How to assign a value returned from flask somewhere else in python file?

application = Flask(__name__)

thisDictionary = {}

@application.route('/calculate', methods=['POST'])
def itemadd():   
    body = request.get_json()
    total = str(getAnswer("payload","6148ece5989a301f24ee9934")) 
    thisDictionary["value"] = total
    return thisDictionary

if __name__ == '__main__':
    application.run(host='0.0.0.0')