Pursuing Perfect Pharmacology

[SilverLightsune]

I know that MedChem, close to my heart, generally isn't the most exciting job on board, but I find enjoyment in trying to optimize my work. Figured I'd start a chronicle here of noteworthy occasions in my efforts towards going from relatively unknown around the server to legendary chemist robust veteran in the lab.

 

At round start, I found that I was Chemist 2 (at least, for convenience that's what I'll call the one who spawns outside the lab), which was a bit disappointing as I prefer the 'southern' workstation which Chemist 1 starts at. When I arrived, my partner didn't seem to be doing much, took a while to respond in talking, and only walked slowly. I figured that SSD might be on the horizon, but he left the lab less than ten minutes in and I didn't see or hear from him again. I was trying to avoid stepping on his toes even while starting to handle the set of medicines I usually stock and handle requests at both desks (Botany, Virology, the rest of Medical). Word of a meth lab being run in SciChem was trickling over comms along with news of narcotics pills being left on the floor in several areas for those foolish enough to take them. Patients started trickling in before long. I was asked to analyze a recovered pill (learning about the handheld chemical analyzer in the process) and found that it contained five narcotics and toxic compounds, then disposed of it by grinding down and voiding the individual components. Other than trying to deal with a spike of overdoses, it seemed like it would be a usual day of making medicine.

While making a trip to Cargo, once I'd made most of the general-purpose medicines I usually make a few of before obtaining a bucket, I heard about a gateway exploration which involved spiders and venom and in general hadn't been going so well. I had to make a second trip almost immediately after getting back to the lab for strange reagent components, but once the reagent was made I realized that something might be needed to clean out narcotics and possibly also venom from patients' systems. I started making calomel, which is intended to rapidly purge all other chemicals. Just after I turned on the heater to finish the recipe a doctor came by and said that antivenom was needed urgently. Since the calomel finished during our dialogue I was able to hand it off almost immediately. A minute or two later the same doctor returned and credited me with saving the patient's life by my forethought; this was the first moment of feeling like I'd done something awesome during the round.

Once that particular incident had settled (I did have to chase after someone dragging the unconscious detective to the cryotubes, who was also suffering from more than 50u of venom) I settled into my usual work in Chemistry. I made backlogs of usual medicines and occasionally dealt with requests from both the front desk and the rest of the department, getting to run my show solo. At about forty minutes in, I thought about how much synthflesh I should backlog. For reference, my method regarding synthflesh is to make 20u patches en masse, ignoring styptic powder (brute damage) and silver sulfadiazine (burn) since synthflesh heals both with little efficiency lost (though I'll make civilian-grade patches for the public fridge if medical expects an overflow of patients). In the past, I've gotten up to 50 of my 20u synthflesh patches and called it good, since the odds of that many being used in the remainder of the round is fairly slim. Further, making them from my own blood was generally a nuisance though one I accepted as efficient enough.

Today would be different. This round, I decided to also improve on my practical abilities by trying the blood-collecting capabilities of an IV drip and a monkey (the geneticist handed me a farwa cube, but I just shrugged and called it good enough). I had seen chemistry partners do this before, including a few whose abilities I admired. The simplicity of setting up the blood draw surprised me. The efficacy of this method surprised me more. Knowing that I would have a intermittent reliable source of blood so long as I kept the farwa supplied with iron and saline-glucose, I set out to make more synthflesh than I originally intended. The process was very much a grind, probably one I wouldn't carry out again. However, since I had relatively few distractions (a few bottles to botany, a few to virology, eventually a request for 'milk patches' in an apparent quest to reanimate a skeleton) and two chemical dispensers, I set out to work at this self-imposed challenge. I ran both chemical dispensers dry, eventually having little choice but to take a break. It was a good opportunity to get hot chocolate, considering that 70 minutes into the round I had made one trip to cargo (buckets, radio), one trip to the bar (wine for strange reagent), grabbed an IV and morphine (for hydrocodone) from medical, and spent the rest of the time in the lab starving while pursuing this project in a maddened frenzy of overachieving.

Somehow I managed to find time to make oculine for a fellow Vulpkanin who had apparently been blinded as an eventual result of eating the narcotics pills earlier. As other chemists reading this are probably aware, oculine is relatively involved to manufacture and its components do have to be mixed in a certain order to prevent incorrect compounds from forming. I also watched the doctor who'd asked for milk patches go by a few times with a corpse. While I wouldn't say that he had a true skeleton, the corpse he was trying to bring back certainly was pretty nearly stripped to the bone from all the damage taken. To my chagrin, that doctor ended up using around 20 of my precious synthflesh patches in an effort to restore the body. (Amazingly, eventually he did succeed with strange reagent.) I know that our dear paramedic also picked up a number of patches; in total I'm going to estimate that another 20 patches were used for general medical purposes during the round.

Why do I tell all this? Well, my initial goal was to exceed the 'high bar' of 50 synthflesh patches I would usually make. Perhaps I'd even shoot for over 100 if I didn't get too distracted. I reached a hundred somewhere around 80 minutes in and my mania grew even while handling the other requests I've mentioned above. My friend Cath, frequent virologist but this shift's bartender, came through medical around 100 minutes in (I was providing her with certain drink components) and I showed her the fridge, telling her to make special note of the 150+ patches in the first slot. She told me I was mad; I told her that I was brilliant. I was hoping to scrape 200 patches before the inevitable crew transfer shuttle call at 120 minutes, but the skeleton doctor kept using them. Still, by pushing ahead with both the farwa's blood and my own, I eventually got where I wanted to be by the time I unbolted the medical fridge from the floor and dragged it to the shuttle. This is the top of the fridge menu at the end of the round:

The moral of this story is that with an IV blood draw on a small creature, the resources of an entire chemistry lab, and a manic desire to overachieve hard work ethic it is very possible to make around 5000u of synthflesh (including the patches that were used up) while still carrying on normal chemist duties and saving someone's life by listening closely to comms.

Why would you do this? Unless you're slightly deranged when it comes to self-imposed challenge like me, I have no idea. Also, if you're still reading this, thanks for sitting through my narration.

Peace!