Further Chronicles with Dr Divo (Part 2)

If you've read my book, Take a Deep Breath for Me, you will want to read this sequel. One moment I was minding my own business (and pain), the next I was boarding a flight with a low-grade fever and questionable judgement. What followed was a six-day stay in the land of fluorescent lights, horrifying cannulas, and IV drips that seemed to multiply like rabbits. Through it all, Dr Divo—unbothered, unhurried, and probably regretting ever taking me on—remains the lone voice of calm in this fluorescent purgatory.

I was awakened around 5.00 a.m. by the usual parade of nurses on their early rounds—checking vitals, whispering, moving between beds with the quiet efficiency of people who've done this hundreds of times. I hovered in that groggy space between sleep and waking, too tired to get up, but no longer able to drift off again.

It was Sunday, and I knew Dr Divo wouldn't be in too early. I wasn't expecting him. So I lay there, staring blankly at the sky. I was fortunate to get the bed closest to the window—a small luxury in a shared room, mainly for the low traffic and privacy. I wasn't sure if my roommate was awake too, lost in her own thoughts, or if she'd managed to fall back asleep. I kept the curtains between the beds fully drawn.

My fever had subsided. The ache was easing. I was quietly watching the sunrise slowly creep into the city sky. It was surprisingly beautiful, even from a hospital bed.

Then, just after breakfast, Dr Divo strolled in—unhurried, composed, and with the dramatic flair of someone who had done this a thousand times. Without a word, he walked straight to the window and yanked the curtains shut, plunging the room into a dreary cave.

"What are you doing?" I gasped.

"It's sunny. I'm getting rid of the sun for you," he replied, far too smug for someone committing a crime against daylight.

"For you or for me? You seem more like the vampire here," I shot back, ungratefully. He had forgotten that I liked natural light.

He muttered something under his breath and reopened the curtains, letting the warmth and colour flood back in.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, business returning to his tone.

"I think the more important question is—how are you feeling?" I replied, remembering that he hadn't been well the night before when I texted him. If he didn't take care of himself, how was he supposed to take care of me?

"Because of you, I had to come back to the hospital today," he said, dryly, failing to guilt me. I knew I was not his only patient in the hospital.

"You poor dear. But you're the one who put me in here," I reminded him.

"Yes, I did." He smiled. He had a smile that lit up the entire room. "The good news is your scan didn't show anything worrying. We shall wait for the rest of your results, but I don't expect anything significant. You were already on oral antibiotics for a week, which can mask some abnormalities."

I sighed. I dreaded a repeat of Chapter 10—nothing traumatic, just deeply annoying.

About a month ago, I noticed a dull ache on the lower right of my back. It wasn't terrible, and I stayed calm. Still, I decided to run a UCS test, just in case. The result came back negative. So, I chalked it up to backache or maybe a random muscle strain. But when the pain lingered for another two weeks, Yoda insisted I repeat the test. We had a one-week trip coming up, and he wasn't keen on emergency room visits in a foreign country.

So I did the test again. The result took its time, I didn't know why. But, as fate would have it, on the night before we were due to fly, my phone pinged. The result had finally arrived in my mailbox—and it was positive. I texted Dr Divo, who sent over a prescription, and I ended up scouring the city for the antibiotics in the dead of night.

I spent the entire trip on antibiotics. The pain lingered—manageable but ever-present. On the final day, just as we reached the airport, I started to feel unwell again. My body was heating up. I wasn't exactly on fire, but I knew a fever was building. I dug into my mini pharmacy, took out the thermometer, checked my temperature, and sure enough, I was right. Low-grade. I took two paracetamol immediately.

And now here I was—back in bed, back in hospital, and sparring with Dr Divo.

"But we still need to treat your symptoms," he said. "You can't keep having pain and fever and just ignore it."

"How long?"

"Anywhere between three days to one week," he replied, a little too casually. "Depending on how cooperative you are."

"What? Are you serious? A week?"

He didn't answer. He'd already gone back to scribbling aggressively in my file, which I took as a tactical move to ignore me.

Then, he looked up again and stared manacingly into my eyes. "You still haven't answered me. How are you feeling?"

"No more pain," I answered dutifully, hoping for reduced sentencing.

"That's because I'm pumping painkillers into your veins," he said, far too pleased with himself.

"Nausea."

"You know it comes with the antibiotics. I'll give you something for that."

"A tablet? Or a jab?"

"Jab."

"No."

"It works faster."

"No!"

"Your side effects last time had nothing to do with the jab."

"No!"

"It's a different kind of jab."

"No, I don't want that. Give me something else."

"Don't worry, you'll be okay, trust me."

"Trust you? Of course, I trust you. I wouldn't be here if I didn't trust you. In fact, you're the person I trust the most in my entire life, whom I allowed to stab me—five times—in the torso."

He grinned. I glared.

"Be good, take the jab, I will come and see you later."

He left.

Before lunch, the nurse came in to administer the jab. After I told her what happened in Chapter 14, she made sure the call-button console was in my hand and barricaded me in bed like I was about to roll off!

To be fair, Dr Divo had been right—this jab wasn't that jab. Although I felt the usual fuzziness rushing to my head, it didn't come with the same apocalyptic side effects as the last one. The nausea didn't disappear instantly, but at least the retching urge subsided. Still, the queasiness lingered like a sulky guest, and with it, my appetite packed up and left.

The rest of the afternoon was spent drifting in and out of half-sleeps, propped up on pillows with my Kindle—a small, plastic, loyal rectangle that never once complained, unlike a certain doctor I could name.

