Christine Chapel likes pointy ears! (nurse_chapel) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2012-04-25 01:17:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, alice liddell, christine chapel, kitty pryde (shadowcat) |
The receptionist kind of went rogue with the 'psycho referrals'.
Who: Alice, Christine Chapel, Kitty Pryde
What: fun in the low income clinic - psycho referrals and nose gold.
When: Today!
Where: low income clinic, Santa Ana
Rating: PGish
Status: Complete!
Alice was in for a checkup. It was more of a mental check up, but she'd decided to check on physical check up - and maybe get something to help herself forget sleep. She looked like she hadn't slept in two weeks, and she barely had! She itched at the tattoo'd over scars on her wrists, and waited. And stared at the brunette sitting across from her, creepily.
Kitty was playing with her phone to keep herself entertained. She was embarrassed to be here, but she felt like she was coming down with something, and it was better to be safe than sorry.
If only that chick would stop staring at her. She gave the girl a wary grin.
Alice smiled, cheshire-like.
Alice got to her feet, and slowly walked into the doctor's office. She yawned, sitting on the bed with the paper crinkly and twitched at the sound, gripping the edges of the bed until her knuckles went white.
This was a bad idea.
Christine closed the door to the very tiny, very cramped, and somewhat stuffy exam room. She looked through the file while asking, with a smile, "How are you today, Alice? Here for just a checkup or is there something in particular you'd like checked out?"
"I haven't been able to sleep," She replied, tersely. "It's making me bloody nutters."
"Is it normal for you to have insomnia?" asked Christine, setting the file down and starting to take her blood pressure. She noted the girl's interesting tattoos, but wisely said nothing. She wasn't an actual doctor, as it was, only a nurse practitioner, and she knew the signs of mental health issues. Enough to think about suggesting she suggest a few clinics or two after she went through the routine part of the exam.
She shook her head, brushing dark bangs out of her eyes, "I've been better, until recently."
She was quiet for a moment while listening to her heartbeat and things looked normal for the most part, just slightly elevated blood pressure, most likely because she'd been awake for heavens only knew how long.
"How recently? I'm sorry, a ton of questions, I know. But how long since you've slept a full night?"
Alice tilted her head, "Several nights ago..." When Aveline had stayed over, "I slept about five hours. Then another five hours about two weeks ago. Little cat-naps here and there."
"Oh, that's not good at all," she whispered, looking into her eyes with a bright light. "Headaches, any physical symptoms besides not getting any sleep...?"
"My brainpan is killing me," Alice admitted. "I've been having horrible dreams."
"Headaches, then?" Brainpan? Christine smiled at the girl and took out a thermometer strip to pop under her tongue. Whamo! There it was, in Alice's mouth, and Christine put a finger under the girl's chin to gently apply pressure and close that mouth so it could get an accurate reading. "Give it a moment? Then you can talk all you want."
She turned and started writing down some notes in the chart, and considered that the girl might need to talk to an actual doctor, of the mental health variety.
Alice hated this. This was a bad idea. She tried to quell a growing panic by taking deep breaths and thinking of pleasant things.
Christine reached out for the plastic tab and found herself staring at the girl's face instead. Panic attack? She'd seen enough of that before, too. She slipped the thermometer out from under Alice's tongue, and wrote down the temp. Normal, for the most part. A degree below normal, but nothing dangerous.
"If you're having problems, here," she laid a gentle hand on the girl's shoulder, trying to guide her, "try laying down and relaxing. Take some nice deep, slow breaths, because no one here is going to hurt you. Ok?"
"This whole place is going to hurt me." She squeezed her eyes shut, taking more of the deep, slow breaths, "Can't I just get some pills and go?"
With a soft smile, Christine shook her head very slowly, like it didn't work that way.
"I can write you something, but it'll only be temporary," she started to explain. "No refill. I can't give you enough pills to help with what might be wrong with you, and I'm sorry to say that I think it's in your head. Everything else is normal, and would require more tests to rule out things like...a brain tumor. I can run some blood tests? Or, if you want medicines and suggestions for things that can help you, we can offer you a list of referrals."
"A brain tumor!" Alice exclaimed! "Cancer explains everything!"
She offered Christine a tense smile, "I'll take the latter."
"All right, I'll see what we can do," she said while writing out a slip for just a few sleeping aids, nothing too harsh at all or addictive, since the girl had enough problems it seemed, already. Plus she was wary of giving her something too strong and having the girl take too many at once. Christine held the slip out to her. "If you wait just a moment, I'll be right back with a list of people you can call. But you have to call them, ok? If you come back here, you might be seen by a different doctor, or another nurse like me, but they're going to see the notes on the chart."This will go on your permanent record! Probably computerized!
Sleeping aides might get her into a regular cycle. As long as the nightmares stayed away. Assuming they didn't make them worse.
Alice would take the chance, "Just wait until you see my previous record, miss."
"I think whomever you call to help you is going to be able to glean more from it, than I can," she said reassuringly, but gave Alice a covert wink to let her know it would be okay, and headed out to the office. She leaned over to the receptionist, and whispered as discreetly as possible, "Going to need a list for mental health referral, can you print something out real quick? Thanks!"
