you..." Itachi took the note and resisted the urge to sigh. Medics had a special way of making one feel like a child.