Icy air brushed against the shell of her half-covered ears, chills whacking through her while she gripped her fingers, her crocs faintly stepping away from the scene.
"My office. Now."
Breathe in. Breathe out. Or else, if she said or did something she might end up in jail. Or repeat the year, but anyway.
One leg after the other. Aligned steps. Tile after tile. Then she found herself in the rather suppressing office.
"Sit down."
He didn't need to say it twice. She was going to pass out any second if she didn't.
The bottle of water on the file-crowded table caught her attention. Her fingers brushed it first in hesitation. Then, it was determination. She chucked the water down her throat until the man in the coat raised his fingers to stop her.
In sync, her deglutition reflex kicked in.
To prevent the passage of water through her airway, her throat hitched and violent coughs accompanied it.
The room went silent for about 5 minutes after her little attack. Her eyes were cast on her palms that sandwiched her phone and Medicine-to-go hand journal while she shook her thighs agitatedly.
The doctor's eyes never left her.
She did her best in concealing her dread towards their conversation and it seemed luck wasn't on her side as she heard the sound of a large stack of papers hitting the table.
Two optics rose slowly to stare at the stack. Then they proceeded to look at the owner of those papers.
The man in a white coat top jutted for her to go ahead.
She did.
The top of the paper had her Matriculation number, name, digits, and the name of the course; Pediatrics. Her fluent writing on the paper. Most importantly, two large numbers in red ink at the top right of the paper; 47%
Her sour mood deepened, her index finger rising to push her glasses up the bridge of her nose.
The doctor nodded at that, gesturing his hand at her face. "Yes, please. Push your glasses up and look at your disappointment in a script clearer."
She took a deep breath.
In.
Out.
"Do you have any idea what an insult this is to me?" His tone was hardly leveled, suggesting he was trying hard not to lose his temper.
She kept mum.
"Do you think this is going to get you sitting on this chair?" He gestured at the seat he sat on.
Yet, another string of silence.
"Halima. Laila. Amin. Sunusi."
She sucked in a breath and exhaled.
With enough respect for the doctor, she zeroed in on him. "I was distracted and i-"
"Brief me on tachycardia."
The question took her off guard. She cast her eyes down to the paper again and narrowed her eyes. After a brief thought, she organized her thoughts and went for it.
"That's an increase in heart rate by above 100 beats per minute. It occurs both in physiological and pathological conditions. In physiological...um-i-it usually occurs in pregnancy, childhood, and uhh...or exercise. In pathological conditions, it occurs in cardio..." what was the condition ma? "Card..." her eyes closed, her vision going blind as she tried to picture the word from her notes. "...cardiomyopathy, hyper section of catecholamines..." her head snapped to the ceiling. She could swear she knew almost five pathological conditions for tachycardia.
She snapped her index and thumb, the conditions flowing to her naturally. "Anemia. Fever. Diseases of the heart valves. And how could I forget my favorite word in physiology? Hypoxia." She met his point of view and immediately averted from it when it dawned on her that he was angry and she wasn't done briefing him.
She cleared her throat, her voice now more composed than the last. She motioned to her head. "Tachycardia is controlled under normal physiological conditions through the vasomotor center located in the reticular formation of the uh...medulla oblongata and the lower pons." 3 fingers of hers hiked. "It consists of 3 areas; the vasoconstrictor area, the vasodilator area, and the sensory area." A small victorious smile emerged on her face.
It was times when she was explaining things medically that seemed to flow naturally to her that she felt alive, she felt big. Mighty. She felt like she had a purpose. But most importantly, it sank more that she was going to prove so many people wrong one day.
Laila shook her head, snapping out of her trance, and added an opinion on her last one. "Although i think having the vasoconstrictor area and the vasodilator area is unnecessary. I mean if you can control the sensory area, you can control the vaso-motor center in general. Also, i think—"
"Hyper. Hyper. Hyper." It came out in a blah blah blah tone. "You're going hyper, madam."
She snapped out of her victory-filled thoughts to look at him.
However, he did say brief.
Brief, Laila. Brief.
She nodded.
He attained her script from the tip of her fingers and placed it together with the remaining stacks before tucking them away. It was against protocol to let students sight of their scripts.
"When i say brief me, i want the definition, a few causes, prevention, and management. I want physiology. The mechanism, Laila."
"Ok."
His shoulders sagged, and he tilted his head to the left to crack it. He did the same to the right. His fingers rose into the air and he bent them until almost all the bones in them cracked.
He sighed, expression softening down. "Brief me on erythroblastosis foetalis."
Laila cast her head down, again. Her mind jumbled up until it came to a stop at memories from her 1st year and 3rd year of med school. She raised her head and spoke, confidently. "Erythroblastosis foetalis is also called the hemolytic disease of the newborn or foetus. It is characterized by abnormal hemolysis of RBCs in newborns or foetus due to Rh incompatibility. It results when an RH-positive mother is carrying an RH-negative child. During parturition," she scissored the air with her fingers, "Or transplacental crossing of the foetus RBC into the mother's bloodstream," those same fingers gestured back and forth, "Sensitization and production of antibodies against the foetal RBCs by the mother occurs..." she stopped to take a breath. When she got rid of her hypoxia, she continued. "First pregnancy is usually unaffected. However, if another pregnancy with the same case of RH incompatibility occurs, there is the instant proliferation of those antibodies created by the mother which cross back to the foetal circulation and destroy its RBCs." She threw her fingers into the air to demonstrate and further her explanation. "This then leads to jaundice, severe anemia, edema, and um-or kernicterus."
