“Doctor? Why?” Zed asked in furrowed brows.
I looked at him with a scared and worried face that confused both Zed and Ara. Zed hurried downstairs but I stopped him right away.
“Can you do the questioning later and just hurry up? Go and change!”
Zed scratched his head and opened his mouth to speak, but he shut his mouth in the end and turned to leave.
In less than 10 minutes, Zed was already in a new set of jeans and shirt. He hollered from the top of the staircase, interrupting Ara and mine’s discussion.
“What was in that movie that prompted you to bring me to a doctor?’
I ignored her and turned to Ara. “Ar, I’m so sorry. You may stay here and continue watching the movie. Promise, I will explain it to you later.”
Ara shooed us away impatiently, irritated that I had disrupted her excitement of the climax of the story.
“Whatever. Just tell me what caused your paranoia once you’re back.”
As Zed turned on the car’s ignition key, he looked at me affectionately and patted my head.
“What bothers you, sweetheart?”
I knew Zed wanted to argue that he was fine, but he couldn’t afford to hurt me. He saw how scared I was.
“Zed, this is for your own good. Just listen to me and stop asking.”
“Okay. Just relax.”
Zed’s ways of pampering moved my heart again. I leaned my head on his shoulder and every now and then, he reached out for my hand to comfort me. He was never perfect because the ideal traits of my dreamed man were not in him, but I knew I was the luckiest wife to have a husband like him. He was not only brilliant and good-looking in his tall and lean figure, but he also had the ability to move the hearts of a huge crowd every time he delivered a speech.
Many people admired him crazily, and that included me. But above all, I was the most fortunate. I was the apple of his eyes and the recipient of his doting love and gentleness.
Yet, no matter how perfect he seemed to be, he had a flaw that made me unhappy. We were in a serious relationship, but we never go beyond kissing. I thought it was only about his faith and faithfulness to uphold the no-sex-before-marriage rule, but because he was afraid I might find out his deficiency. Wasn’t this cheating?
I tried to think of thousand reasons to put him above other husbands’ flaws so that I wouldn’t feel bad. And it worked! Most of the men drink alcohol, Zed didn’t. Some husbands were overly jealous, Zed trusted me fully. Others had vices, Zed didn’t have any.
“Mia, can you check Zed’s blood sugar first?” I asked the doctor’s secretary as soon as we went inside Dr. Seno’s clinic. We sat at the waiting area just across the secretary’s desk.
We knew each other already since Dr. Seno handled my case for many years already. I had some allergies and he was the one who managed my medications.
“Sure,” she smiled, glancing at Zed.
Mia took out a glucometer, attached a new microfine needle, then opened a lancet. He then asked Zed to sit down across her table, reached for his hand, disinfected a finger with an alcohol swab, then pricked it with a lancet. As soon as the glucometer beeped, I hurriedly stood up. My heart almost jumped out of its cage while waiting for the blinking numbers to stop.
“90 mg/dl,” Mia announced with a wide grin. I also drew out a long sigh.
Thankfully, he’s not diabetic! But unless his fasting blood glucose result was out, I couldn’t be at peace.
“Just stay in your seat for a while, sir. I’ll get your vital signs,” Mia added.
I just stared at Zed while Mia checked her pulses and blood pressure, praying silently that may Zed doesn’t have any heart problems.
“120/80, 78…”
I heaved out another sigh. Since the queue was still long, I left Zed at the clinic and went to the Cardio Lab. Melyn, the cardio nurse, was encoding patients’ results on the computer. She was also my friend.
“Hi, sis!” I smiled at her.
“Yen! What’s up?”
“Can you do ECG and 2D Echo for Zed?” I asked with begging eyes. “And help me facilitate a chest x-ray for him?”
Melyn stopped typing. “Sure. Do you have a request from Dr. Seno?”
“Not yet, but I’m going to request for it. I want to use our waiting time doing these procedures ahead.”
“You are getting paranoid again.” She rolled her eyes and I giggled.
In those many years I worked at the hospital, I was already familiar with the basic tests and procedures for patients having cardiac problems. They forward the patient’s charges to me, so I already mastered them.
After a few hours of waiting time, I already had the official diagnostic readings even before our turn for the checkup. Melyn was there to prioritize the reading of Zed’s tests. Another few more minutes, and finally we were sitting across from Dr. Seno.
“Has your allergies exacerbate again?” She glanced at me worriedly and smiled.
“No, doc. It’s Zed, my husband. Just a while ago, he had a slight chest tightness.” I glanced at Zed, giving him a meaningful look. He glanced back at me with an amused smile.
“Can you describe what happened, sir? And what you did before that?”
My heartbeats raced wildly. I just couldn’t imagine how Zed would deal with this lie.
“It has been a tough and exhausting week for me, doc. I always sleep late. And before this tightness happened, we were on a long trip. It was also a humid day and we stopped by an ice cream parlor and I ate a lot.”
I grinned like a fool. Who knew that Zed would be so brilliant enough to carry on my lies?
Dr. Seno flipped the sheets and even looked at the films of those procedures.
“All your results are normal, but to be sure, let’s do some blood tests. You need to do fasting for 12 hours so that we could check your fasting blood sugar and your lipids. Then aside from that, let’s do another more test.”
“Yes, doc,” Zed and I chorused. And before we left the clinic, I felt relieved that Zed didn’t have any heart dysfunction that may have caused his limping.
But what if his case isn’t an erectile dysfunction syndrome? What if it were something else since his tests were all normal?