She waited there and glanced around the waiting room, like taking a headcount of how many patients there were.
The receptionist nodded his head, opening the file he'd labeled 'psycho referrals' and printing out the list, "Here you go, Nurse Chapel." He winked at her.
She really, really wished they wouldn't label it 'psycho referrals'...and she did see that, too. With a quirk of her lips, she bonked the papers on top of the receptionist's head and discreetly stuck the tip of her tongue out at him (just a little!), while turning to head back to the room.
Once she was back inside, Christine held the paper out to Alice and smiled apologetically. On the list was Ben Linus' name, as one of the possible contacts if Alice decided to make an appointment with him.
"If you need coverage, there's some numbers there on the second page. One of those should be able to help on an emergency basis. And if you get sick, at all, come on back down here and we'll see what we can do. Sound good?"
The receptionist kind of went rogue with the 'psycho referrals'. He also had the 'wee wee issues' folder and a 'vajayjay problems' file.
Alice took the paper and nodded her head, and then said, her face 100% super serial, "Do any of them deal with sexual dysfunction?"
"That's something you'd have to ask about, for specifics," Christine said, and her voice was very gentle but very reassuring also. "I think there's some listings like behavioral and counseling, so make sure when you call? You ask."
"I will," Alice replied, looking a little put out that Christine had taken that question so well.
By this point, she'd pretty much heard everything? Some of which from Leo while trading horror stories, so it was hard to phase Christine. Short of maybe proving Santa Claus or Pokemon were real, and that little green men walked amongst them. Then she might be phased and amazed, but she also doubted those three things were ever going to happen.
"All right, and if you need some blood tests or anything, be sure to come back. In fact, here." Christine reached out and touched her fingers under the girl's lower jaw, quirking up one corner of her mouth and then shaking her head, sadly. "Not even any signs of swelling. Nope."
Not even worthy of a swab. Damn. She liked swabbing people to see if she could get it done before they could gag. She was pretty good at, too! Sadly, Christine opened the door and held it open for Alice. No swabs or needle stickings, today. Sad panda times.
The receptionist tried. He might have a crush. And there was a little green girl wandering around, just you wait, Nurse Chapel!
No needle sticking was probably good. Alice would try to cut her. We don't want that.
"You look disappointed. Do I get a lolli?"
Christine held out a bright green lollipop to Alice.
"Its not red!" Alice looked overjoyed, and took the lolly, sucking on it seductively as she marched out into the waiting room to pay the receptionist, and pay the ransom, "Bollocks!"
"Next!" called out Christine, handing the receptionist Alice's file and taking the next folder off the stack. She had laughed a bit at the bollocks and the glee that it wasn't red. After seeing the girl's wrist tattoos, she imagined the last thing she'd need was to see more red leaking out of her. "Katherine Pryde?"
Kitty got up, putting her phone away and edging past the crazy girl warily.
"Oh, hey! You look familiar, aren't you the girl from the valar net?" Christine asked while holding the door open to let her into the back area. She did point at her and was grinning ear to ear, because she was almost entirely certain it was the same person. "Kitty, right? Warcraft referral girl. How are you?"
Kitty grinned, "Hey! Yeah, that's me! How are you enjoying the game? I see you and that other doctor going all over the place. How was Goldshire?"
"Well we were more or less just running around wrecking stuff, with me healing him and him killing landscape creatures?" she confessed with a supremely sheepish grin and a rolling of her eyes so she was looking upward. "So we haven't quite made it there yet. But we heard some things about the kink. Shhh! Can't wait to see it! Looking forward to it. I think it'll be totally funny."
It was like it was a huge, dirty secret. Of course the receptionist heard, but they didn't count, because he didn't make for good elf material. No way could she slap some pointy ears on that one and then stare at him lovingly while fixing him exotic soups. Which, somehow or other, in her head, it just seemed right to have as a romantic ideal.
Wow, ok, enough of that. Christine suddenly shook her head and popped that nice mental picture bubble, before waving to Kitty to follow. She lead her back to the exam room and pulling new paper down over the table. That done, she patted her hand on it like Kitty could take a seat!
"I won't breathe a word, it has to be seen to be believed." She made a mental note to send Christine a Black Mageweave set. Swimsuit outfit would probably be appreciated! She kept her voice low, "Did you get the little rabbits I sent you?" Because rabbits and Draenai made almost as much sense as gnomes.
Ooh she should send them Santa's Little Helper! She followed, hopping onto the seat, "I think I'm getting sinus crap. A lot of sinus headaches lately and I want to nip any infections or bronchitis in the bud."
"I got the rabbit, thanks! And ohh, that's no good. There's a lot of that starting up because of allergy season. But first, let's get through the boring stuff." Boring routine stuff, check blood pressure, listen to her heart and breathing, get temperature, that sort of thing.
Kitty put up with it. She was pretty healthy, generally, despite a few minor guilty pleasures.
Seemed that way, because there wasn't much that Christine was picking up on, other than maybe she was a little clogged up.
