"Le Ouch"

[LeftEar JoNs 0]

08.14.08

USS Excalibur NCC-2004 C

“Le Ouch”

 

The medical bay was relatively quiet as the first shift doctors, nurses and technicians bustled about their daily business. The resident patients of Tr’Lorin and JoNs were either in the process of recovering or well onto the road to recovery respectively, and thankfully no new patients had been admitted within the last few hours. The visit from Commander Teykier had been a welcome distraction, and JoNs had gotten fully caught up on ships business of the day thanks to the green skinned Orion senior officer. As of a couple hours ago, the Excalibur maintained a relatively stable position within a non turbulent pocket within the gaseous confines of the Thicket, tactical approach plans were being tentatively considered, and engineering had a new cloaking tech toy. It was hard for JoNs to be somewhat removed from the general day to day administrative processes of running the big exploratory warship, but the situation was out of her paws. What she could do was make a complete recovery and offer support where she could to the senior staff and officers. With a smirk and a healthy sense of humor, the feline XO likened the experience to a backseat shuttle driver in temporary residence in the medical bay.

 

It was one thing to be shot with a phaser or disruptor and then have the damaged areas on your body repaired or in the case of disruptor use, the damaged sections of the body were re-grown. But, when dozens of pieces of shrapnel were ejected from a crude projectile weapon to then impact and slice into skin, muscle, and bone, those sections of the body were permanently compromised and the medical processes that were to be employed in order to fully heal the individual had to be adapted for this particular type of injury.

 

The physical therapist calmly went about his business, stretching out the Caitian’s damaged muscles and tissues so the healing process could continue moving forward. As her right arm was stretched up and over her head, her shoulder rotated with the movement and Left Ear JoNs grunted in pain and tensed up. Both the outer and internal wounds of her shrapnel injury had long since been repaired thanks to the marvels of modern medical technology, but in order for Left Ear to make a full and complete recovery, the compromised muscles of her right arm, chest and neck needed to be worked up to their former strength level prior to her wounding at the clawed hands of the Boganary pirates.

 

“You’re being a real trooper ma’am.”

 

JoNs admired and appreciated the fact that the Starfleet physical therapy profession, on the whole, had to deal with cranky and hurt officers about ninety five percent of the time. And these therapists had to maintain a professional demeanor and cheerfulness through all the flack they probably usually got from an annoyed patient. But, she couldn’t help feeling surly, and the pain emanating outward from her shoulder and neck was just not helping matters.

 

And so, mindful of the fact that she was a cranky and in pain officer, but also well aware of the fact that she had to at least try and maintain her own professionalism, JoNs tried to maintain some semblance of decorum as the evil therapist kept torturing her.

 

“Mister Ibrahim,” an involuntary hiss of pain escaped through her muzzle and bared fangs as a particularly sore cluster of muscles decided to stretch, “I’m at your mercy and currently lying flat on my side on a bio bed as you move my arm to all sorts of unnatural angles; call me Left Ear and drop the ma’am and sir crap for right now.” There was a time and a place for protocol and rank, and if Ibrahim was going to be her semi permanent therapist as she continued to recover, she wanted to have a comfortable working relationship with the man if at all possible.

 

The dark skinned petty officer let loose with a bark of laughter. “Sounds like a plan. And it’s Elijah. Mister Ibrahim is my father.” He also made a mental note of the fact that she wouldn’t hesitate to speak her mind and that would help in the long run with her therapy sessions if she really started to hurt or was feeling markedly better.

 

“Okay sir, I need you to sit up upright on the edge of the bed, legs dangling.” He slowly moved her arm downward and then released the appendage from the grip he maintained on it.

 

The brown furred feline groaned and rolled over onto her back, swinging her cat shaped hind legs over the edge of the bed and then sitting up to complete the rolling move. Today she wore a khaki colored pair of fleet issue sweats that were emblazoned with the logo and insignia of the Excalibur’s air group and the color outfit complimented her fur tone nicely. The hooded sweat jacket had been stripped off in favor of a slightly darker hued sports bra for the physical therapy session.

 

Considering it was just shy of fifteen hours since she had been injured, Ibrahim again made a mental note that her coordination was vastly improving and adjusting, and would put that in her therapy progress report. He surmised that her being a feline had something to do with it, as they tended to mend faster then the humanoid population. Hey, if you have the genetics conducive to healing, go for it. Either that, or the executive officer, like most cats, was good at hiding her injuries. Elijah suspected that this species predilection was also coming into play, and he didn’t care how far removed she was from the domesticated cat genome.

 

The petty officer again grabbed her injured arm in a firm but gentle grip and moved it to another angle, intending to work both the injured shoulder and injured neck muscles simultaneously.

 

Left Ear let loose with a mrrowled yelp of pain as he manipulated the appendage again to that particular position, and Ibrahim immediately backed off with the pressure and let go of the feline senior officer. Her ears went completely flat on her head and stuck out to the sides. She screwed her eyes shut and gritted her fangs as the wave of pain in her shoulder and neck crested and then dissipated; her claws and popped out and she gripped the edge of the bio bed with one big paw while the other free paw clutched at her neck. Ibrahim stepped to the side and calmly entered commands into his data Padd recording device, giving the commander some semblance of privacy while she recovered from the jolt of pain.

 

Only about two minutes passed and then her breathing slowed and her eyes opened again, so this was a good thing and it showed some progress overall. Ibrahim offered the Caitian executive officer a smile. “Okay now? Obviously we are done with this session, but I have to say sir that you did wonderful. Keep this up, and we’ll be done in no time.” He put a dark hand out in an offer to share a handshake.

 

JoNs offered a mild, though genuine, smile to the enlisted officer and put a paw out (minus the claws) to return the handshake gesture.