Sides Effects Include...
A frothy little tale of renewal and redemption for the end of winter.
Copyright © 2022 to the author.
**
Jackie Shaffer squirmed on the examining table, uncomfortably aware of the air-conditioned draft on her exposed bottom and wishing she had postponed this appointment. Plucking at the scanty cotton gown, she tried to adjust it to cover her backside, but after five increasingly unsuccessful attempts, she admitted defeat.
"Probably an extra-small," she grumbled to herself. "Half the women in America are larger than a size fourteen, but whoever does the ordering here didn't get the memo. Idiots."
Sighing, she glanced around her for the twentieth time, looking for some sort of diversion while she waited for the doctor. The thin gown meant she could hardly go fetch her cell phone from her car, or even slip out to the waiting room and grab the latest
People
. True, a month-old copy of the
Journal of the American Medical Association
sat in the magazine rack, but Jackie had no delusions about her ability to comprehend it. Plus, she could see its theme for the month was obesity. Jackie snorted. She had
no
interest in that!
When the light knock at the door finally came, she jumped. Wriggling in the inadequate gown, Jackie glumly regarded Dr. Stine and Nurse Napolitano, the sprightly young women responsible for her medical care. Her former doctor had been an avuncular old dear; Dr. Stine's lean competence and rapid-fire remarks made her feel defective.
"Jackie!" the doctor said warmly. "It's good to see you. How have you been?"
"All right," she answered, her tone curt.
Not appearing to notice, Dr. Stine's eyes flicked to the tablet in her hand. "Well, let's get down to business, shall we? Your blood work results aren't bad for a woman of your age, but your triglycerides are still on the high side, as they've been for a few years now, and your body mass index is getting dangerously high. We need to work on both of those. There are drug therapies..."
"No statins," Jackie interrupted.
"...and there is always diet," the doctor continued, imperturbable as usual.
"I'm not going to starve myself," Jackie announced. "Been there, done that. Never again."
Laying the tablet on the counter, the doctor folded her arms across her chest and gave Jackie a long, level look. Nostrils flaring, arms crossed over her chest, Jackie met her assessing gaze and returned it with defiance.
"Are you happy?" the doctor finally asked.
Blinking, Jackie sat back. What kind of medical question was that?
"I fail to see what that has to do with anything," she finally answered, sounding bitchy even to herself.
A tight little smile flashed over Dr. Stine's lean face. "Really? I would think that would matter more than almost anything. If you're happy, you can handle almost anything life throws at you. If you're not -- well, everything's harder. You seem out of sorts today, so I thought I'd ask."
Unconsciously hunching her shoulders, Jackie thought for a moment, ignoring the waiting doctor and nurse with their identical sympathetic expressions. She thought back to breakfast that morning, and the argument she had picked with her husband. She considered the stiff, brief phone calls that her children, Benny and Janie, always ended too soon. A vision of her chattering colleagues falling silent when she walked into the room capped off this line of thought.
Her shoulders sagged. "No," she finally admitted. "I'm not happy. I can't even remember the last time I was."
"Ah," Dr. Stine said. "Then let's start with that."
Jackie stared at her, incredulous. "What, are you gonna give me happy pills?"
The doctor's laugh filled the examining room. "No such things, Jackie, and if there were, I'd be a billionaire. No, there's a little work involved for you, but I think you'll find it worthwhile."
Despite herself, Jackie felt the stirrings of interest. "What do I have to do?"
Cocking her head, Dr. Stine regarded her patient. "There's really just two things -- you have to change your diet, and I'd like you to try a new drug that's just come on the market. Urgenta. It's not a statin -- it targets cravings. I think it would be a good fit for you."
"It targets cravings?"
The doctor and nurse both nodded. "Yes. It pinpoints and reroutes those neural pathways in your brain. It's a complex chemical reaction, but I'd be happy to explain it if you like."
Jackie shook her head. Chemistry had been her worst subject in high school, and she had closed the book on it with relief.
"Nah, that would just go over my head -- so to speak," she said, her sense of humor reasserting itself. The nurse laughed encouragingly.
"I'm mostly worried about safety," Jackie confessed. "I don't like the thought of anything messing around in my brain. It won't hurt me, will it?"
"No," Dr. Stine assured her. "In the trials, a few people reported a mild sense of euphoria as a side effect, that's all." She paused. "It's not instantaneous, mind you. It'll take a few days to build up in your system and really kick in. I'd recommend starting the drug a few days before you start the diet, just to be safe."
