[War] US: Doctor's Orders

[John Penta]

"Doctor's Orders"
April 13, 2014
Pres. John Williams
Capt. J.T Spaulding, MD, USN
USA
============================
<Washington>

 It was a relatively quiet Palm Sunday for the President - meaning
he was only planning to spend 3 hours on work, not his usual 12. The
amount of sheer paperwork, memos and the like, a President had to deal
with had surprised him at first - now it was a regular part of the
routine to spend weekends going over the stuff he couldn't get done in
20 hour days.

 That schedule suited him well, or so he thought - frustratingly,
Kay had come not to see it that way, and they'd gotten in a rather
heated argument about it last night. Why she was so concerned was
beyond him - he was fine. Tired, but fine. He'd done this before,
anyway. How was it much difference from any training he'd been through
in the Army?

  "Chief, *I'm not hungry*. Seriously." He noted to the Navy CPO who
ran the White House Mess. He'd been eating only when work wasn't
pressing, one, maybe two meals a day - added to his usual exercise
routine, it kept him in great shape. No desk jockey weight gain, for
one.

The chief nodded again and moved off.  Though the President's
executive secretary was watching the more non descript naval officer
sitting outside the oval office his black doctor's bag sitting next to
him and reading a copy of Newsweek with a nondescript session.

Secret Service agents continued their routine patrols.

Finally the door opened and the secretary brough in a briefing book,
"And Captain Spaulding is here to see you, says it really can't wait."

Williams looked up - everybody said their thing 'couldn't wait', so he
had a practiced look of nonchalance for such things.

"Thanks, Nancy," he nodded to Nancy DiCarlo, setting the briefing book
on the cyberattacks on Chinese sites on the table besides the chair he
was sitting in. Subtly, he rubbed his eyes when nobody was looking.
"Send the Cap'n in here."

THe older officer walked in and set down his bag, one reason he had
never been promoted, and hell he was ready to retire anyway so he
spoke up, "Mr President, you have really not paid attention to your
health lately and to be frank, I'm surprised you haven't stroked out
by now, besides, you've been ignoring your checkups, and your last
results are not encouraging."

"Define not encouraging?" Williams asked. There was a practiced look
of nonchalance on his face.

"Your cholesterol is through the roof, your bloodpressure is on par to
what I'd expect from a man who spent the entire day ingesting
methamphetamine and espresso, your ekg shows cardiac irregularities
that I woudl normally see on a man twice your age, and the fact you
haven't had a massive stroke is a testiment to your current health, if
you were in worse shape you'd be dead, and right now, you've just
delayed that a year at most."

"And has nobody else here noticed all hell breaking loose in the
world?" Williams fired back.

SPaulding looked at him, "I don't care about the world I care about my
patient, and that is you.  ANd right now if you work yourself to
death, the world will still have all hell breaking loose, but the Vice
President will be handling it because you'll be dead."

"If that happens, that happens." It was at this point last night that
his detail had walked in in the nick of time and calmly separated the
first couple - Kay had been ready to strangle him.

"Good, then you can explain to Mrs Williams why she's raising your child
alone, and hey, at least the kid will have pictures of you to remember
daddy...oh wait, he's not quite remebering daddy, because he's too young to
remember.  But hey."  Spaulding shrugged, "She'll remarry then he can call
the new guy daddy."

"Cheap shot, doc." Pause. "I'm out of options here. I admit, work is
my anti-drug. I'm incompetent as a dad - Lately, Luke barely seems
comforted by me when he's cranky. The job I may suck at, but it's
-something-. Besides, I can imagine the political reaction if I took a
day off."

"First of all he's a baby, they're always cranky. It's genetic, I've
raised 4 of em, they get cranky, they cry, it's in their genetics.
Now as for political reaction, you take a week off, go on Vacation,
considering  you're not exactly the vacation president the world will
accept, better then if you end up being removed from office."

"Point taken on both. If the press starts poking, go public on this.
Confidentiality ceased being an excuse, within reason, once I got
followed by officers carrying the football. Yeah, you know what I'm
thinking: teachable moment," Williams shrugged.

