Pain in the Neck

Posted on 26 Sep 2018 @ 2:31pm by Captain Harvey Geisler & Senior Chief Petty Officer Alexander Rylan

1,414 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Fractured
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: MD 0 || 0700 hours (Backpost)

With everyone aboard, Harvey would have thought he would have slept somewhat peacefully throughout the night. What he should have counted on was with Joey nearing her third trimester that she would not be sleeping very well between now and a couple years after the twins were born. Of course, he wouldn't sleep well either, but being kicked and pushed all night was not something he was prepared for. As such, Harvey now found himself going to sickbay to deal with some sharp pains in his neck from not sleeping correctly.

Harvey entered sickbay through the staff entrance, temporarily abusing his privileges, hoping to spot the spotted doctor and take care of this quickly. Unnaturally, she was nowhere to be seen. "Hello," he called out, one hand on his neck while keeping it slightly bent to one side, hoping to hold the pain in place and prevent it from growing further.

Alex was doing a routine inspection on a piece of medical equipment when he saw a captain, presumably THE Captain, walk in looking really uncomfortable. He immediately dropped what he was doing and came right over.

"Captain?" he said. "Senior Chief Hospital Corpsman Alex Rylan, sir. You look...miserable. Want to follow me over to that bio bed over there and let me take a look at you?"

Rylan... Harvey thought while trying to place the name. The Captain had spent a colossal amount of time pouring over the crew records, trying to learn all he could about the crew coming aboard the new Black Hawk. Barely three hundred and fifty returned from the previous ship, and that left more than half the crew filled with new faces. Several had been switched out prior to entering the zone, and Harvey hadn't yet read up on those dossiers. At this point, Harvey assumed that by not being familiar with the name that Mister Rylan was a recent replacement.

"All right," the Captain said, following the corpsman over to a bed. "I woke up with a rather sharp pain in my neck. Fairly certain that my neck bent in a way it wasn't supposed to."

"That's what it looks like to me," Alex said. "Judging by the way you're carrying yourself today. Here let me take a look. I'm going to physically examine it first and then confirm what I think is going on with the bed scanners first. Here, turn this way, please."

Alex gently turned the captain so the man's back was to the corpsman. Then Alex began to gently probe Harvey's neck, searching for anything out of place. He could feel a lot of tense muscle.

"Tell me if anything I do causes you pain," he said.

"Will--AHHH!" Harvey had been in the process of acknowledging the corpsman when his very first probe fired a sharp pain up and down his spinal cord.

"Sorry!" Alex said quickly as he pulled away from that spot. "Okay, can you lie down on the biobed for me? I need to get a really good look at the inside of your neck. I think you've got a pinched nerve, which feels and sounds a lot worse than it is, provided we can convince your body to stop pinching that nerve. Here, let me grab you an extra pillow."

"Of course it's a pinched nerve," Harvey grumbled, his long underused medical senses coming to the forefront. He started to lay down, favoring the side with the least pain.

Alex chuckled. He'd dealt with grumpier patients than Harvey Geisler, people who were in a Hell of a lot more pain.

"Sorry," Alex said. "You know how it works. Most of the time the patient knows what's wrong with them, but we have to come to the same conclusions through an examination. I'm just going to make sure there's no spinal cord involvement, and then I'll get you on the road to recovery."

Alex ran the scan and saw that nothing was pressing on the spinal cord.

"Okay," he said. "There are a few ways to treat this, as I'm sure you know. Mostly, it should go away on it's own, but we can help it along. I have a muscle relaxant that is strong enough to be therapeutic but mild enough that it shouldn't impair you very much, and I'll give you an anti-inflammatory painkiller. That should make things feel a little better. Also, there's a specially designed pillow that will help align your neck when you're sleeping and that should help. If it's still bothering you in a few days, I'll get Doctor Agartha to look at you. He's an osteopath he can do some manipulations to align your neck and spine. I wish there was a hypospray that would just pop everything back into place, but, as you know, there isn't."

Harvey sighed, trying to adjust his position on the uncomfortable biobed. "If only there were hyposprays for everything," he murmured. "Anything we can do to help it along would be fantastic. I don't need to be sitting on the bridge nursing a pinched nerve while we wander unknown territory."

"I couldn't agree more," Alex said. "Okay, let me check your chart...nope, you're not allergic to anything I want to give you. Just relax for a second."

Alex pulled out a hypo and loaded it and then pressed it to Harvey's neck. Then he removed that ampule and replaced it with another and then again pressed the hypospray to his neck.

"Okay," Alex said. "Give those a minute to work. I assume you're about to go on duty. If you'd like, I can have a corpsman run one of those pillows down to your quarters for you so you don't have to carry it around with you."

Relax... Such an activity would be an impossibility for Harvey until either the Black Hawk could safely leave the zone or their mission came to an end. If only the two possibilities could be joined together, but the Captain still saw ways this entire situation could still go south. "A Captain's almost always on duty," he said with a sigh, waiting for the medication to kick in. "But, yes, I'd like to have two of these sent down to my quarters. I know my wife would steal it if there was only one."

ALex chuckled.

"Aye, aye, sir," he said. "Those injections should last until around 24 hours, so you're good until tomorrow morning. Come by the next two or three mornings and, unless Doctor Kij disagrees with this treatment plan after she reviews the chart, I or someone else will give you the injections again. Like I said, this should clear up in a couple of days to maybe a week at the outside. Hang on to the pillows afterwards. You can just keep using them, or keep them in a closet and take them out if your neck starts to trouble you again."

It was a comfortable pillow. Its prolonged use would still depend on whether or not Joey would steal it to support her hips as her abdomen continued to swell or to double up her neck support. "Fair enough," Harvey said, trying to move without authorization. "Thank you for your help, Corpsman. I trust that my first impression doesn't give you the idea that I'm succumbing to the rigors and stress of command."

Alex smiled.

"I'm here to provide aid and comfort to the sick and injured, Captain," he said. "I leave passing judgement to JAG Corps and to the Great Bird of the Galaxy. We're good, sir."

Harvey grunted. All this time he'd been thinking about how much the Department of Temporal Investigations would put him through the ringer, but not once had he thought about a JAG inquiry. Surely there'd be an investigation no matter what. "Well, let's just hope the Great Bird spares us from such torture and judgment."

"Your mouth to the Great Bird's ears, Captain," Alex helped the Harvey to his feet. "Anything else I can do for you Skipper?"

Harvey gently moved his neck, testing the pain levels. They weren't completely gone, but at least he could walk around the ship not looking like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. "Thank you, Corpsman. Carry on." With a final nod, Harvey exited sickbay the same way he came in. When he had more time, he would have to make sure that he learned more about his recent additions, including this Senior Chief Corpsman

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