Chapter Text
It wasn't weird for her to take a look at new players, there are things those quick medical examinations they do to check the new signings aren't going to drop dead mid season can't see, but the whole morning for just one? That wasn't normal. It was something that, usually, Pernille only did with players who had really bad injuries, like ACLs, MCLs, and that bad stuff.
Not that Pernille minded, less players meant less work, and less trouble. Footballers, especially injured footballers, always brought lots of trouble, did you know that? She genuinely liked being the team’s doctor, and she genuinely liked the team in general, but as much as Pernille liked the girls, they were still crazy people who'd risk losing a leg just to be able to run after a ball that weekend.
Anyway, Pernille made sure to check it wasn't just some mistake and she really only had to take care of one new player, and then she started getting the room ready. And, back to her patient of the day, Pernille noticed her medical report only stated one vague thing: knee issues.
Now, knee issues could mean lots of things. It could mean Eriksson had recurrent synovial swelling, or patellofemoral pain, or a tendinopathy that flares under load. It could be a residual ligament strain, meniscal irritation, or even just joint instability after intense periods of play.
With a report that vague, Pernille had no way of knowing whether she was dealing with a minor, self-limiting complaint or the early signs of something that required a strict management plan, but she guessed that was the reason her only patient of the day was Magdalena Eriksson.
There was a knock on the door, and then Eriksson walked through the door. She wasn't limping or anything, so that was good, and she had a big smile on her face, which injured players coming into Pernille's little office didn't usually have. All good signs for Magda.
“Morning.” She said, sitting down in the free chair in front of Pernille's desk. “Sorry, I don't speak German yet.”
“And I'm not German, it must be your lucky day.” Pernille replied, turning from her computer to Magdalena. Her Swedish had gotten a little rusty since the internship she did at Linköping, but it was close enough to Danish not to completely forget about it.
“Swedish?”
“Danish.”
“Should've guessed by the accent.” Magda had a point there, Pernille had never been able to get rid of her accent. Not that she wanted to though, she liked it that way. “But at least I don't have to try to speak German.”
“Don't worry too much about that, you'll learn it in no time.” Pernille just told her before going back to the screen. “So, Magdalena, right? Tell me what's wrong with you.”
“Doesn't it say it there?”
“It just says knee issues. I'm not a fortune teller yet, you'll have to explain a bit more.”
“It’s just cartilage damage.” Magda started explaining, but still, that could range from something insignificant to not even being able to walk. “I can play through it, it's not that bad.”
“Well, I'm sorry, but I don't get paid to trust your medical opinions, so I'll have to take a look.” Pernille answered. She got up and walked towards the stretcher, and after rolling a new sheet of paper over it, she signaled Magda to lay down. “It’ll be a moment, just to make sure you're not trying to fool me.”
Magda sighed, but did as she was told, settling on her back while Pernille pulled up a rolling stool. Luckily, the German early August was hot enough not to go through the uncomfortable moment in which she had to ask a person she didn’t know at all to take their pants down. It was easier in the winter, when there was some trust already. God, Pernille hated the January transfer market.
“So, tell me.” Pernille said as she gently positioned Magda’s leg. She knew the first step to getting a patient, especially a footballer, not to freak out was to distract them. And Pernille had to admit she wasn’t the best at that, but she had learned, and Magda seemed nice enough to make it easier. "How's Munich treating you so far? Settled in?”
“As much as I can be, I’ve barely had time.” Magda admitted. She probably only had a couple days before starting training. “But I trained yesterday and it was good, though.”
Right, usually Pernille took care of all the players on their first day, but she had an extra holiday day for personal reasons (a friend of hers had just gotten married, and she had to recover from the hangover). But that only made Magda being there for the whole morning even weirder, she should’ve been checked and ready to go, in theory.
“Good. Let’s hope your knee agrees.” Pernille just said instead of concerning Magda with her theoretic concerns. Then she placed one hand under Magda’s calf and the other over her knee, testing movement slowly. “Let me know if anything hurts.”
