Hideous

“WE’RE here in front of St. Ignacio hospital where the former beauty queen turned actress Riza Andalio was brought after her housekeeper found her unconscious and almost lifeless inside her bathroom. According to some sources, this is the hospital where her rumored husband is currently working as a cardio-thoracic surgeon…”

“Doc, Dr. Zamora said that he’ll perform the operation.”

From the large TV screen hanging on his office’s wall, Pablo turned to the resident anesthesiologist, who informed him about the sudden surgery assignment changes. “No,” he refused in a stern voice. “I will perform the operation—”

“No, you will not do anything under my watch Pablo,” a familiar voice told him in an authoritative tone. “Do you think the hospital will just allow you to do a major surgery in that condition?”

Pablo clenched his fist and looked at his colleague, “I should do it, right?” he asked in a surprisingly steady voice. “Of all the doctors here, I, as the cardio surgeon, should perform that operation!”

“No, Pablo. We’ve talked about this, and I will do the operation for Riza,” Rico told him with finality in his voice. “And, please do not intervene in our operation—”

He grabbed Rico’s collar and lifted him on his feet. “Riza is my wife, and I should save her! I will do the operation! I will do anything to save her life!”

Timmy, the anesthesiologist, pulled him away from Rico. “Dr. Alcaraz, calm down, please.”

“How will I calm down if my wife is in the emergency room with an open chest cavity, but none of the doctors here could save her?!” Pablo pushed Rico away and swept everything inside his office. “Even I, a heart doctor, couldn’t do anything for her because all of you are stopping me!”

“Pablo, you have to understand that it’s in our protocol,” Rico told him, but it didn’t help him to calm down. “With your current state now, you can’t handle an operation. Your emotion will just affect your performance. And, I know that you’re aware of that, Pablo.”

Pablo raked his fingers through his hair. Tears flowed from his eyes endlessly, and the pain inside his chest is almost unbearable. How could he be so useless? What’s the use of his license if he couldn’t even save the life of his wife?

“Tell me, Rico…” he said in a calmer tone. “What’s the findings?” He went on his knees and lowered his head as if begging him to tell all the truth to him. “Tell me!”

“Your wife has…” Rico hesitated. When he looked up at him, the struggle that he saw in his face just added a burden to his chest. Still, he wanted to know everything. “Riza has a severe case of stable angina, Pablo.”

Pablo felt as if he was hit in the chest with a large rock with what he heard. He can’t breathe, and everything around him darkened. “S-stable angina…?”

Rico nodded. “It can be done through bypass surgery, but her coronary arteries have already developed atherosclerosis,” he said and shook his head. “And, because plaques were all over the elastic linings of her heart’s right and left ventricle, her case reached chronic total occlusion.”

Pablo’s brows furrowed. “H-how come that she developed such heart disease?” he asked him questioningly. “Riza doesn’t smoke nor drink alcohol—”

“Maybe she’s just hiding it from you, Pablo,” Rico told him apologetically. “Dr. Zamora found out that her arteries have been completely obstructed for more than five months—”

“Five months?” he cut off in disbelief. “And, Riza is not telling me anything about it…” he plopped down on the carpeted floor of his clinic. “He hid her illness from me!”

“Pablo, let’s hope for a miracle, Dr. Zamora, and I will do our best to save your wife,” Rico assured him, but Pablo knew it better.

He knew that his wife’s case is hopeless, and they will just watch her lose her heart rate. “Miracle?” he scoffed. “That’s absurd!” He got up and went out of his clinic. Rico and Timmy tried to stop him, but he swept them away.

As soon as he went into the emergency room, thousands of reporters held their cameras at his face and asked him questions that even triggered the pain inside his chest.

“Dr. Alcaraz, is it true that you can’t save your wife even if you’re a prominent cardiothoracic doctor?” one reporter asked him shamelessly and insensitively. “Could you give us some updates on Riza Andalio’s operation?”

Pablo doesn’t know what to do or say. This is his wife’s life: Always exposed in front of the cameras that did nothing but to humiliate them and worsen their already miserable lives.

“This is one of the reasons why we’re not allowing you to come out of your office,” Rico told him and helped him got out of the reporters’ spotlight. “But what did you do? You just exposed yourself to them.”

Pablo’s knees weakened. He sat on the floor of the empty ward and broke down in tears. “I’m useless…”

“Don’t say that to yourself, Pablo. You’re a great doctor; you saved a hundred lives of patients with heart disease—”

“But I can’t save my wife’s life,” he cut off and punched the tiled flooring. Blood from his knuckles stained the floor. The stinging pain that he felt on his hand is nothing compared to the pain that’s slowly killing him inside his chest. “I’m useless!”

Rico stopped his hand before he could hit the floor again and broke his fingers. “Don’t hurt your hand, Dr. Alcaraz. This is not the end of your life and journey as a doctor. Other lives need you.”

“No…” he clenched his jaw. “If I couldn’t save my wife, I shouldn’t be a doctor.”

BRANDY’S loud barks awakened Pablo from a nightmare. He sat up from his bed and wiped the trickle of sweats on his temple. He sighed. He dreamed about it again…

“What are you barking at, Brandy?” he asked his five-year-old Labrador guard dog. “Did you catch a chicken again?”

Brandy barked again and ran outside his room, telling him to follow. Pablo’s brows furrowed, and he looked at the luminous digital clock in his living room: 11:00 PM.

He was about to go in the kitchen to drink when he heard a scream coming from a nearby woods, followed by his dog’s continuous barking. “A woman?”

***