“What’s a wife supposed to do, huh?”

An honest-to-God rendition of an embattled wife who almost went bonkers with her husband's out-of-the-blue hypochondria!

Marriage Life 101 dictates that when the Man goes down, most often it is DEFCON 1 in the household. Normal life ceases and wife’s top priority is to channel her motherly instincts and nurse him back to health. Though we all know in most cases it’s because of something he did. Like the terrible hangover from binge drinking the night before or the violent reaction next morning to a burrito had at 2am when specifically told not to. Man milks the situation for all its worth while claiming only his mom has the Midas touch when it came to healing sickness. Wife grins and bears and continues to give neck massages and backrubs when it’s not got to do with anything. Her Sunday’s screwed but she can’t do a thing about that, can she?

I get it. These are our “priceless moments” and this is what we’ve been trained to do the moment we fell in love. Every girl worth her salt (including yours truly) have done it to critical acclaim.

But pray, what the hell is a woman supposed to do when her husband announces to have come down with a different ailment every single day, huh?

Now before you go all Judge Judy on me, let me reaffirm that I love my husband like no other. He’s smart, funny, cuddly and the next closest thing to Hercules (even if he can’t lift no more than 25lbs). Seriously, I cannot stand the sight of him twisting and turning in agony. I want him to remain fit as a fiddle, walk upright and goof around like the oversized kid I’ve known him always. In other words, I’ll offer my sympathies and services only for the known medical diseases. Not for something that’s been strung together on blogs and forums by insomniac hypochondriacs and probably isn’t even in the medical dictionary anyway.

I'm not sure of the genesis of his problem, but if I were to guess I’d say it was about two weekends ago. We’d been with friends in town that Saturday night pub hopping and clubbing, as usual trying to keep pace with 20somethings still in college. I woke up past noon on Sunday thanking heavens for the extra day. Ananth was walking around aimlessly something bothering him.

“I think I just peed for the 8th time since this morning” he informed me like it was a statistic I should be aware of.

“So…?”

“Don’t you think it’s unusual?” he sounded surprised.

“Baby, if you drank 2 liters of something it’s bound to come out sometime, don’t you think?”

“But…”

“Well… what do you think? That you’ve got a tap inside? You can turn it on and it’ll come out all gushing?” I dismissed him and switched on the TV. I’d recorded that week’s CSI and had two more episodes to catch up. You never want to begin a Monday knowing you were behind on your CSIs and “Law & Order” I didn’t hear anything about any more discomfort from Ananth though I heard the toilet flush a few more times and he still seemed preoccupied.

I came back from work on Monday around 6.30pm and was surprised to see him home already. “How’re you feeling?” I asked. Ananth was hunched over his laptop in the living room, once again weighed down by something.

“Not good… I think I have bladder cancer” he said timidly.

“What? Who said that?” I shrieked. I was more irritated than concerned.

“Everyone”. I moved closer and found at least 10 windows open on his computer, everything from WebMD to an Ayurveda website.

“Unless you go to a doctor and they say so, you don’t have anything” I said with finality. You don’t get cancer because a website says so. You need to fork at least one quarter of your fortune on scans and X-rays before the white coats deign so. I made him promise he wouldn’t do any research on this and that he’d go see the doctor the next day. “If you think it’d help go see some porn” I said half-jokingly.

Ananth didn’t go the doctor the next day (or the next three) though he looked slightly better. He still went to work and all but the burst wasn’t just there. It was as if he’d been replaced by a lifeless mannequin that did nothing except walk around the house and check its pulse every fifteen minutes. I hated that. I went up to him and hugged, “What is really bothering you?”

“I don’t know… I seem to have the shingles. There’s some tremors in my hands and there’s pain” He offered me his palms and I pressed them a few times to find nothing. But then what do I know? “Let’s go to this website…” he started to pull his laptop closer.

“Noooo” I shouted and pushed him away. “You’re going to your primary physician and that’s it” I said. Ananth offered to drive by himself for the appointment next day.

Doctors, here and everywhere are sworn to commit to nothing before putting you through a battery of tests – blood, urine and whatnot. Word was, everything looks fine but let’s wait for the results before you can go party the lights out. Those two to three days were enough for Ananth to stock up on more medical paraphernalia. He’d now moved on from bladder cancer and latched onto multiple sclerosis, totally convinced that doomsday was right around the corner.

“This is bullshit” I waved it off.

“No… they’re true. I might have them” he insisted. I bit my lip and remained mum. Every disease or illness has around ten symptoms all of which include some kind of pain, nausea and the like. Put two and two and two together and you can go all the way up to AIDS.

