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Gabriel Edega was, by all means, a perfect doctor.
He followed the Hippocratic Oath to the letter, penned medical texts that spanned language barriers, performed hours-long surgeries and was back in his office within five minutes. Others looked upon him as a deity figure, a shining example of the profession. A name to be lauded for generations even after his passing, engraved on gold plaques in the highest honor.
Those closer, like the employees staffing his hospital, were acutely more aware of the man himself. The man who consistently clocked 60-hour weeks, who would take only one break a day to grab his coffee. The man who pushed himself to the standards of fantasy, and expected those around him to follow like faithful ducks. When those standards went unmet, when employees' breaks went over time, when doctors quit due to being wrung dry and having nothing left to give. Gabriel would snide in their direction, and push forward.
Clearly, they couldn’t do what it takes. The bare minimum. Again, he would be in need of picking up the slack. No matter, he’s done it plenty of times before. He wonders, as he reads the resignation letter folded neatly on his desk, if any of those lost along the way truly wanted to be medical professionals. The answer he arrived at was always a hard no– they would have stuck to it if they truly wanted this. If they truly could handle this.
Thankfully, Gabriel Edega is a stronger man. A stronger doctor. And compensating for yet another has-been had become an unfortunate yet expected part of his routine.
He delivers the news to the few doctors in the wing’s hallway. His speech had become rather rehearsed, at this point. Yes, another doctor has quit their position. No, we’re not looking to replace their role at this time. You’re expected to pick up their duties as soon as possible. The others would fear, doom about not being able to take on the extra workload. Yet, it always got done. Thus, the cycle repeats.
He leaves the grouped doctors as they huddle and discuss the information. He pauses after rounding the corner– a moment to take a few huffed breaths. Long talks such as those always left him short of breath. Such would be true for anyone. He presses a hand against the wall, steadying himself. He becomes rather aware of the fact that drawing air felt much more labor intensive than was usual. His fingers, pale and shaking, tighten against the concrete.
After a few long moments, he’s back under control. While his chest was still plagued with an unexplained tightness, his lungs felt much more cooperative. It’s a shame, he thinks, to be bound to such a fragile being. All of these moments he’ll never get back, having spent wrangling his own physical form like a toddler.
Whatever. It had run its course. He’s back on his feet, clipboard pushed back up against his face, and is back on his way to his next assignment. He flips the front sheet tacked neatly to his clipboard to view the one beneath– a schedule penned in ink in a scrawl that would be hard to parse by anyone other than himself. Teachers in school always critiqued him on his handwriting, and he thought that was silly. If he could read it, surely, that was enough.
Hm. His next pressing matter was the seeing to of a patient scheduled for a myotomy in a few hours. He mentally ‘tsk-tsks’ at the task. He was never one for patient-to-doctor communication. Surely a nurse could relay this information to him. A sheet of symptoms, of tests, that would be enough. Alas and alack, it must be done and take time away from his already rather busy schedule.
Suddenly, he falters.
Fuck.
First, he becomes aware of a soreness in his shoulder. Blinking a few times to readjust to his surroundings, Gabriel finds himself crunched up against the wall, his free hand gripping pointlessly at his chest and his shoulder pressed into the concrete. Checking his peripherals, he breathes a sigh when he confirms he’s alone. He mentally curses his useless body. Not even able to keep upright. If he believed in some sort of God, he’d ask it why he’d been given a form that was incapable of working at one-hundred percent efficiency when performing what he was born to do.
He readjusts, moving back standing as he rotates his aching shoulder joint. It seemed fine enough. Not as if his schedule would relent on its own if it were to have been injured.
Getting quickly back to walking, it’s only a few steps before he stops again. His hand is back placed against his chest. He now knows why his balance had acted up– his heart was racing. He considers, briefly, continuing as usual, but Gabriel Edega had experienced this enough times to know that in due time that would be impossible.
The obscenity that graces his mind is verbal this time. A mumbled “fuck” through gritted teeth, just under his breath enough to assure the nurses around the corner were none the wiser. He had no time for this. But his body had a way of making time.