He looked at her in disbelief. "Simple. Then why the hell did i have to embarrass you in Ward rounds? You could've just said that. That was the biggest slap to my face, the conso was even looking at me. I tutored you since when you were in freshman year, and i also know you're damn smart and i put much pressure on you so you could be better." He hit the back of his right palm into the palm of his left in anger and desperation. "That was 1st-year med school. Physiology of Blood and body fluids, ko kin manta? You must've treated this same condition under pathology last year."
Now that he put it like that, she couldn't help but agree and feel dumb again. It was true, it was 1st year of med school and pre-clinicals. He had tutored her even then. Or she'd say, they had studied together, after all, he was once her course mate. Older in age, but still her course mate.
She had met him in the 1st year of medical school. He was studying medicine and surgery, and she was studying Science Laboratory technology; specifically physiology, anatomy, and pharmacology in technique. Medical Bs.c's and MBBS students attended most classes together, shared notes, and took the same exams except for viva-orals- and professional exams due to their pocket-size numbers.
Before the mid-first semester, he had found her in the library on the verge of tears as she tried to cram her Autonomic nervous system notes. He all but laughed at her and when he decided he had laughed enough, he asked if he could take the seat beside her. She had flat out ignored him entirely. When he got tired of waiting for an answer, he sat on the chair adjacent to her. She ignored him and continued to try to cram all the cranial nerves and he continued to watch, amused.
She eventually got tired of his stare, "You're distracting me."
It felt like he knew she was going to say that because his answer came not a second later. "You're already distracted." He motioned at the slide displayed on her laptop screen. "And not to mention, you're trying to cram physiology. If you ask me, you're already 80% on your way to failing."
She had taken that moment to give him a quick once over. He was a boy-man looking around 21to 22 summers, or more. He had casual jeans, a shirt, and a backpack strapped to his chest. His eyes seemed slightly pink, probably due to laughing his eyes out at her pathetic self. Short, but pointy nose. His upper lip was two-colored, brown and pink; His lower lip also had the same pink shade. Low waves cut and face devoid of any beard. Overall, he seemed...well. Nevertheless, he didn't move her one bit.
So, she had opted to be her sulky self that day and almost exclaimed. "Tell me what else to do rather than cram these cranial nerves."
Deep down, she thought he was nice. That changed when he reached for her laptop and turned it slightly to his convenience. He strolled down the pdf until he stopped at a particular slide page.
She had wanted to insult him right then, but he shut her up with his next words. "This is a test, nobody is going to ask you to mention the 12 cranial nerves. You have better things to focus on. Like what division supplies what part of the body. What fibers arise from what spinal or cranial nerve, and what effector organ do they supply? Whether the pre-ganglionic nerve is longer than the post-ganglionic nerve or vice versa. Those are stuff you need to worry about." He scrolled back up the slides until he was at the top. He hissed, "Nobody will ask you the morphology of neurons, abeg. Let me show you something." That was how they spent the whole day studying, even missing histology class just so he could help her read for their upcoming test the next day.
They hadn't realized they didn't know each other's names until they shook hands after calling it a day, only to trail off at the end, not knowing what to add.
"Nurain. Nurain Hassan." He had said, squeezing her hand lightly.
"Halima Amin. People close to me call me Laila."
"Okay, then, Laila." And they laughed.
She had walked to the school gate to the driver and he had made his way to his dorm.
The following day, they wrote the test.
Throughout the test, she was thanking the almighty for sending Nurain to her rescue. As he had predicted, none of the bullshit she was cramming was asked. But most of what they had studied, was.
They then continued to say a single hi to each other before or after class.
Yet again, she had problems with biochemistry, and guess who the guru was just in time to help her study with tips on how to remember structures of the first stupid 20 sets of amino acids?
Nurain.
Then, they started to hang out and study together. By the beginning of the next session; 3rd year of school and 2nd year of medical school, he had managed to plant so much love for MBBS in her that she had rewritten jamb despite everyone's protest about how she would waste 3 years of her life just to pursue a 6-year course.
Laila rewrote jamb the first time and wasn't exactly lucky. So, she waited until the second year whilst continuing in almost year 5 Science Laboratory and technology to rewrite jamb. The next time though, she was successful in securing admission.
Laila was in freshman year once again, but this time, as an MBBS student. As someone with a life. With purpose. With ambitions.
She wanted it so bad, that she could feel it in her chest.
He had been a final-year clinical student while she was a freshman, but that didn't stop him from tutoring her.
Now, she was in year 4 of medical school and she could smell that Dr coming before her name, while he had completed his residency as a pediatrist about a year ago and was now a fellow and lecturer-courtesy of graduating with a first-class honor that had the school offer him an automatic job and a vacancy to be a lecturer at his institution.
Now, all that kept her going was the fact that one day, she'd be sitting on that fine-ass leather loop chair. And that Dr. Will come right before her name.
It just wasn't easy. And she just seemed to be screwing up more.
Laila let out a startled cry at a shrill vibration coming from her palm. She brought the device responsible for it to her face and stole a glance at Nurain's expression; which was of disbelief.
"Don't tell me you were not even listening to what i was saying?"
She called off the alarm and returned to her previous position; rigid, silent, and distracted.
"You know what? We'll talk when you're ready to become a doctor and not an expelled student."
She shoved her phone and journal into her white-coat pocket.
Pediatrics was a bitch. But now, she had a bigger bitch to see to.
That thought kept her going until she was matching out of his office and he called her out.
"Halima." She turned careless eyes to him, she was done with the conversation. "Don't let what happened to get in between you and your dream. It's not worth it."
She had her eyes on him but her mind was elsewhere. "Yes, you're right. It's not worth it. I was stupid, but now i know."
He gave her a single nod and she reciprocated the gesture.