Ricky Bowen Sickfics

32

This will be prompt 🧡

Third Person POV

The past few weeks had been rough for Ricky. His anxiety had increased greatly due to many factors, including, but not limited to: his parents' divorce, his and Nini's breakup, and being the lead in a musical for the first time in his life. Due to his anxiety he started having increased stomach sensitivity which started affecting how much he was eating. More often than not, Ricky would skip meals or eat bland food. 

Ricky didn't start to see the toll it was taking on his body until it physically manifested. During an outing with his dad, Ricky was shivering, he was short of breath, and kept complaining of a headache. Mike took a long look at Ricky. 

"You're pale," Mike said. 

"Thanks?" 

Mike shook his head. "I think you're anemic. You shouldn't be cold, it's warm here. Unless you're coming down with something. We should take you to the doctor."

"Whaaaaat?" Ricky backpedaled, "I actually think I am not cold anymore and that it was just...an illusion?"

"That's the best you could come up with? Okay, we're taking you to the doctor. I'll make an appointment for tomorrow. Would you rather miss one of your classes or rehearsals?" 

Ricky immediately answered this time, "Classes. Rehearsals are too important."

The next day, Ricky and his dad went into the doctor's office. Ricky stayed silent as his dad told the doctor the symptoms that Ricky was experiencing. The doctor then turned to Ricky and asked him if there was anything else weird going on that he couldn't find an explanation for. 

"Well..." Ricky thought. "I've been really tired lately and there's been this weird tightness or pain or whatever in my chest that comes and goes and I thought I was sick or something but I haven't gotten sick."

The doctor nodded. "Okay, Ricky. I'm going to have to run a few tests. I'm going to have to check your levels of red blood cells and the amount of hemoglobin in you using a CBC."

"I learned about hemoglobin in biology," Ricky said, more to himself than the doctor. 

"Oh? What do you know about it?"

Ricky thought for a moment. "It's a protein that's part of red blood cells that helps carry oxygen throughout the body."

"Very good! Well, then you must understand that having low hemoglobin can be dangerous for you. Same with the red blood cell levels!" The doctor said. He seemed happy to know Ricky kind of knew what was going on. "I'm going to need to take a blood sample and then the lab will have to process the results and hopefully we'll get back to you before too long!"

That sounded fine to Ricky. He waited while the doctor took a blood sample and then he and Mike left. Mike dropped Ricky back off at school right as it was time for his class to go to lunch. 

"Hey dude, where were you? You missed the beginning of third period," Red observed. 

Ricky said, "Doctor's appointment."

"Oh. Is everything okay?" Red asked. 

Was it? Ricky didn't know what to say. "Yeah. Just a check-up."

The conversation topic switched quickly as others arrived at the lunch table. Ricky tried to forget about his trip to the doctor. All that it had done was make him more anxious, thus making his stomach hurt. So Ricky didn't eat much.