fic: bend but never break

[earlymorningechoes]

Mass Effect. Rory Stern, a civilian contractor on the Normandy, has her physical examination from Dr. Chakwas. The doctor takes one look at her chronic pain and gives her the first answers she’s had in seven years.

G, 2100 words. Also on AO3.

A fictionalized account of my own getting diagnosed with hypermobility spectrum disorder/HSD.

Rory steps through the airlock, breathing in the familiar recycled air of the Normandy’s CIC. It hasn’t been long since she’s been on the ship - she was here just last week, doing the final pre-shakedown calibration of the drive core’s integration with the cooling system - but she wasn’t carrying a duffle bag then. And there were people at various stations around the CIC, but not like this. A lot more swearing at code, then, compared to the current introductions and shouts to old friends and salutes. Not everyone who’s going to be on the shakedown cruise is on the ship now, either, but it’s certainly got a different feel than it did with a bunch of nerds in coke-bottle glasses just like hers.

Those glasses slide down her nose a bit, and she smiles. Okay, everyone else’s weren’t bright blue, but still.

She steps aside to let someone in uniform with a cart full of supplies past, then heads purposefully down the center aisle. She’ll know his name eventually, and the thought of knowing everyone on a ship again sends a thrill down her spine. The galaxy map isn’t turned on, of course, but she still looks over as if it might be before heading down the stairs. Her right hip twinges as she walks down, and she huffs in frustration when she’s on level ground again. Already acting up, apparently. Maybe it’ll prefer artificial gravity the way she does, but she’s not hopeful.

The elevator, still just as slow and irritating as before, takes her down to the crew deck, and she finds the bunk she’s been assigned. Someone else will be sharing with her, of course, but there’s a footlocker just for her, and she’s able to fit her few belongings into it. The familiar lack of creature comforts and even personal space is a friendly reminder that she’s on a ship again. She’s been planetside far too long.

Once her things are packed away neatly, her next stop is the med bay. Other people are bustling around and familiarizing themselves with the ship’s layout - no one wants to get lost during shakedown - but she’s been here for years working on interfacing the Tantalus drive core with standard (and not-so-standard) Alliance tech. And that means skipping that step, and getting her introduction to the ship’s doctor over with.

Sighing again, she takes the elevator back up, mulling over what to say. I’ve had chronic pain in my shoulders for seven years, it’s been appearing in other joints, they always say it’s unrelated. She snorts. There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that this military doctor with a battalion of marines to take care of is going to take a second glance at the achy civilian engineer.

The mess hall is a bustle of activity, with marines stocking their gear lockers and crew members squaring away food, medical supplies, and other necessities. Rory weaves her way through the chaos towards the med bay. It smells clean and sterile, even more so than the rest of the ship. A woman with chin-length grey hair leans over the desk to the left of the door. She looks up when the door slides open, giving Rory one of those bland doctor smiles.

“Hello,” she says, reaching out a hand to shake. “I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Dr. Chakwas. You are…?”

“I’m Rory Stern.” Rory shifts from foot to foot after shaking the proffered hand, trying not to belie that her hip is bothering her. “I’m a civilian, one of the engineers who’s worked on the Normandy the whole way through.”

Nodding, the doctor turns back to her desk, swiping a finger over her datapad. “Ah yes, I remember that name. I believe I was looking at your medical record earlier…” she trails off, focusing on what’s on the datapad. She gives it a decisive tap. “Yes, I remember now. It says here you’ve been suffering from chronic pain in your shoulders for about seven years now, and your hips and knees for some of that time?”

Sighing inwardly, Rory nods. Yet another doctor who’s just going to treat the description in her file of years-long pain as just a random note. Another doctor who’s going to be less likely to treat her properly. She tries not to get lost in memories of the string of physical therapists acting like she doesn’t want to get better, trying not to hope that Dr. Chakwas will be any different.

Dr. Chakwas is talking again, so Rory drags her attention back to the present. She studies the way the cabinets are built into the wall to avoid looking the doctor in the face. “We’ll definitely take a look at that. But first I have to do the standard physical exam, which I’m guessing is why you’re here?”

Rory nods again.

“Hop on up on this bed here, then.”

The doctor goes through the standard physical health checks - vitals like blood pressure, heart rate, weight, height. But after that, and after recording all that data into her datapad, she sits back on her stool with the pad and a stylus poised as if to take notes. “So your file has some descriptions of your pain, but I’d like to hear it from you and see how it compares to this.”

“Okay.” Scrolling back through her memories, Rory tries not to roll her eyes. Thirty-one years in this body, seven with the pain, and barely anyone listening. The one doctor on a ship of soldiers isn’t going to care about the chronic pain of a random civilian any more than anyone else is.

“My first year of grad school, towards the end, I started having issues with my left shoulder.” The words spark a sliver of pain in the shoulder, almost like a sense memory. She rolls first that shoulder, then the other to prevent them feeling uneven. Her neck complains, but she tries to stretch it more surreptitiously. “I figured it was just weak from sitting poorly at a computer console all the time. I tried to sit better or prop it up. Didn’t help. I finally got some physical therapy and exercises that seemed to help, but the way the school health system worked I couldn’t keep going. The pain was fine for a while, but it comes and goes, moreso if I do stuff like carry bags with that arm. I went to a chiropractor for a bit, and they did some sort of nerve test? I never really understood the results from that. But I kept getting bounced around between physical therapists and stuff. I don’t remember when it got as bad as it is now, but I can’t wear a messenger bag, or stand for long, or lie on that side for long.”

