Tennis Elbow? But I Do Not Play Tennis!

Posted on Tue Sep 2, 2025 @ 3:27am by Senior Chief Petty Officer Alexander Rylan & Lieutenant Bronwyn P’ril
Edited on on Wed Sep 3, 2025 @ 3:57am

1,552 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Time After Time
Location: Sick Bay

P’ril’s arm had been causing her pain for three days now. At first, she had thought it was simple muscle soreness from overworking, but it was not getting better. In fact, it had worsened slightly. So, of course, she had made a non-emergency appointment to have it checked. She had been shown to an exam room and was now currently reading the same informational medical posters that seemed to be in every exam room everywhere.

Senior Chief Hospital Corpsman Alex Rylan, DS5's new Independent Duty Corpsman, did a quick but thorough perusal of his next patient's chart. P'ril, Bronwyn, Lieutenant. Chief Engineer. Thirty year old Vulcan/Human hybrid. Height of 1.6 meters, weight of 54 kilograms. Complaint of pain in her arm... which arm? Alex sighed and looked at who had admitted the Lieutenant. Yep. It was one of the baby Corpsman. a Crewman rank, right out of the enlisted academy, which was why they were on 'medical assistant' duty in the first place. Alex would talk with them later. Alex thoroughly skimmed the patient's history and when he was satisfied, he entered the exam room.

"Lieutenant P'ril?" he said. "I'm Senior Chief Hospital Corpsman Alex Rylan. I'm one of the independent duty corpsmen working today. After we figure out what's going on, I'll come up with a treatment plan and if it's something I need approval for, I'll run it by one of my clinical supervisors. With me so far?"

Oh, he was cute. Not that it mattered, but P’ril could appreciate eye candy when it stood in front of her. She carefully schooled her thoughts and afforded him an almost grin. “Of course,” she replied. “I have had pain in my left arm for a few days. It seemed like regular muscle soreness at first, so I ignored it. But it seems to have gotten worse. It is right here,” she said, indicating her forearm just below the inside of her elbow, “and the joint has also begun to hurt.”

Alex, doing what he hoped was a very good job of not getting distracted by the Vulcan's beautiful blue eyes and 'almost grin', made a few notes of what she said in his PaDD. "Okay," he said. "Mind if I manipulate your arm? I'd like to physically examine you, make an educated guess as to what's wrong based on the evidence from that examination, and then see if the medical tricorder agrees with me. If I do it the other way around, I risk confirmation bias."

“Of course,” she replied, holding her arm out for him to examine. If she noticed his distraction, it wasn’t apparent. But if she did, she would have very smugly continued to appreciate his beauty. Quietly, of course.

With a gentle and practiced touch, Alex took hold of the lieutenant's arm. "Tell me if anything I do seems to cause pain," he said. Alex expertly put the arm through its paces, moving it and applying pressue to tendons to see what was what.

P’ril winced as he reached a tender spot. “Right there,” she told him. “That is the most painful spot.”

"I can tell," Alex said with a smile. "Do you remember when it started? Perhaps what you were doing when it happened?"

“I do not,” replied P’ril. “I woke up three days ago with a mildly sore arm. It was not severe, so I thought it was from overusing the muscle. But if that were the case, it should have healed on its own by now.”

"Well," Alex said. "My education, training, and experience tells me you've probably developed Lateral Epicondylitis, which can be caused by repetitive gripping and/or twisting. I don't suppose you play tennis, do you? Another name for Lateral Epicondylitis is 'Tennis Elbow'."

“I do not,” she replied. “Although engineers rarely spend an hour without gripping or twisting something. And given the state of the station of late, there has certainly been a lot of gripping and twisting to be done.” As son as the words left her mouth, she regretted them. Really? Gripping and twisting? And in front of an attractive man. She could only pretend nothing was amiss and hope he hadn’t noticed.

"Well," he said, picking up a medical tricorder. "Let me just confirm that it is tennis elbow, then we'll get you some medicine and perhaps some exercises you can do so you can get back to gripping and twisting with the wild abandon you engineers are known for."

