I quietly asked him, “Want me to step outside?” He shook his head. “Dr. Sharma is one of my instructors.” To her, I said, “Adam is my fiancé. He’s been spiking a high temp over the past three days. Swollen lymph nodes. Body aches. Nausea. Migraine headaches, but he presents those regularly anyway.”
The doctor glanced down at the tablet. Then she approached him. “Your monospot test results are positive.”
He cursed under his breath and looked away. I moved up to rub him on his back. “It’s okay. You need to rest and take care of yourself.”
“Well, I’ll do an ultrasound to check the internal swelling, but basically, yes, you have a viral infection. No physical exertion and no work until I release you to do so.”
Adam sat up straight at the mention of no work. “How long? A week? Two?”
She unhooked the wand from the ultrasound machine and held it up. “Let me see what’s going on inside, and I’ll give you a better estimate. Lie back now.”
She squeezed some gel onto Adam’s perfect abs, and he sucked in a breath.
“Sorry for the cold,” Dr. Sharma apologized, and Adam rolled his eyes skyward while I fought laughter.
She moved the wand over his abdomen before angling the screen toward me. Dr. Sharma, it seemed, never passed up a teaching opportunity.
“What do you see?” she asked me.
As I bent for a closer inspection, I could feel Adam staring at me balefully, clearly unamused. Jeez, he was crabby.
I squinted at the screen. “Wow.”
“What wow?” Adam snarled.
“Uh huh.” The doctor nodded.
I turned to Adam. “Your spleen is extremely swollen.” I pointed to his left side at the bottom of his ribcage. “You can even see it distending your abdomen. It’s probably why your shoulder was hurting so badly the other night.”
“My spleen? Is that a real thing?”
Dr. Sharma laughed. “It’s a risk with mono. Certain tissues can become inflamed—like your glands. Organs, too—the spleen, the liver. You’ve got an acute case. Have you been working particularly hard lately? Stress? Lack of sleep?”
I darted a glance at Adam, who lay silently staring up at the ceiling, his jaw set and his mouth a firm line. “All of the above,” I answered. “Adam is, um…a compulsive worker.”
Dr. Sharma pulled the plastic off the wand and tucked it back onto the ultrasound machine. “Well, you now have doctor’s orders to slow down.”
“How slow?” Adam asked.
“Bed rest for at least two weeks.” She typed something into the chart. “You’re only up to use the bathroom. As much sleep and fluids as possible. Eat when you feel up to it. Then I want to see you. After that, no working for at least two more.”
Adam shook his head. “Four weeks? Not possible. I run a company.”
Dr. Sharma opened her mouth to answer and then closed it, darting me a pointed look instead. Another teaching moment, apparently. “Adam. If you don’t do this, your health could—and probably will be—permanently impaired.”
“Hmmph,” he grunted. “What about our wedding? It’s just over two months away.”
“Odds are you aren’t going to feel much like working anyway—at least for the next few weeks.” I grabbed a towel and wiped the ultrasound gel off his stomach. “I’ll work with the wedding planner. You need to rest or you’ll prolong this. Then you’ll be sick when we’re supposed to get married, so I guess we’ll probably have to push the wedding date back.”
That got his attention. His narrow-eyed star said it all. Over my dead body.
Dr. Sharma intervened. “From the look of your spleen, you have a great deal of inflammation inside. This can cause permanent damage to your organs and tissues if you are not very careful with your recovery.”
“Fuck.” This time he didn’t mutter.
“Also,” she continued, “no heavy exercise for at least six weeks, and no sexual activity.”
“You sure know how to hit a man when he’s down,” Adam replied, and I burst out laughing.
I took his hand, which was still really warm. “Let’s get you home and recuperated.”
“You took all the fun out of everything,” he complained after Dr. Sharma had left and he got dressed.
“Listen, buster. I’m here to make sure you follow orders. I don’t want my new groom passing out at the altar.”
“No sex?” He made a face. “That was a really low blow.”
I goggled at him. “Do you even feel like it right now?”
“Not really,” he admitted. “But I will. And soon.”
“Oh, c’mon. You’ll live. Lots of couples abstain until marriage.”
He shook his head. “Fuck that.”
“Don’t be salty.”
“Isn’t mono the kissing disease? I kiss you all the time. Why aren’t you sick, too?”
“I’ve already had it, when I was in middle school. It’s not common to get it more than once, but it’s rarely as bad as the first time, though. Just in case, I won’t be kissing you on the lips for a while.”
I ushered him out of the office and drove him home—though he was annoyed about that, too. He usually did the driving when we were together, but he clearly wasn’t up to it, given the headache and the nausea.
The poor guy was a mess. And if he felt half as bad as he looked, then he was going to be out of commission for a while. But damn, he was cranky when he was sick. And it occurred to me that I’d never seen him sick before, not even with a cold. The man had the immune system of an alligator.
“None of that is possible, you know,” he stated as I drove.
“None of what?” I glanced at him as I exited the freeway onto Newport Blvd.
“The no work, no exercise. Especially the no sex.”
“Adam, you have to be serious about this. And be vigilant and proactive about your recuperation. Or no wedding. I’m not kidding.” He heaved a huge sigh. “Right now, you don’t feel like doing any of that anyway. When you start feeling better, but are still unwell—that will be the true test.”
“Yeah, I’ll die of boredom. That will be so much better.”
I shrugged. “This is your body’s way of telling you to slow down and stop abusing it.”