Mild euphoria sounded perfect to Jackie, and she tuned out the doctor's instructions as she considered it. She hated hurting all the time, hated acting crabby all the time. Even the mere idea of feeling good, the way she had when she and Pete had married, was enough to bring a tear to her eye.
The doctor and nurse exchanged a private glance and gave a slight nod.
"I'll send the prescription to your pharmacy," Dr. Stine said, "and Nurse Napolitano will go over the specifics of the diet with you. She will also send you regular texts to make sure you're all right as you make the transition. I want to see you again in thirty days to run your blood work again and generally check in."
Unable to speak for the lump in her throat, Jackie nodded.
"You're a good person inside, Jackie," the doctor said, her hand on the doorknob. "It's time you looked and felt that way on the outside too."
**
Three days later, Jackie growled at her reflection in the mirror. Cutting out all sugar had nearly defeated her; not only did she have intense cravings and borderline withdrawal, she had to contend with habits too. Not an introspective person, Jackie had never considered how set in her ways she had become. Cutting the sugary mooring lines of treats and snacks formed over the years had left her feeling anxious and unsettled. For heaven's sake, how did normal people live without dessert?
Her phone's text alert sounded and she looked down. Nurse Napolitano again. Her lip curled.
"Congratulations! Today's the day most people report their cravings cease and their mood improves, so that's something to look forward to! Keep putting one foot in front of the other. Let me know how it goes."
Jackie couldn't decide whether to throw the phone through the window or simply slit her wrists. In the end, though, she trudged down the stairs and into the kitchen where Pete already sat at the table, drinking coffee and perusing the news on his phone, just as he always did.
He did not look up at her. "Morning," he said, his tone clipped under his graying mustache.
"Hey," she answered with equal verve, placing a new k-cup in the coffeemaker and hitting the start button. "Sleep well?"
"Yeah. You?"
"OK."
Glaring at the coffee machine, she willed it to go faster, but its gurgling and hissing proceeded as usual, and she sighed.
"So," Pete said, still eyeing his phone. "Day four. This is where the magic happens, right?"
While Jackie's weight had seesawed throughout her adult life, Pete Shaffer could still squeeze into his dress whites. Jackie shot him a resentful look. He didn't understand her struggle; no matter what he ate, his weight never varied by more than five pounds.
"That's what they tell me." The machine stopped spurting coffee into her mug, and she grabbed it gratefully, almost dancing in her eagerness for that first life-giving sip.
"Something to look forward to," he remarked, unconsciously echoing Nurse Napolitano. "I hope this works for you."
"It better," she said grimly. "It's my last hope."
He looked up, surprised. "I didn't know you felt that way."
Taking a second gulp of coffee, she met his gaze. "You think I like being a prize bitch? I hate it. But I feel so bad all the time, I just can't help myself, and I take it out on everyone around me. You worst of all." Placing her mug on the counter, she rubbed a coffee cup-warmed hand over her face. "I hate it. I hate who I am. And I hate the thought of being this way forever. So yeah -- this is my last hope."
Jackie hadn't said anything that honest to Pete in years, and he sat back, watching his wife. Not a bad-looking woman -- she still had that striking bone structure that had attracted him in the first place, with glorious dark eyes, almost almond shaped, that gave her a piquant quality. But time and temperament had carved deep lines of anger and disappointment into her face, and he had stopped really seeing her years ago, needing to protect himself and the kids from her anger.
She looked a little different today, he thought -- softer, perhaps. Even a tiny bit vulnerable.
"You can do it, Jacks," he finally said. "There's nobody that can touch you when you put your mind to a thing, and that's a fact."
Normally, Jackie would have derided his remark as a cliché, but today, halfway through her coffee, she found herself wanting to believe she could change; wanting to believe him, and wanting him to believe in her.
She gave a small smile over the rim of her coffee mug. "What a nice thing to say. Thank you."
Pete wanted to ask her who she was and what she done with his wife. Instead, he gave her a pleasant "you're welcome" and fled from the room before she returned to her senses.
**
The change caught her unawares, during the afternoon-long mandatory budget meeting she led every quarter. One second she was suffering through it like everyone else and thinking about chocolate-iced cake doughnuts; the next, a sense of wellbeing suffused her, one so powerful that she looked around, wondering if anyone else felt it too. From the bored expressions on her colleagues' faces, they were having no such luck.