She flexed the joint, bending it toward Magda’s chest. That made Magda tense for a second, then she relaxed as if she wanted to pretend everything was fine. “Pain?” Pernille asked, bending it a little further, just enough for it to be safe but to get a reaction out of Magda again.
“Not really. Just feels… tight. Like I can’t bend it all the way.”
“Sounds accurate.” Pernille shifted her hold, rotating the lower leg slightly. With the years she had learnt not to feel bad when she, inevitably, hurt her patients a little bit, but there was something about the way Magda tried to pretend it didn’t hurt while clearly showing it hurt that made it a bit harder for Pernille. “Any locking? Clicking?”
“Yeah, right there.” Magda said right when Pernille lightly twisted her knee to the right. “But it happens when I’m just walking too.”
“Hmm.” Pernille hummed in that neutral, professional way that made Magda instantly suspicious. Stiffness, clicking… It all sounded like what Magda had, cartilage damage, and it wasn’t uncommon among professional athletes, but Pernille had a hunch it hurt Magda more than it had to for her age.
“That’s not a good sound.”
“It’s an I need more information sound.” Pernille corrected her, giving a tiny smile that she hoped would help Magda relax a little. Afterall, Pernille couldn’t do her job properly if Magda was so stiff, and it was hard enough to keep the leg loose while someone played with your knee to add worry to that combination. Then she pressed around the joint line with practiced fingers. “Hurts here?”
“A bit.”
“And here?”
“Yeah.”
Pernille nodded, not surprised, obviously, and then she stood and crossed to a cabinet in the corner, pulling out a bottle of gel and switching on the portable ultrasound machine. Starting from the premise that she couldn’t trust footballers to give her a pain umbral to properly diagnose them, Pernille had to take a look at the inside by herself.
“Alright,” She said, returning to her stool. “I’m going to take a quick look inside, it won’t take long. But I have to warn you, the cream is a bit cold.”
Magda hissed when the cold gel hit her skin, her face scrunched more than with anything Pernille had done to her knee, but she placed the probe lightly against the skin anyway, adjusting the angle while her eyes flicked between the screen and Magda’s reactions.
“Just relax, you must be used to ultrasounds.” She murmured, moving the probe slowly. An ultrasound wasn’t as precise as an MRI could be, for example, which made it even worse that Pernille could see where the damage was on Magda’s knee easily.
Pernille adjusted the probe, watching the grey tones settle into a clear view of the joint. The cartilage should’ve formed a smooth, even band, but Magda’s looked irregular, with a darker patch along the medial side caught her eye, and beneath it a faint brightness hinted at early bone stress. It wasn’t that bad, but for a person like Magda it wasn’t any good either.
“Still learning to trust people poking at my knee, sorry.” Magda said, staring at the ceiling. Luckily, she had no idea how to read an ultrasound and hadn’t noticed the expression on Pernille’s face either.
“Well, it’s not the worst I’ve seen.” Pernille finally said, after a while of looking around to make sure the whole knee was covered and she knew the real extent of the damage. “But it’s definitely not great for a thirty-year-old.”
“Fantastic. Love that for me.”
“I mean, you could try being twenty again, but I hear that option isn’t widely available.”
“Really?” Well, at least Magda was taking the news better than Pernille thought. The most likely option was than it wasn’t the first time she had heard those words, though. “You don’t have a time machine here in the physio room?”
“Sadly, no. Bayern refuses to fund one.” Pernille said, leaving the probe in its place on the machine and swiping Magda’s knee with a paper towel carefully. “They prefer boring things like ice baths.”
Magda huffed a laugh, but her eyes flicked toward the screen. “So… on a scale from ‘ignore it’ to ‘leg is falling off’… where am I?” She asked, sounding serious for the first time since she walked into that office.
“Somewhere around ‘fix it before it gets worse.’” Pernille told her with all honesty. It wouldn’t need an amputation, but if Magda’s job wasn’t literally football Pernille would probably have her off all physical exercise until she got it fixed. “Surgery would be the cleanest solution.”
“Yeah, I know. But that’s off the table.” Magda rolled her eyes like she’d been expecting that when she replied.
“Off the table as in ‘my doctor said no’? Or off the table as in ‘I don’t want to miss football for a year and will therefore pretend everything is fine’?”