He grasps the clipboard in his hand much tighter and mentally reroutes his path, now to his office. As he begins with a quickened pace, he tries to steady his breath. In, and out. In, and out.
He’s unsurprised to find it doesn’t work. His heart’s tachycardia rarely took orders. He just needs to wait it out. In the case any other self-respecting doctor were to see him in this state, they’d surely be insistent on getting him a full medical checkup. Days of rest. Constant monitoring. Nothing he had the time or patience for.
He bumps against a line of crash carts along the edge of the hallway. He stumbles, but keeps pace. He just needs to make it to his office. He speeds up. His vision fuzzes and blurs at the edges, as his huffs for any semblance of breath to enter his lungs.
As he reaches his office door, thankfully having gone unnoticed by those he’d passed along the way, his shaky palm moves from his racing heart to the handle. It’s a struggle that lasts several seconds, but he manages. He slams the door shut behind him, lets his clipboard clatter to the hardwood, and straight-arms his desk, his knuckles whitening as he attempts to steady himself for the worst.
His breathing pattern had become borderline hyperventilating. He tries to count the pulses in his ears, but they rush with such a ferocity that he can no longer keep track. Now certifiably alone, and in an office with walls he’d confirmed to be rather soundproof, his cries through gritted teeth continue in a much louder manner. Obscenities, begs, even a half-hearted prayer to whatever God would listen.
This was the worst it had ever been.
The frequency of these tachycardial attacks were a matter he hoped he would go to his grave with. The amount of times he’s needed to rush to his office, on the best of days, or secluded stairwells or corners on the worst, was a number he wouldn’t dare admit he found a deep-rooted fear in. One of these days, one will kill him.
He wonders if today is that day.
He wonders if that would be the easiest solution. It would be so easy, he thinks, to be dead. His reputation in the medical community is shining. If he were to pass now, surely, it would stay that way forever.
That thought is quickly rubbed away. He had so much more to do. Were it up to him, he would live forever. Imagine all he could do for the medical community. Imagine if he would be able to…
Well, no matter.
He notices, distantly, that he’s crying. Not in any emotional sense, but his body’s purest response to such a visceral, terrifying experience. His consistent hyperventilating has him desperately close to passing out. He fights it. If one were to find him in such a state, he’d never be looked at the same again. He’d be looked upon as fragile. He doesn’t dare imagine it.
After what feels like hours, but was in reality not more than five minutes, his racing pulse gets to a pace at which he can count the beats. That usually signifies it’s calming down. He uses the pace to try to time his breathing. It works well enough.
Once he’s fully rooted back in reality, he attempts to check his hands and confirm he’s still alive. Only now does he notice the lights are off. He stumbles over and flicks them on, seeing the indentation of his desk’s edge burned into his palms. He uses the reflection of his framed diploma to check himself, and finds his pale, shaking form drenched in sweat and his hair a mess.
He presses his palm back to his chest. Still elevated, but fine. Alive. He’d survived another one.
He leans down, picking up his abandoned clipboard from the floor. He thumbs through the attached pages, attempting to return feeling to his numbing fingers. He uses the moment to let himself breathe, compose himself. His free hand brushes through his hair, confirming distantly that he’ll need to take a shower when he has the time.
He glances at the clock. He’d bought one that had hands that ticked with loud “clacks”, to help steady himself during times like these, but he tsks when he realizes it hadn’t worked. How long had it been? Seven minutes?
He flips back to his schedule scrawled on his clipboard. He has to squint to read the text. With shaky fingers, he draws in a few arrows to signify changes. These bouts always had a way of mucking up his agenda. With the clearing of his throat, and an adjustment of his lapel, he returns back to his well-adjusted, posture corrected stance, with his clipboard placed pointedly over his face.
Well, no time to waste, now.
He leaves his office, and returns back to work. He had patients to see.
No time for his body to be acting up, no time for his heart to beg to be given time to rest. He only has so much time. If he isn’t spending it at work, he’s wasting it. Such was just what a doctor had to do.
After all, Gabriel Edega was, by all means, a perfect doctor.