“You better have agoodreason for interrupting my day off.”
There’s silence for a little bit. “Um… If the answer’s no I understand.”
“Just ask the damn question, Link.”
“Well… I have a doctor’s appointment coming up…”
As soon as he says this, my heart beats for a whole new reason. Is he okay?
“...and I was wondering if you could come with me.”
I hesitate. “Why?”
“Because… they’re going to draw blood and all that stuff.”
His voice sounds so small on the other line.
Is he actually freaking serious?
“Why can’t you askSarahto go with you?”
“I don’twantSarah to go with me.”
“It’s so sad when we can’t get what we want.Isn’tit.”
I don’tcareif I’m being an asshole to him. It’s not like he doesn’t deserve it. Lincoln has always been afraid of doctors, even more so deathly afraid of injections.
As soon as the needle comes out, he faints.
It’s actually pretty cute. I mean, itwasn’tthefirsttime I witnessed it because neither of us knew, and apparently he didn’t remember.
His family only ever gave him injections when he was really little, and somehow he was able to skirt by that in his teenage years. Or he blocked it out.
Regardless, I convinced him to get a flu shot with me when we were dating, and either he didn’t remember anything about needles or he didn’t know, because the doctor was explaining something and we were all laughing, and the next thing I know his eyes are rolling to the back of his head and he’s falling over.
I remember how scared I was.
Yeah, I can laugh about itnow, but at the time I thought he had a heart attack or something and died.
I remember screaming his name and the doctor trying to calm me down, sayinghe’s okay, he just fainted. He’s breathing, he’s fine.
Panicked, I kept peppering the doctor with questions, asking how he knew that Lincoln wasn’t having a stroke. Now I think I was stupid because of course the doctor would know the signs of what’s happening.
When Lincoln came to, they gave him some juice, and I was crying like mad, hugging him and sobbing into his shoulder. He asked what happened and I told him. Maybe that was the time he became super aware of it, because anything that had to do with doctors, his blood pressure would always skyrocket to very concerning levels…
The kind of levels where someone could rupture an aneurysm.
As a matter of fact, he goes out of his way to avoid the doctor, and if he ever had to go for any reason, I would berightthere with him.
Always.
For ANY doctor visit. And even though he was terrified, he would do the same for me.
It was just one of Lincoln’s quirks that became a normal part of my life with him.
Anybody who doesn’t know him would probably be freaked out by it. Lincoln is quiet on the phone now, probably not sure how to respond.
“... I’d really like it if you come.”
