By Emmanuel Fashakin
Friday April 21, 2023. A very beautiful Early Spring Day in New York. It was Muslim Ramadan Eid Mubarak Day. Public Schools were closed. Not a cloud in the sky as the sun was shining brightly through our huge windows in the medical office. Even non-Muslims were happy in this glorious weather.
Susan came to see me today. As soon as she entered my consulting room, I knew that something was wrong. Susan had been my patient for more than twelve years prior and we got along quite well. Not the least because her husband shared same name as my first name. Susan told me everything in her life; like when her husband messed up and was caught having an affair.
That was five years earlier. Susan was very hurt. She was distraught as she related the events, shedding tears all the time. Susan was very emphatic: she had decided to throw the husband out. I urged caution. “Look Susan, you are in very bad shape. You don’t want to take such an important decision, like a divorce, in this type of state. Think of the children. I suggest you pause a little bit and give this further thought. Especially because your husband is penitent.” Susan was adamant.
Susan disappeared from the practice for several months after this encounter. When she reappeared, she was fierce and defiant. She didn’t have to tell me what she had done. “I threw him out, the stupid man”, she finally admitted. Since the deed was done, I had no further things to say to her except advice that she should allow the husband full access to the children and maintain peace and cordiality.
In the next couple of years, the divorce proceedings were getting to Susan. She was looking sadder and sadder at each visit. I kind of felt sorry for her but there was nothing I could do. However, things took a dramatic bright turn one day: Susan came to the office and asked to be screened for sexually transmitted diseases. I knew what that meant. I winked at Susan and she broke into a smile. “Ok,” I told her, “I hope it works out. Susan please be patient and give it your best shot. Don’t expect everything to be perfect. You may have to work things out.” “We have not done anything yet”, Susan explained. “I want to check myself out first to make sure that everything is okay.”
That visit was about nine months earlier. I have not seen Susan much after then until this visit. Susan was not talking much, she just sat there gloomily, so I took the lead. “What’s going on Susan?” She did not say anything. She just reached up and opened her face mask. The sight was grotesque. From the tip of the nose, right down to the philtrum (the vertical groove between the base of the nose and the border of the upper lip) was covered with vesicles and had ulcerated. The appearance looked like that of herpes simplex (cold sores) of high severity. Your immunity has to be really low, or you must be completely stressed out for the herpes virus to take over your face like that.
“Have you had these types of lesions in the same areas before?” I asked her. “Yes, but never as bad as this”. Ok, I said to myself. Vesicles on the face, occurring intermittently in the same place is virtually diagnostic of herpes simplex virus infection. But why were the lesions these extensive, causing complete ulceration of the skin and the vesicles all bursting up? “Susan, you were completely stressed out!” “Yes I was stressed out, doc, completely stressed out.”
“Why were you stressed out?” “Your new boyfriend?” “No, we are no longer together”. “Your children?” “No”. “Your job?” “No”, she explained. “I was actually on vacation last week. I was at home. With nothing to do. That stressed me out completely. Nowhere to go, nothing to do.” “You mean to tell me that you got completely stressed out because you were by yourself in the house and you were lonely and had nothing to do?” “Yes”.
I drew a slow breath. Susan was completely bombed out by boredom and loneliness. I asked her if she had no female friends she could visit with or hang out with. “No”. What about going to the gym? She was too depressed to go. In all my over four decades of medical practice, I have never seen someone complaining of extreme stress from too much rest. No work to do. Nowhere to go. I joked that she should have gone to work and volunteered for free services. She stared at me.
I treated the rampaging herpes lesions on her face. I then told her to look into the possibility of diversifying her interests. Making new friends, developing hobbies, and planning carefully how to use the free time, before taking any vacation in the future. But I could not help looking back at Susan’s decision, to send her husband packing, those five years earlier. I have seen this scenario play out several times: the men commit the wrong, but the women end up worse off.
Emmanuel O. Fashakin, M.D., FMCS(Nig), FWACS, FRCS(Ed), FAAFP, Esq.
Attorney at Law & Medical Director,
Abbydek Family Medical Practice, P.C.
Web address: http://www.abbydek.com
Cell phone: +1-347-217-6175
“Primum non nocere”
