Four

12 September

This world is indeed unfair. Hahaha… Who am I kidding, if the world is indeed fair, it is not called world, it is called heaven already. Perhaps there’s a ghost who followed me back from Jeju and made my life miserable.

***

     “Minah?” Woobin, who sat behind the exclusive wooden desk, asked. Judging from his face, it seemed like he looked more or less as surprised as I was, perhaps even more.

I could only stare at Woobin like a fool. I tried to blink numerous times, hoping and praying that it was all just a plain nightmare. But after blinking for like twenty times and Woobin’s face could only become clearer and clearer, I ought to accept it as the reality. It was all real.

“You…?” Finally I could muster up something from my mouth. Mom signaled me with her eyes about my impolite act.

“What are you doing here?” Woobin and I blurted it out together.

“I’m accompanying my father,” I replied, feeling a little offended even though I had just asked the same question to him. But I felt like my question was logical enough seeing how I was clearly inside the doctor’s room. I should’ve gone to a pond if I want to go fishing and not to the hospital.

“Minah, you know the doctor?” I heard my Mom’s voice.

My Dad who seemed to be unable in following the progressing conversation chose to plop himself down on one of the chairs in front of the desk with his eyes narrowing at Woobin.

“Doctor?” I said, confused. At that moment I just realized that Woobin wore that white coat.

NO WAY! I shouted inwardly. Kim Woobin can’t be possibly my Dad’s doctor. He is still too young to be a cardiologist. I tried to remember the time when Woobin succeeded to ace his class while we were still at our elementary school and I’m pretty sure that he never won anything close that graced him the chance to compete on behalf of the school.

“You’re Doctor Kim?” I asked suspiciously. “Doctor Kim Woobin?”

Woobin just pointed the translucent plaque on top of his desk written Dr. Kim Woobin. It seems like there’s just one Woobin in this world, and this also explained the cautious feeling I had those days. Ohhh… I felt like killing myself or maybe asking somebody else to do it for me. My brain’s cells were acting up due to lots of questions that I wanted to ask him but I just couldn’t due to my parents’ presence.

“Please take a seat, Ma’am,” Woobin said it politely. Mom followed the request as she decided to plop down beside Dad while she eyed me meaningfully, I knew that she wanted to interrogate me but thankfully she chose to let it go. She threw me a very meaningful smile though.

I was still in the middle of processing everything when I heard the door being knocked and a nurse came in with another chair that she offered to me. I thanked her and took a seat. I felt blue all of a sudden when I looked up and caught Woobin with his grin on his lips, I don’t need to be a psychic to know what he was thinking. I threw him the feistiest stare and he quickly diverted his focus on the form at his hand. The room was quiet for a couple of seconds.

“The high blood pressure and the heart disease is hereditary, I assume, sir?” Woobin asked my Dad with a very serious expression on. I took a deep breath when I saw the exchange. In just a matter of seconds, he changed from a prankster that I met days ago when I woke up inside his hotel room into a very capable and serious man of his job. The point is, at that moment he looked like a real doctor.

“Yes, Doc, there are some members of this Uncle’s family that have heart disease and high blood pressure,” my Mom explained.

“The pain that Uncle has been experiencing all these time, is it like being pricked by needle or more like being squeezed by a rock and hard to breathe?”

I almost scoff when I heard Woobin called my Dad with ‘uncle’. Laboriously, I tried to maintain my feeling that seemed like ready to explode. It was my Mom who used the term ‘uncle’ first and that Woobin was proving himself to be a good listener that he ended up following my Mom to call my Dad with ‘uncle’. I said that to myself over and over again, rationalizing Woobin’s act.

“Sometimes both, Doc,” my Dad replied. I saw Woobin wrote something on the paper.

“When the pain came, how long does it lasted?”

“Sometimes it could go until a minute,” my Dad said.

Woobin nodded and once again wrote something on the paper. Mom looked worried and scared when she heard Dad’s explanation. Worried that my Mom would cry, I scooted closer to her and squeezed her shoulder. She responded with small smile as she squeezed back.

“And all these happened in the morning, yes?” Woobin looked very serious when he uttered it which left me the thought of something significant might came out of that information.

Both my parents nodded to confirm it.

“So how is it, Doc?” My Mom asked.

Woobin looked at my Mom and said, “Judging by the syndrome, it seems like Uncle really suffered several heart attacks.”

“Several?!” My Mom and I shouted at the same time.

“In small caliber,” Woobin continued hurriedly in his attempt to calm us both. He even smiled. My Dad didn’t say anything; I suspected that he already knew all these things that happened to him were quite serious.

“So what do… ehm… ehm... Doctor suggests?” I was hardly able to call him ‘doctor’. I was still unused with his new title, Woobin the prankster turning doctor.

Woobin looked at me and said slowly but surely, “I suggest Uncle to undergo several tests. We can start with blood test to see several things, but especially cholesterol levels in the blood. If needed, later we will do ECG and Cardiac Stress Testing.”

“ECG,” I mumbled. I didn’t have that medical background but I watched enough serials of ‘ER’ and ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ to know the purpose of the test.

“Electrocardiography,” Woobin continued, “To monitor the heart’s activity so that we know if there’s abnormality in Uncle’s heartbeat.”

“Ought the patient to stay overnight to get tested?” my Mom asked carefully.

I inhaled as I waited for Woobin’s reply. I knew it pretty well should the answer came in the form of ‘yes’ then surely my Dad won’t do it. My Dad is the kind of person who wouldn’t want to sleep on a bed which isn’t his. That is exactly why my Dad is kind of difficult when asked to travel together if it requires overnight stay.

“Oh, not really. Patient can go home straight after the test. Just come for a couple of hours.” I don’t know why but when Woobin said it, he looked like he was smiling as his eyes darted toward me. Maybe he could sense the tensed atmosphere when we were waiting for his reply so he tried to calm us all.

“Ought the test to be carried out here or can we just have it elsewhere?” I asked. Based from the stories I’ve heard, lots of doctors favored materials more than their own patient’s health. There are lots of doctors who force their patients to attend numerous tests inside their hospital saying that the patient won’t be able to get it elsewhere. To me, it’s just bull.

“Anywhere is fine as long as they can provide the service needed to carry out the test. Just find the closest one to Uncle and Auntie’s place, no need to come here,” Woobin said.

Humph…looks like Woobin is the true doctor unlike those drug dealers who hide behind the white coat façade and call themselves a doctor. Even though that hospital isn’t the closest one to our place, it is the most competent one so there’s no doubt that we would be coming back for carrying out the test in the future.

“Uncle has his own internist already, yes?”

Mom nodded and provided Woobin the internist that was taking care of Dad. Mom then asked a few questions to W