Spaulding looked at him, "It's very simple Mr Williams, right now you
are ok but if you keep this up you will be either dead or so stressed
you can't actually think straight, so here is doctor's orders, you
WILL take a week's vacation, Where I don't care but it will be you,
your family, secret service, and not much else, you will let VPOTUS
handle things, either officially cedeing power or unofficially, only
exception will be bills that desperately need to be signed, and when
you get back, you will sleep 6-8 hours a day, more preferred, and you
will eat regular meals.  You will work no more then 10 hours a day,
unles world war 3 breaks out, you will get rest, you will exercise,
you will do this or I will contact the Speaker of the House and make
my concerns noted.  Now if this is our last meeting because you are
going to make me retire or transfer me to NAS Adak Alaska, then it was
good serving you but I take this, protect my patients thing seroiusly.
Why do you think I'm only tagged promotable but will never see a
star."

Williams grinned. Then, his voice went into 'Commander's Intent' mode,
speech clipped and voice level. "I'll do you one better: You're on the
Med Corps list next board, or I get heads on platters. And the Secret
Service can stay home - I'm heading to someplace isolated in Hawaii
for two weeks that I'm coming to agree I need; if someone gets there
then we have more than they can handle. If the press asks, you'll
brief them publicly. In return, if they get within 5 miles of me they
lose all access - for both my sake and yours.

"Next: While I'm gone, do something for both of us - you have an R&D
budget of $25 Million I'm dispensing ftom general White House funds.
let's see what we can do to get decision support software going for
the entire White House staff, me included - if I can cut out the less
necessary stuff, just move it online, I could easily claw back another
three hours in my day. I kept putting off the tasking to you - no
more. This place bred unhealthy stress management long before I got
here for everybody from me down - that needs to end soon. It'll never
be an easy place to work, but we need to get ahead of the curve. Let's
use technology and do that - think off the wall if you need to. I'll
provide my schedules for 3 months as research material. Idea is that
nobody here on the policy staff should need to work more than 10 hours
- preferably 8 - but we need to keep the work level up.

"Finally: You're responsible for the whole White House. Start
scheduling physicals for the civilian staff - mil duty physicals fit
the bill, use the same protocols if your judgment indicates, and
schedule at least 30 days leave for everybody - including you. Let's
actually use this to change things. I admit it, I've let myself go -
that's a bad habit of this place we need to change."

Then, Williams settled back. "In short: You win, and then some. I work
like I'm still in the Army, I know. Cept, this job wakes me up at 3 am
more often."

SPaulding nodded, "Well sir, then the staff needs to delegate, the
only time the President shoudl be woken up at 3 am is war has been
declared."

"If you can convince them of that, I'd be grateful. In any case -
okay, I need to destress. After Easter, I'll head out to Hawaii for 2
weeks with Kay, Luke, and as close to nobody else as we can pull off.
I fully intend to leave Secret Service at home while I'm out there -
I'll remain in contact, but nothing more than daily briefings by
secure net and courier from COMPAC, and leave me alone except for
absolute emergency situations.

"Meanwhile, you follow up on the taskings I've laid out - by the time
I get back, lets see if we can figure out ways tech can make things
better for the support staff so I *can* use them more, most
particularly."

Spaulding nodded again and made some notes, "When you get back we will
have ideas."
---
Actions:
1. POTUS ordered by doc to go on vacation for 2 weeks after Easter.
2. WH Med Unit to begin R&D on technical help to WH staff (including
POTUS) claw back time and do things more efficiently - decision
support technologies especially, but also simply to enable better
human performance.
3. All WH Staff and Cabinet staff to get full physicals while POTUS is
out, and to consult w/ WH Med Unit on human factors issues.
4. Congressional leadership to be briefed by Dr. Spaulding as to
Presidential health - Press to be kept 5mi from POTUS during his
desperately needed vacation, but WH will be open within reason about
whats going on.
5. Teachable moment time! Doc to use this, use his patient to
encourage a better work-life balance by Americans; in short, to use
their vacation time.