Alex ran the hand scanner over the lieutenant's arm. "It appears I am correct," he said. "The tricorder agrees that you have tennis elbow. Give me one moment to write up a plan and run it by the doctor and then I'll be back."

“Of course,” replied P’ril. She did not mind waiting; she could always read the posters again. Plus, it would give her time to get over the gripping and twisting comment.

It didn't take long for Alex to return, hypospray in hand. "Okay," Alex said. "I'm going to use this hypospray on a few locations on your arm to try and reduce the inflamation and calm down the nerves. It might take the rest of the day for the medicine to take full effect. I'm going to email you some exercises I'd like you to do to try and keep this from reoccuring. I'm also going to prescribe a topical medicine that we'll program into the replicator in your quarters so it can be dispensed a dose at a time until the prescription runs out. it will help with the pain. You can use it up to four times a day, no more. If you need more of the topical medicine, or the pain either doesn't go away or comes back, come back and see us. We may want to take further steps like more tests and maybe some formal physical and occupational therapy. If that sounds good to you and you don't have any further questions, go ahead and remove your jacket and pull your arm out of the sleeve of your undershirt and we'll do the hypospray injections."

P’ril did as instructed. “Hopefully it will heal as expected,” she said.

"I think it will," Alex said, taking the lieutenant's arm. "Ready? Here we go. One. Two. Three. Four. All done! Now, I know you're dying to ask me out on a date, but I must decline at this time, because you are my patient. To say yes would be unethical. I say 'at this time' because if you were to see me another time, when you are not my patient, you could ask me out on a date and I could ethnically say yes." Alex held up his hand to stop Bronwyn from speaking, even though she hadn't even attempted to speak. "I know, I know, I'm hard to resist, but I'm sure you can survive for the next two hours, at which point I will leave here and within thirty minutes I'll be outside La Panini's Italian Restaurant, Upper Promenade, Deck 144, 4S 116/7. I figure you're probably vegetarian, and a good pasta fagoli, pasta primavera, or a good ratatouille might be a nice end to your long day. If you happen to be down that way two and half hours from now, for no particular reason whatsoever."

Shocked, P’ril blinked. Had he picked up on her internal thoughts? Oh, no. Oh, no. Was he Betezoid? She had no actual way of knowing. So, there was only one thing to do.

Pretend to be a Vulcan.

“I will keep that in mind,” she said noncommittally.

"Good," Alex said. Alex tapped a few buttons on his work PaDD. "There we go. Prescription sent and exercise vids emailed. You'll be back to all of that gripping and twisting in no time. If you have any problems, please let us know. And if you happen to randomly, for no particular reason at all, completely by chance, encounter me at La Panini's and have dinner with me, then by 'us' I mean someone other than me, because, outside of an emergency, to treat someone you've been on a date with might be considered unethical." Alex laughed. "Wow, that was a lot of verbal commas in one sentence. Anyway, is there anything else I can do for you?"

Again with the gripping and twisting. Had P’ril been fully human, she could have groaned out loud and perhaps facepalmed. But as it was, her face remained impassive. “No,” she replied. “Thank you, Senior Chief.” And she added a very Vulcan nod of respect.

"Long Life and Prosperity, Lieutenant," Alex said. "Perhaps I'll randomly, for no particular reason at all, see you later." Alex grinned and winked at Bronwyn and then left the exam room. Here's hoping, anyway... he thought to himself.

P’ril managed to not wince, but only just barely. Was she going to go meet him later? She did not know. Perhaps. But then again, perhaps not.

She flexed her arm once, twice, felt a small twinge- but only just barely- and then, satisfied, left Sick Bay.

OFF

Senior Chief Hospital Corpsman (HMCS) Alexander Davith Rylan
Independent Duty Corpsman
Deep Space Five

&

Lieutenant Bronwyn P’ril
Chief Engineer
Deep Space 5

 

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