Health Care of the Future: Guest Blog by A.R. Norris

Please welcome our special guest to Spacefreighters Lounge today, multi-published author A.R. Norris, who on October 11th released END OF ETERNITY, the final novel in the Telomere Trilogy. 

I am so excited to be hanging out at Spacefreighter's Lounge today. Oh, what to geek out about, what to geek out about? Hmm... I know! One of my favorite SF concepts to work on is healthcare and medical.

Diagnosing, treating, monitoring, all of it interests me. Maybe it's because my day job is researching all the cool advancements in the healthcare field. It's really fun to read a report or research study on a new technology or approach and then sit back and imagine what it will become in 50 or 100 years.

Most of these little tidbits I put into my blog on posts I call Science Update. It's an inconsistent post series, depending on what I find that's interesting. Now, in The Telomere Trilogy one of the main characters is a doctor, and gave me a great opportunity to include more of my ideas in my writing than usual.

Some of my favorites included in the story?

Portable Imaging Unit

This neato gadget fits in a med bag when the medical team is in the field. It folds out into a wand, ran over the injured part of the body and reads like a 3D CT scan.

Body Tome

This is a stationary chamber is similar to the MRI machine, but not only does it screen and diagnose the problem, it can do autonomous robotic surgery repair what's broken or torn. As it scans, a smaller 3D holographic form of the person materializes and highlights their injury points and recommends treatment or surgery.

Regeneration Treatment Chamber

For those things that are not broken, torn or otherwise obliterated, there's the regeneration chamber. The injured person lies in a tank of liquid medication that reacts to electric currents and special lighting to heal the wounds, bruises and infections.

Those are some of the big technologies, but there's also smaller things like  gel pads that when activated will stem blood flow and antiseptic spray with nano treating technology to sterilize and then prep wound edges for surgery by dissolving the damaged edges.

"Okay, breath A. R., breath." Sorry all, my geekfest ran away from me a little. Let me just include a short excerpt and call it a day. Of course, one commenter will win the first book in the trilogy, Revelations of Tomorrow. And if anyone wants to like my Facebook Fan Page (link below), they can enter an opportunity to win the whole trilogy.

Excerpt:

"Get him on the bed." She pulled the bed scanner from the ceiling and ran it across him from head to toe, then moved to his miniature image on the screen, on the bedrail's patient network system. "Severe lung damage, at least one tear... here." She made a mark. "Several broken bones along the rib and hip bones. Dislocated shoulder and serious bruising, well, all over."

She pushed the scanner up into its ceiling carriage. Gripping the small image, she turned it, eyeing his damages from all angles. She entered her treatment plan and sequence. "Get him in as soon as possible--"

He stirred and woke with a start. Trying to sit up, he cursed and rolled. She grabbed his upper body to prevent him from falling and his steely green eyes focused and glared.

"Telomere bitch." It was an injured whisper, but said with such venom Brenda flinched. "Don't touch me. I won't have you touching me."

"Too bad, Mr. Rafferty." Brenda pushed him down again, firm but careful of his injuries. "I can't let you die on my table."

She pulled out a sedative patch and rubbed it to activate the cells.

"I see him in you... Howell's blood through and through." He squinted at her. "Where is she? Where is the woman who let my baby girl die while she pined for that monster?"

"I'm right here, Rafferty." Noah stepped into view and braced the patient rail. "We'll talk once Dr. Bonney has done her job."

"I won't talk to you. I'll kill you is what I'll do." He winced and grasped his side but still pushed up. "I've waited forty years!"

Brenda pressed the patch to his neck and he dropped instantly. She glanced at her mother, recognized the masked expression. No, not her mother right now. Her captain right now. Over this last mission, she learned to respect that and after quick orders to her medics, began working.

"I'll let you know when he's done," Brenda said to her.

Purchase Links: All Romance, Amazon,  B&N, and Books on Board

Where to Find Me: Facebook, Blog, Website

Thanks so much, A.R., for making Spacefreighters Lounge one of your blog tour stops. 

Please leave a comment below for a chance to win the first Telomere Trilogy novel, REVELATIONS OF TOMORROW. And if you want a shot at the whole trilogy, you can "like" A. R.'s Facebook fan page at the link above.

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Surviving the Ice Age

I'd like to welcome author A. R. Norris as our guest blogger today on Spacefreighters Lounge.  A.R. just released her SFR novel, Duty and Devotion, on June 15th from Desert Breeze Publishing.