Dr. Chakwas is nodding along, sometimes scribbling new notes on her datapad and sometimes crossing something out. Rory squints, trying to make out whether she’s crossing out her own notes or old notes from previous doctors.

“My hip is more recent. And my back, I guess, I can’t quite tell. That’s been maybe two years, and often affects my right knee I think? Sometimes my hip feels like it catches when I walk. I did physical therapy for a little while for that, but it didn’t seem to be helping. And sometimes my elbows and hands hurt, and maybe my wrists? I haven’t really had much physical therapy or anything for any of those, though. It hasn’t felt worthwhile, because I’ve been trying therapy for the other pain and not really gotten anywhere.” It all comes out in a rush, and when she finishes she realizes she’s massaging her right wrist. Her instinct is to stop, to move her hands apart and put them in her lap, but she lets herself continue. Maybe the self-comforting motion will endear her to Dr. Chakwas.

A minute passes without words, the only sound the doctor’s stylus on the datapad. Eventually she looks up, tapping the stylus against her chin thoughtfully. “You mentioned a nerve test. Have you had other tests done?”

“Hmm, let me think.” She squints in thought. “I’ve had a lot of blood tests done for various things, but I’m not sure anything was for this. Or maybe there was, and there was one positive value but it wasn’t indicative of anything? And I think there was an MRI once. But everything seems to have come back normal.” There definitely was an MRI, but you couldn’t pay her to remember what it had been for. And it’s not like any of the tests had helped.

More tapping, then Dr. Chakwas puts her datapad back on her desk. “Okay. I have a thought, and I’d like you to do a few quick movements for me.” She reaches out one hand, bends her wrist down, and presses her thumb back towards her forearm. It’s about two or three inches away. “Can you do that? As far as you can.”

Rory does, sticking her right arm out in front of her and pushing the thumb back until it touches her forearm.

“And the other hand?”

She does, touching the two together again, wondering what this has to do with anything.

There’s what looks like the beginning of a smile on Dr. Chakwas’s face now. She picks the datapad back up. “Extend your left elbow for me, all the way, then the other, out to the sides. As far as you can again.”

One after the other, she stretches her arms out to her sides.

“One last thing. Can you put your palms flat on the floor when you bend over, with your legs straight?”

Bending over, Rory flattens her palms on the ground. “Wait,” she says, tilting her head to look up at the doctor. “Are my knees straight already? I can’t do it if I push them back any further, to lock them.”

“No, you’re fine.” She takes another note on the datapad. “You can stand up now, and sit back on the bed if you like.”

Climbing back onto the bed, Rory has a brief moment of embarrassment realizing she’s using her hands to support at times when it seems her core muscles should be able to handle it. But once she gets settled, she looks back up at Dr. Chakwas - trying to keep herself from getting too hopeful that these weird new tests will say something, trying not to get too cynical.

“Do you know what double-jointed means?”

There’s a twinge in her right hip, so Rory shifts to sitting cross-legged on the bed before answering. “It means there’s more of a range of motion in a joint than normal, right?”

“Yes, that’s it.” That’s definitely a smile on her face now. “You’re hypermobile. Double-jointed. Your ligaments and tendons are looser than normal, so you’re prone to overuse injuries, especially when your muscles are weak. With pain, it’s hypermobility spectrum disorder.”

“What?” Rory’s mouth drops open in shock. She’s certainly sitting up straighter now, leaning forward to listen.

Laughing lightly, Dr. Chakwas nods again. “Your joints like to move a lot. You might’ve gotten frequent sprains as a child, or felt more flexible than others. But now you’ve got so much pain going on, and we need to start working on building your strength up. There’s a physical therapist here on the Normandy -”

Rory wilts. It’s not even worth trying to hide it. Dr. Chakwas notices immediately.

“I know you haven’t had great luck with physical therapy before, but please try this. His name is Sergeant Patrick Travers. He’s used to working with stubborn marines who think they’re invincible - and our very stubborn pilot - so you’ll be a nice change of pace for him. You can usually find him in the gym on the crew deck. Should I send him a message that you’ll be along to see him?”

The doctor sure is pushy, but it’s not for nothing. Rory muses over that word hypermobile before nodding. “Yeah, I’ll try it.” Maybe she even will. She’s got a lot of research to do first.

“Great.” Dr. Chakwas slides her stool back towards her desk. “That’s all I need from you now, I think. Do you have any questions for me?”

“I think I’m good for now.” Rory hops down off the bed. “But I’ll swing back by if there’s anything else I think of that I need some help with.”

“That works. Please do see the physical therapist, Ms. Stern, I think you will find it valuable.”

Rory doesn’t answer that, but when she gets to the door and it hisses open, she turns back. “Thank you, Dr. Chakwas. Thank you very much.”

“You’re welcome, Ms. Stern.”