All We Leave Behind

All We Leave Behind - Chapter Six

Six

It was early the next day, not long after they’d served breakfast that a Doctor Zvatos came to see me. He had a fairly thick white beard that was well groomed. He was older with sharp features and a fairly strong accent.

“John Morgan right?” He was looking at the chart and then as if he wasn’t certain he’d seen it correctly, he looked again closer.

“Yes.”

He took his glasses off and squinting, he polished them on his shirt sleeve. Putting them back on, he returned his attentions to my chart. “It says here you had a gastric ulcer. Is that right?” I shrugged.

“I believe that’s what they said.” He hummed and hawed for a moment before going on.

“So it says in the entry form that you are feeling anxious and depressed?” I remembered the form I filled in shortly after arriving at the hospital.

“Well I was bleeding from my gut. It was hard not to feel anxious.”

He nodded. “Well if you weren’t feeling anxious before the bleeding then that’s fine. Just trying to determine if there were any lifestyle or mood factors that could have helped bring about this ulcer. See if we can’t limit the chance of a reoccurrence. You said you were very depressed?”

“My brother just died.”

“Oh my condolences.”

“The funeral is today.” He raised his hand to his beard and started scrunching it up.

“Well this is a very stressful time for you. These kinds of stresses can certainly take their toll on our bodies. Do you have people to talk to?” I looked out the window.

“What would I talk about?” He sensed my hesitance.

“Well, talk isn’t always necessary but it’s a way of helping to deal and cope with particularly stressful and difficult times in our lives.” He waited a bit for me to respond and eventually continued. “There are people whose job it is to listen.” I thought of Adam telling me I should see a shrink. There was another pause before he continued. “How is the rest of your life going? Work? Relationships? Friends?” Should I just tell him they are all on the rocks? I shook my head.

“I don’t know.” I bit my lower lip. “I’m just having a rough time.” He nodded and scratched at his beard again.

“On a scale of one to ten; one being the lowest and ten being the highest, how would you rate your mood?”

“My mood?”

“Yes one being your horribly depressed and ten being elated.” I felt like saying I was a ten and to go fuck himself, but I refrained.

“I don’t know I’m in a hospital bed on the day of my brother’s funeral. I have an IV stuck in my arm and I’m just generally miserable. I guess what, a three?” He seemed to take my snarky comment in stride.

“And before you brother died how would you rate your mood?” I thought about his question. I felt my stomach sink.

“I don’t know.” I shook my head. “Maybe a three, or a four.” I hadn’t been happy.

“How long would you say you’ve been depressed?” I tried to think of the last time I was happy. I remember visiting my Dad. He was still talking to me back then, what was it, four, five years ago. It was mid spring and I was heading over to cut my Dad’s grass for him, something me and Frank tried to wrestle from Dad in his more senior years. I remembered the way he answered the door. The look of disgust and contempt he directed at me.