It's coming. You know it. I know it. Everybody knows it. Will humans be ready? Today I want to outline my thoughts on the Ice Age planning. It won't be quick, thank goodness. But, the key is seeing the signs. *sigh* The old adage of "hindsight is 20/20" takes on a very depressing twist.

Of course, at what point do you shift from warning to planning to implementing? And who's doing this now? *Deep breath* Okay, okay. Enough drilling you. You probably don't know these answers any better than I do.

The ice age, when it officially is declared, will last at least twenty thousand years, minimum. It will creep up on us. The weather will become weird, with each year more extreme and recovering less than the last. Deserts will start to reforest, Amazon will change into a desert and those countries north and south of the equator will began to transform into permafrost wastelands.

Two or three generations later our descendants will look around and go, "Hey...uh oh."

How much will the ice age cover the Earth? Well, the ice age 850 million years ago (and lasted a couple hundred thousand years) was glaciated to the equator. Yup, full blown ice planet.

Now, I'd like to keep a positive mind (shhh...quiet) and believe the best in humanity (SHHHH). Our ingenuity, perseverance, and...okay, face it, the need to self preservation will drive us into survival mode. So, what do we need to do?

First, cover the basic human requirements: food, shelter, water, warmth/heat. Okay not too bad. Already there is science being developed to regenerate food: through cloning, algea based growth, and hydroponic vegetation techniques. And there are viable architectural drawings already created by futurists for civilization domes...just waiting for good incentives and approved permits. Having icicles growing on your local politician's bum should rush those along easily enough. It'll be tight and we'll have to factor in the thickening ice sheets, so we don't end up buried. As for water...we can just develop a water system that processes all the ice outside. Easy peasy!

Shelter and energy will answer the warmth/heat part of survival. Now what?

*Groan* Oh yeah, social infrastructure. Every city needs to run smoothly. That means things like energy, transportation, communication, waste processing, financial, manufacturing/business, and cultural.
All right, we also have well established alternative energy techniques such as solar panels and exploratory techniques, such as capturing movement energy (where floors are built with energy capturing technology). Transportation, same thing, we have energy efficient transportation systems and vehicles. Waste will be a little more difficult, but I think with the right vehicle and processing system we can overcome that with a little effort and a huge decomposition campaign. With the whole green movement in the last few decades we should have that down like rock stars.

The biggest issue I see humans facing is the financial, business and cultural aspects of a new Earth. Financially we'll break, completely. Those who are poor will get poorer and those who are richer will get richer. That's the way of human nature, unfortunately. Hopefully, society will immerge from this without ruining the safety of their shelter and infrastructure...and throw us into some kind of dystopian and/or utilitarian society.

Thankfully, sisters Nettie and Rinny from Duty and Devotion were not around when the ice age first hit...or during the rough transition period. In fact, humans have thrived and seeded out to populate the Solar System. Earth as become the equivalent of Washington D.C., but on a solar system level.

Unfortunately for them, humans have populated the System enough to begin fighting over territory with the neighboring outer government. Now, the two are heading to war. Their father, a corporate dignitary wouldn't have it any other way. Due to the fact that the story is set in space, I didn't get a chance to explore the Earth society, but the excerpt does give us Nettie's departure from the planet.

Excerpt

The discussion died away and after a small pause, Nettie again looked out the window. Windmore City's dome began its simulation of sunrise in the distance, cascading yellow to burnt orange from the base of the dome up. The temperature dropped to a crisp and cool midfifty to complete the program. The tall glass buildings, in reflection of the dome, turned from blackish silver to various hues of red, pink, and orange.

Hard to believe, just beyond the protection of the dome was frozen land. Earth, a barren ice ball for over five hundred years, stayed in a state of constant blizzard. The domes recreated the old surface, but it wasn't real. No one could even be quite sure of its accuracy.

*****

Leave a comment and you'll be entered in the chance to win a great gift package!

Hope you liked the excerpt. If you want to learn more about me, stop by my blog: Adventures of a Sci-Fi Writer or email me at ambernorris2000@yahoo.com

Duty and Devotion is available at Desert Breeze, All Romance Books, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Sony, Kobo, and the Apple iBookstore.

Image sources:
Ice Age Planet Image source: http://www.uclick.com/widgets/ew/080530/ew080530a.html
City Dome Image http://viralideas.net/1609/houston-dome-project-a-controversial-concept/