Operation: Dard and Devotion

21 | Mortified & Matriarch

The extremely brief moment where Ahsan showed the slightest bit of humanity the day I was flogged was just that: extremely brief.

The days had passed along and he acted as though he had never shown the tiniest bit of concern. As a result of my yapping, he eventually brought in Saad, who did not seem as though he had been harmed, from somewhere. Ahsan was strict in that I should be nearly bedridden for the next two weeks in order for the stitches to heal the area; any sort of rough movement break them open and then he'd have to redo them. He would only clean the wounds every so often, carefully, so as not to hinder the healing process.

To my further embarrassment, he insisted upon feeding me by making sure I sat upright - with the luxury of a cloth to hide the entirety of my chest - the way he saw fit and helped me resume my face-down position shortly after eating. Oddly enough, my back seemed to hurt less and less as the days went on. Promptly, on the fifteenth day after the flogging, he transformed into ultimate doctor-mode.

"The welts are so deep, but it doesn't seem like your annulus fibrosus ruptured. At least, it doesn't look like the intervertebral disc bulged to that extent," Ahsan mumbled more to himself than to me, as he gently pressed down on different places along my spine.

"Hey, when did you learn to speak Chinese?" I cleverly hid the fact that I had no idea what he had said. "Was that a language requirement for med school?"

Ahsan rolled his eyes. "What part of it didn't you understand?"

"Uhm..." I pondered for a moment. "Everything you said right after the first 'the'."

He gave me a very uptight, blank look.

"What!" I defended my obvious lack of medical terminology comprehension. "You didn't think I was a medical professional in disguise, did you?"

"Nope," he admitted and then muttered, "Didn't think you had much common sense either."

"I heard that."

"So shoot me," he challenged defiantly, knowing very well that I could not pluck up the measly strength to shoo a fly. He sighed. "Okay, I don't expect you to know what annulus fibrosus is, but surely you've heard of intervertebral discs?"

"Eh, I guess I may have seen the term somewhere," I told him sheepishly.

He sighed loudly. "Intervertebral discs are like little cushions that sit between the vertebrae in your spine. They help you to bend. Got that much, or do I need to spell this out in preschool terms?"

I glared at him. "I got it."

"Good." Ahsan's impassive face did not change. "The annulus fibrosus is basically the outer layer of each intervertebral disc and when it goes through a lot of pressure, it can lose flexibility, causing it to be vulnerable to damage."

"And that translates to...?"

"Horrible pain and difficulty while sitting down, standing up, walking, and so on. In extreme cases if the nearby muscles and upper spine are affected, paralysis can also occur," he let out a mouthful and then added, "That means losing the ability to move, sometimes permanently."

"Oh, I see," I told him before his words registered in my head. "Wait, what! Are you telling me I have that?"

"No," he said slowly. "I said you didn't have that from the very beginning."

"Why the hell would you give me a whole lecture on something I don't have," I muttered.

"I was talking to myself and you decided to butt in asking if I learned Chinese!"