"This it the part everyone loves. I get to peek up your nose holes with this, and give you good or bad news." In she goes, looking up Kitty's nose and pleasantly commenting like it's the weather, "Pretty clean on the lower part, actually. Did you squeegie it before the appointment so I wouldn't be offended? Thanks!"
"Ooooh, your sinuses are irritated at you.” It was said like 'oh girl, u best recognize...'
"Don't..." Kitty tried not to giggle with the thing up her nose, but she still snickered a bit. Nasally, she replied, "Oh god don't I know it!"
"I've seen some monster nose gold in my time, don't worry about it," she said with a laugh and ceased the inspection. She checked the girl's glands and throat, and sort of scrunched up one eye. "We can take a look at the back of your throat, too, but I'm willing to bet it's also irritated."
"Nose gold? Are you insinuating I should get a nose ring?" That actually wasn't a bad idea, "Maybe it'll help with the mining."
She opened her mouth obediently and went 'aaaaah'
"Nope, just giant booger things." Christine looked in and winced, before proceeding to prove exactly how bad her spanish was. "No bweeno. You've got drainage. Is your throat sore? Losing your voice?"
"A little prickly," Kitty replied.
"Taking any allergy medicines? I might have to swab this." There was a gleam of delight in her eyes, that Kitty should take heed of.
Kitty misread the delight as simply being a good nurse and nodded her head, "Just some sudafed."
"We can do this just to make sure it's not something you've caught. It's better safe than sorry." She is holding up the swab now. "Open wide!"
Kitty squinted, but it was too late to go back now. She opened her mouth wide. Heh Heh....wide.
In goes the swab and swipe it goes. Even if done gently, it was still in there. Hello! At least it hadn't hit her right in the uvula.
Jesus fuck!
Kitty tried to not flail! It was tempting. So tempting.
"...and done," Christine said, holding the swab up on its long stick, like EUREKA! BEHOLD! and then she went to get the test culture taken care of. "Going to just do the rapid test, should only take ten minutes. Hey, I thought you had a job. Do they not pay you very well?"
"I lost my roommate so things are a little tight, but I'm remedying that situation." Kitty rubbed at her throat, "And its hard finding a place that accepts my insurance."
"Oh, I see. Sorry. Didn't mean to add insult to injury." She laughed a little to soften the questioning. "Not really something that I should be asking after you get your throat jabbed with a cotton swab. Here." She got a paper cup of water and held it out. "Might want to drink this."
Kitty took the water gratefully and sipped at it, "Thanks. So you can do the test here?" She sounded impressed.
"We can. It's only a quick test in-clinic, but it's about ninety percent accurate. It's not picking up anything yet, so you might be all clear. Unless you've been kissing a lot of people, and then maybe it's mono." Christine laughed and shook her head. "I'm joking. You seem fine otherwise, don’t have any other symptoms, and you aren't running a fever. I'm sitting around hoping someone will break the dry spell and come in with a fever. No luck, yet."
"Nobody recently," Kitty shook her head, then her eyes widened a bit. Other than her ex, she'd only kissed one person, but she'd been a little drunk and that hadn't counted, and while her ex-roommate had been a slut she'd been a clean slut, as far as she was aware.
"Maybe you'll luck out and there'll be a bird flu epidemic?"
Christine only shrugged at the bird flu. She thought of all the flu shots she could helpfully give to people and it warmed her heart. Also? Those sorts of germs and bacteria and viruses truly interested her. She should’ve gotten a job in a CDC lab playing with Ebola in her spare time. Whoops. Too late for a career switch, now!
"Really only gave you the test because you were a little red and blotchy in the back of your throat. That's probably just irritation from sinus drain which happens a lot during colds, allergies, and when we sleep," she explained and then checked the time and looked at it again. "No, all clear. You're good to go. So I'll write something up for some nasal spray, which is pretty disgusting. I suggest you try some saline rinse to keep allergies from getting any worse, follow the directions and don't use the two at the same time. To keep it cheap? Try some benedryl in the evening or even a daytime non-drowsy decongestant if things get choppy."
"Thanks, I'll keep that in mind." It came time for Kitty to pay the ransom.
Slip written out and handed over, and Christine gave her a consoling pat on the shoulder.
"That's the cheap route. If it keeps up or gets worse, come back in. You can see one of the normal doctors instead of the lame nurse practitioner, such as myself."
She was, of course, joking again by poking fun at herself. The door was held open for Kitty, as Christine gave her a smile. "See you in game, then?"
"You were fantastic, Christine. I'll see you in game. I'll introduce you to battleground!"
"Thanks! And...battleground? Oh, that sounds fun." Christine did have this tiny little bit of her that sort of craved adventure and excitement and new things, but it didn't show much on the outside. And her life was definitely not adventuresome. It was profoundly normal and she wasn't about to go rocking that boat. "I'll see you in game. Remember, saline? Try it, it helps."
She placed a fingertip against the tip of her own nose and gave it a tap tap, while winking at Kitty.
"Lots of fun!" Kitty nodded, paid her due, and headed out!