Dawn nearly jumped out of her seat when the door opened. She felt like she'd been sitting there so long that she'd forgotten she was ever going to see a doctor at all; the arrival of another person seemed almost like a sudden, unwelcome surprise, just as she was finally getting used to the peace and quiet of the examination room. It took her half a second to get her mind back on why she'd come here to begin with.
"So, let's see," Doctor Larsen said as she entered. "It says here you've been having some pain in your wrist?" Dawn felt a little reassured that the doctor was female. Sure, it didn't matter quite so much this time--guys probably had the same wrists that girls did--but she always felt a little more comfortable with a woman doctor. It was also nice that she looked to be about fifteen years older than Dawn. She was just getting used to the idea that she was thirty; the idea of trusting her health to someone younger than her was going to take a lot more getting used to.
All that flickered through Dawn's head in about a quarter of a second before she replied, "Um, yeah. Every time I bend it, it feels really sore." She held up her right hand, keeping the wrist ramrod straight. "I can bend it about..." She crooked hand forward less than a quarter of an inch, already feeling the burning pain in the joint. "...this much before it hurts."
Doctor Larsen nodded. "Sounds like a case of tendonitis," she said. "Nothing too serious. We'll have you feeling all better by the time you leave." She smiled gently, her pale green eyes twinkling behind her glasses. "Tell me, do you play a lot of sports? Or perhaps have a job that requires repetitive motion?"
"I work in data entry," Dawn replied. "Just until I can find something to do with my Classics degree." She didn't know why she felt like she had to justify her career choices, all of a sudden; it was probably something to do with the way Doctor Larsen looked so much like an authority figure. The white coat, the dark hair pulled back into a tight bun, the clipboard...Dawn felt like she was about to get a lecture on how her nose piercing and her green hair was holding her back from good jobs.
Instead, Doctor Larsen crossed over to the medicine cabinet and pulled out a small bottle and a syringe. "That's fairly normal, then," she said as she stuck the needle into the bottle and began to draw the plunger up. "Pretty much any repetitive motion can cause those tendons to get inflamed; you might have heard of it as 'tennis elbow', but it can happen in just about any joint." She pulled the syringe back out. "You might want to look at a brace for your wrist, to help support it while you type."
"Um, Doctor Larsen..." Dawn's eyes widened just a little as the other woman turned towards her. The needle seemed kind of large. Awfully large, in fact. Dawn was pretty sure they'd used a smaller needle to pierce her nose.
"Please, dear, call me Adelle." She held out her hand expectantly. "I feel awfully silly going by 'Doctor Larsen'. Makes me sound like my father."
"Um, okay...Adelle," Dawn said, not quite ready to hand over her arm just yet. "What's that for?"
Adelle fixed her with a steady, confident look. It didn't exactly look like it was meant to intimidate, but it certainly didn't look like it wanted to hear arguments, either. "It's a painkiller and an anti-inflammatory," she said. "It'll bring the swelling down and make your wrist hurt less. You'll still want to take it easy for a few days, though. I'll give you a doctor's note to excuse you for the rest of the week."
"Oh," Dawn said, her worries easing a little. She still thought about asking if she could get by without it--painkillers tended to make her groggy, and she needed to drive home after this--but Adelle was the doctor, after all. And she had the clipboard and the coat and everything. "Okay." Dawn held out her arm, studiously looking away.
She felt a brief, sharp prick, much less pain than she'd expected, and then a sensation of coolness flooding into her wrist. "There you go, dear," Adelle said. "Now we'll just give that a couple of minutes to kick in. Do you have someone out in the waiting room that can give you a ride home?"
Dawn shook her head. "No, I came by myself." Mentally, she kicked herself. She should have said something after all.
"No worries," Adelle said, patting her on the shoulder. "You're my last appointment of the day, and I'm sure I can give you a ride to wherever you're going."
Dawn frowned. That didn't explain how she was going to get back to her car before work tomorrow--oh, right. She wouldn't be going to work again until Monday. Her frown metamorphosized into a broad grin. Almost a whole week off, and all of it paid! She wondered what she was going to do with all that unexpected free time.
"How does your wrist feel, Dawn?" Adelle asked.