The results arrived four days later and I’ve never seen anyone so dejected to learn that they were healthy. “It’s almost as if you were expecting something big” I tried not being sarcastic.

“But I’m still not feeling well” he moaned. Whatever!

The next morning I woke up to what I thought was a severe earthquake. The bed was shaking on all fours and Ananth was on top trying to break my sleep.

“What?” I said groggily, noticing it was still before 7am.

“My whole face is numb. So are my hands. Help me!” Ananth’s face was ashen and for a moment I was scared he’d a stroke or something. We quickly got ready and headed off to the hospital in Beaverton. I heard my phone ring but didn’t pick it up. On the way he started to feel better. His color was returning fast and he was improving though he was still squeezing his head like an orange. Insurance labels it Immediate Care, but there’s nothing immediate about it unless you’ve arrived there with your entails out or are gasping for your last breath. While Ananth was being attended to while I took out my phone and realized it was my mother who’d called. Thank God I didn’t answer that.

Hey ma! Yeah I’m doing fine. Everything’s normal. Also, your favorite son-in-law is frozen like a statue since morning and I’m taking him to the museum. I mean, hospital. Ok I’ll talk to you later. Love you.

I chuckled involuntarily at that imaginary conversation. Ananth came out fifteen minutes later and informed that he’d scheduled another checkup with his physician three days hence.

“Good. That’ll give you more time to read up on more journals. Do you want to stop by the library on your way home?” Ananth smiled crooked and I was proud of my dry wit and humor.

Convinced he wasn’t out of the woods yet, Ananth took the next three days off, presumably to recuperate from the non-existent ailments. A terrible decision, since I was now being bombarded by calls at work, getting status updates on the hour and simultaneously accused of indifference.

“What do you want me to say? You’re fine” I was exasperated.

“What if I’d had a heart attack?” he shot back.

“You did not and you’re not going to. If you don’t shut up I’m going to have one because these books are driving me crazy” I snapped back and hung up. Anyone who thinks being an accountant is just updating a spreadsheet, talk to me first. On a normal day I work eight hours without checking my mail even once.

Lo behold! The diagnosis was just pure plain old stress, or as in today’s medical world, a panic attack. “You’re obsessed about a problem and before you know it takes over and plays havoc with your body from head to toe” Ananth explained. “We also went over my blood tests. My CBC, BMP and LFTs were negative. LDL was slightly higher and we talked about increasing the antibiotics later if needed” he summarized.

“You talked to your doctor like this?” I was shocked.

“Yeah… I used many more terms” his chest swelled with pride like he’d cracked the pre-meds.

“No s**t! If I were the doctor I’d have given you laxatives and called it Vitamin C just to teach smartasses like you a lesson” I laughed. Clearly Ananth didn’t partake in the joke. “I’m sorry, what exactly did the doctor say” I hugged him.

“He’s given me Xanax, an anti-depressant. Just rest and relaxation and I should be fine” he hugged me back with authority.

Whew! I heaved a huge sigh of relief.

The “near death experience” of the century was now mercifully over. Ananth looked he’d found Jesus and adamant that he was going for a complete makeover. “I’m quitting smoking and drinking, eating healthy and exercising regularly. This is a wakeup call. I’m going to be more socially conscious” he declared. I smiled and hugged him again.

“Is this you or the Xanax speaking?”

“Screw you!” he pushed me away and I laughed loud.

**************** 

It’d been a while since we’d ordered in on a Sunday and today’s lunch was superb. Ananth’s appetite was back considering the extra large helpings of fried rice and paneer butter masala that went down in a flash. As always he had something to comment about the preparation noting that less ajinomoto, more cardamom and whatnot could’ve taken it to the next level. They don’t call you Wolfgang Puck for nothing! I nodded and cleared the dirty dishes. I was busy cleaning when I noticed him hovering behind me.

“What?” I finally said without turning around.

“Ummmm no… I think there’s some pain around my lower ribs and upper stomach…” he bent backwards.

“Oh! That? I don’t know…” I dragged.

“Don’t know what?”

“Well… You might be coming down with Zollinger-Ellison Syndrome with a strong case of tumor in the duodenum” I said as-a-matter-of-factly and turned on the dishwasher.

“What? Really?” he croaked. His voice has become a whisper and I could sense his pupils dilated. Any longer he might have come down with the real thing.

“Relax sweetie! I am just fucking with you. It’s just gas. You’ve been burping like a steam engine all morning” I turned around and kissed him hard.

We’re cool!

Shailaja Kandasamy.