Book I: My Muslim Man | COMPLETED

Chapter 38: Them Mood Swings

Imran's POV 

My head bobbed as it began getting heavy with sleep. I shifted in the cold plastic chair as I tried another position. But before I could start snoring again, the shrill voice of the nurse in the midst of pin drop silence had me wide awake. I checked the time on my wrist watch. It was almost mid night.

"We'll be discharging her now", she said checking the saline bottle.

"I'll wake her", I said rubbing my hand on my face to remove traces of sleep as I got up from the chair.

When leaving after attending Hareem and Emad's wedding ceremony, Afaaf complained of nausea and sickness. A couple of minutes after, she began puking so I had to get her to the hospital right away. The doctor said that her glucose levels were down so she had to get an IV. She had fallen asleep after a few more puking sessions and all what she ate at the wedding was dumped out of her system. I blamed whatever she ate from the wedding dinner.

I approached her as she lay asleep on the bed, pale and weak, with stress lines formed on her forehead.

"Afaaf, wakeup. We're gonna go home now, I took her hand in mine and caressed it. Waking up she narrowed her eyes looking around. She took a few minutes maybe recalling what hapoened. Then she nodded saying, "I'm awake"

"How are you feeling now?", the nurse asked cheerfully, "I'll take out the IV from your hand now"

Afaaf nodded and stretched out her left hand. I almost winced when I saw her hand bleed from where the needle had pierced her skin. The nurse bandaged her hand and allowed us to finally leave the hospital.

"I'm feeling hungry now", Afaaf said as she wore her hijab.

"What should I get her to eat?", I asked for the nurse's suggestion.

"Oh something light would do. Yogurt perhaps", she turned to Afaaf. Afaaf nodded with a small smile.

So I bought her yogurt from the hospital which she kept having little by little. It was relieving to see her a bit better than she was before.

It was terribly late in the night. The streets had no sign of life as we drove through the quiet city. Staying with Afaaf at the hospital added to my exhaustion. I had no idea how I'd wake up early the next day. Little did I know that all this was merely the beginning of greater challenges lying ahead.

Afaaf's sickness lasted for two weeks which left her weaker than she already was. It had been two long weeks watching her grow weaker and weaker and I could do nothing but be by her side through it. Also, her best friend leaving her to go settle in another country made her more glum. Mum had visited us twice to check on Afaaf and advised me over and over to take care of her daughter in law.

Afaaf had to take a leave from school because, after a few days, she had fallen ill again. She tried to get on her feet to start working around the house instead of just lying in bed but she felt exhausted easily. Taking her to the doctor's was now a part of our routine.

Two main things took over my day; work and looking after Afaaf. Some days would go easy when she'd be feeling better but others were hard to manage. Experiencing this for the first time in my life, I had little idea of what was expected of me in such a situation. But soon I learned on my own. Afaaf and our little one needed all the care and affection I could give. But managing between work and sick wife was becoming a daunting task and I began living a monotonous life where I would go to work early in the morning, work hard, come back and have lunch with my brother, and look after Afaaf the rest of the day.

As simple as 'looking after' sounds it is honestly no easy a task. From making her eat as little as two pieces of white bread and some yogurt, since she refused to drinking milk at all, to taking care of her appointments and medicine intake, I was on the clock the whole time.