Evening rolled in quietly. Just as the nurse came by to administer my next dose of antibiotics, Dr Divo reappeared. Naturally, I was wincing at that exact moment.

“Is something wrong? Is the line blocked?” he asked, alert.

“We’re just about to flush it to find out,” said the nurse quickly.

“That's going to be painful for her. She’s been through this a lot. She knows. I want to hear from her,” he said, then turned to me and asked, “Is your line blocked?”

“Yes,” I whispered. I always did in similar situations. I never liked making a fuss, even when a fuss was warranted.

Without a word, he came to sit beside me, taking my arm in his hands with that familiar combination of precision and calm. He began examining it for a new spot to set an IV line—his face focused, unreadable.

"I will do it for her. Please bring me the cannula—both sizes," Dr Divo instructed the nurse, in that calm, quietly authoritative tone that made it sound like he was asking for a teabag, not preparing to poke a hole in my arm.

I exhaled—relieved. If there was anyone I wanted steering this vascular ship, it was him. That said, even with his exceptional skills, my notoriously fine veins were the stuff of IV nightmares. We were caught in our usual cannula conundrum: the bigger one would hold longer but struggle to get in; the smaller one would glide in easier, only to betray us 24 hours later by clogging up like a cheap sink.

He started on the back of my hand. Two attempts later, my hand looked like it had been politely assaulted. Then he turned to my inner forearm. What he did next was pure ingenuity. He inserted the cannula halfway, then flushed in some saline to expand the vein before guiding the needle all the way in. I had no idea if this was a common practice or something he MacGyvered on the spot, but it was wildly effective. At this point, I was prepared to nominate him for Urologist of the Year and National Plumber of Distinction.

But with all that poking and plumbing came the blood—more than necessary, and in all the wrong places. My forearm was splattered. My pillow, which he had used as an impromptu armrest, had a huge bloody blot worthy of a CSI episode. The bed sheet got it. So did the chair. And the towel. And, somehow, the wall. For what was essentially a tiny needle, it looked like a small crime scene.

We both looked at the aftermath and burst into laughter. There was something absurdly comical about how much mess had come from so little. I couldn't help but wonder what my poor roommate—separated from me by only a curtain—was imagining over there. Something surgical? Something illegal? Something scandalous?

Once Dr Divo cleaned up my arm, taped up all the necessary bandages, and inspected for any signs of future protest, he nodded, satisfied, and made his exit.

And just like that, I was back to being his mildly malfunctioning science project, and he, the only person I trusted to keep me in one piece.

The moment he left, my phone pinged.

[WhatsApp] Vano: Ward number?

Me: Wait. I don't know.

Vano: What?

Valid question.

In my defence, I had arrived the night before by wheelchair, semi-delirious and fully exhausted. It hadn't even occurred to me to check. I shuffled outside to peek at the number on the wall beside the door and texted it back to Vano, who was, thankfully, still en route and not halfway through hospital security.

Then I looked down and realised—with the same sheepish shame as someone looking for their phone while talking on it—that the number was right there. On my wrist tag. The entire time.

I probably needed a nurse just to supervise my brain.

"You're on the top floor! A penthouse!" Vano exclaimed as she stepped into the room, all wide-eyed wonder and good energy.

"Really? I didn't know," I replied, with the same level of astonishment one might reserve for discovering they've been living in a castle. The only thing I remembered from my arrival the night before was pain, fluorescent lights, and the sound of wheels under my chair. My luxury penthouse—complete with shared bathroom and an unobtrusive roommate—had not registered at all.

Vano, my dearest, brought snacks. Snacks! If there was a more sacred offering in a hospital, I didn't know it. She came bearing tidings of chocolate bun, cookies and biscotti.

We were both mildly surprised she was even allowed up at this hour—visitor policies being what they were: unpredictable, arbitrarily enforced, and often invented on the spot by security guards who moonlight as bouncers. Apparently, she was mistaken for an overnight carer with her shabby attire.

"You just missed Divo," I said, gesturing vaguely at the air still warm from his exit. "He left not five minutes ago."

"Call him back," Vano said, without missing a beat. "I want to talk to him."

"What? Why?"

"I want an explanation," she declared, arms crossed like a seasoned prosecutor. "Why did this episode come back? And how long are you going to be in here?"

Vano had always been excellent at asking the questions I was too timid to ask—the ones I'd spent hours politely shoving into the back of my mind with the help of distraction, denial, and the occasional paracetamol. She had no such filters. And while I was vaguely horrified by the idea of summoning Dr Divo back just to be cross-examined by her, I also appreciated her on a deep, cellular level. She was saying the things I wanted to say—only with confidence, and eyebrows.

Still, even in all his medical wizardry, I knew Dr Divo couldn't give her satisfying answers to either of those questions. Not now, anyway. Not while we were still waiting on test results, symptom patterns, and the whims of my body, which had recently taken up drama as a hobby.

"I don't think he can answer you," I said.

She sighed and screwed open a jar of cookies. We sat and chatted quietly, mostly laughing at the blood bath that had taken place earlier, and also at my complete ignorance of hospital geography. She asked how I was, and I gave her the abbreviated version: pain managed, nausea stubborn, drama ongoing, and Dr Divo still running the show with flair.

After Vano left, I settled back into bed. The room quieted again. The nurses went about their rounds. My next doses of drips started, faithful and unrelenting.

I read a few more chapters, my Kindle once again proving itself the most loyal bedside companion. Eventually, sleep pulled me under—not dramatically, not with a cinematic fade-out, but gradually, like a slow tide.

And for a few hours, at least, there was peace.