“The second one.” Magda said with zero shame. At least she recognised and didn’t try to put up a dumb excuse, Pernille liked that about her.
“I had a feeling.”
“You can’t blame me.” Magda said, pushing herself upright. “A year out? I’d go insane. I’d start knitting or something. And I’ll be thirty next month, a year out would finish my career.”
“That’s an exaggeration, I’ve had lots of players older than you recover perfectly well.” Pernille said, though she had to admit treating an injury like a broken bone or a ligament wasn’t the same as treating a progressive and chronic injury like Magda’s cartilage damage was.
“Thanks, that cheers me up.” But, clearly, Magda didn’t mean that.
“Look, it’s manageable. Not ideal, but manageable. We’ll build strength around it, keep the load under control. You won’t be playing ninety minutes every match, but you'll survive.” Pernille told her as she pulled her stool a little closer, leaning her elbows on her knees as she looked at Magda properly for the first time. She was kind of- Wait, no, not the moment.
“I figured.” Magda sighed, but then a little smile was drawn on her face. To a person like her, being told she could play normally was almost like the feeling a death sentenced prisoner got when they were told they’d be let go. “But I guess I can do that.”
“That’s what every player says right before ignoring all my instructions.”
“Hey,” Magda held up both hands. “You just said you don’t trust my medical opinions. You could at least trust my personality.”
“I don’t trust any of you.” Pernille shot back. It wasn’t personal, really, it was based on experience. “You’re getting extra strength sessions. Glutes, quads, hamstrings… Everything, twice a week, minimum. And recovery is not optional. Ice, physio work, mobility, the whole list. You skip any of it, and I’ll know.”
“You say that like you’re psychic.”
“I just have a great team of snitches in the coaching staff and the physios.” Pernille just said with a grin. She always knew, always. “I’ve worked with way too many stubborn players like you.”
“You’re grouping me with the stubborn ones already?” Magda asked, still sitting on the table, staring at Pernille with a smile as the Dane frantically wrote on her computer.
“You walked in here telling me you’re fine when you have the knee of a sixty year old, you’re leading the group.”
“Team captain again, I like that.”
“Congratulations, now, go. I’ll send you the plan before training, and if you pretend you never saw it, I will come find you.” Pernille looked up from the screen for a moment, just to check Magda had a face that confirmed she wouldn’t skip any of it, she wasn’t that kind of player, but that maybe she’d put too much effort into it.
“Threats already? We’re bonding so fast.” Magda said as she hopped off the table, testing her weight with a small wince she tried to hide. Pernille noticed, she always noticed. It was kind of part of the job too. “See you later, Doc.”
“Don’t call me that.” Pernille said, but Magda only shot her a grin on her way out.
When the door clicked shut, the room felt strangely quieter than it should have. Pernille exhaled, rubbing her temple once before turning back to her computer. She shouldn’t have enjoyed that as much as she did. Magda was a new player, a patient, nothing more. But there’d been something disarmingly familiar about her. Like talking to someone she’d known for years rather than minutes.
And she also felt bad for her, that was a bad additive. Pernille always did for players like Magda. Putting herself in the Swede’s place, she understood why surgery was off the table, though realistically speaking it was the only good option. Magda would only get worse, and she knew it, but she preferred to keep on playing and live with it instead of stopping to fix it and risk losing whatever years of career her poor knee allowed her to have.
Pernille didn’t quite understand that kind of passion, her rational and medical side would never allow her to make a decision like that, but she had to admit that she admired it. She knew Magda was in constant pain, though if Pernille asked she’d get a vague answer, but she smiled through it and kept on doing what she loved.
But as bad as she might have felt, Pernille had way too much work to dwell on it. She had to have that special plan ready for the physios and the strength trainers to take a look at it before the second training session in the afternoon, and if she didn’t get on it right away she wouldn’t be able to do it.
So she straightened the papers on her desk, exhaled once, and forced her mind back into its usual order. Whatever she thought about Magda’s choices or about the way the woman had looked at her on her way out, it would have to wait. She had work to do.