By
Cirque-de-Kink
Published:
Mar 27, 2021
Literature Text
[2nd person, mean doctor and unhealthy blob gal. Immobility, health issues, death mention. Pretty dark stuff]

You found yourself reading and re-reading this patient's info over and over again. Miss Imogen Black, a twenty year old uni dropout. Too big to get an accurate reading from any of the hospital’s scales (the most you had to work with is that, supposedly, she was pushing 730lbs some months ago, at her last checkup), a blood pressure of 190 over 120 - far exceeding normal boundaries, especially for a woman of twenty years old - complaints of chest pains for the past year (which had only been growing more severe), on treatment for type 2 diabetes for the last 7 months, taking beta blockers to keep her heart rate down, albuterol to open up her airways - apparently due to frequent complaints about shortness of breath and lightheadedness.

The more you look at this chart, the less it makes sense. There had to be some something had to be wrong here. The most logical conclusion was that, by virtue of some formatting fuckup, several people’s conditions and medications just wound up on Imogen’s patient chart; maybe if you checked the other charts on the ward, you'd find them all misprinted too. But then, you didn't really have time for checking them all one after the other. No, it'd just be quicker to visit her room personally. Pinning her information to your clipboard, you briskly stride down the hall towards the cardiology ward, passing by several rooms until you finally come across hers.

As soon as you open the door, you're hit with a somewhat familiar thrum of sounds; the hiss of air flowing through an oxygen cannula, the… weirdly erratic beeping of a heart monitor, and… grunting?

“Excuse me, Miss Black, but--” You stop short as you finally get a glimpse of this patient, and clutch your clipboard to your chest before you wind up dropping the damn thing in shock. The woman before you was… well, to use a less-than-professional term, a complete landwhale; her cheeks alone were fat enough that her lips were pursed slightly by their mass squishing her mouth from either side, and there was easily more fat choking her neck than you probably had in your entire torso. It was strange - most bigger patients had a sort of… vitality to their face. A ruddiness to their cheeks, that sort of thing that conveyed a bit of liveliness. Not here though. Her cheeks were bright red, but besides that splash of colour, her countenance was deathly pale, her narrowed eyes ringed by dark circles and her ill face partially hidden by lank, unkempt bangs of black hair. Not helping matters was the plastic cannula fitted into her piggish little nose; even with air being directly pumped into her, her breaths are ragged, uneven grunts and pants, a real Herculean effort for this butterball.

While she did have a bedsheet draped over her torso to maintain the thin veneer of decency, you could easily make out her fat, sagging breasts through the sweat-dappled fabric, framing the upper hemisphere of her monstrous stomach, the lower half of which actually peeked out from under that sheet. If she was standing - if she even could - you had a suspicion that that thing would be encroaching upon her calves. Her arms were wider around than your waist, and their immense, wobbling bulk made sure that they were kept at her sides, held as low as their bulk would permit. Even her hands seemed fattened to the point of uselessness, although the smartphone on her bedside table suggested that she had some degree of control in those thick digits.

A cursory glance downward reveals that some poor nurse had to push two bariatric beds together, and even then, you could see her pallid, cellulite-coated thighs almost touching their edges.

“Uh… y-yesh? Whaddyah wahnt?” Imogen’s voice snaps you out of your shock; perhaps unsurprisingly, it comes out much deeper, breathier and huskier than most gals, but that's probably a consequence of all that weight pressing down on her chest.

Wait. ‘What do you want’?! You straighten yourself up, bristling at her decidedly rude tone.

“I'm your doctor, Miss Black.” You say, slowly taking a few steps towards her. “I came here to… well, to clarify a few things on your medical chart.”

“L-Loohk, if it'sh abouht muh weight, then, iunno wha’ t’ tehll yooouh.” She says with a noncommittal shrug, raising those jiggling hams that she loosely considers her arms in a weak attempt at shrugging. “Your… nurshes couldn’ get a shcale tha’ went high enoough fohr me… shaid shomefing about ‘em breakin’, whatever.”

“Yeah, that's something I could have gathered on my own.” You say with a slight smirk, wanting to try and keep up with her bad attitude. Sure, you had a bedside manner to maintain, but… fuck it, she started it. “No, I meant the rest of it. So you're taking insulin, alongside medication to regulate your heart rate and open up your airways?”

The whalish medical anomaly before you rolls her eyes, giving a long suffering sigh. Or maybe that was her regular breathing; you honestly can't tell. “Yeah, but th’ ohnly one doin’ anyfin’ ish the inshulin!” She whines, balling up her blubbery fists in frustration. “Ah’m shtill gettin’ chesht painsh, n’ ah’m shtill havin’... b-breathin’ prohblemsh!”

“That doesn't mean the medication just doesn't work, Miss Black, that means that your conditions are becoming more than conventional medication can handle!” You blurt out, before clearing your throat and adjusting the lapel of your coat. “Maybe you should take this sort of thing more seriously? I mean, you're already undergoing treatment for diabetes; if you don't make some serious lifestyle changes, this might lead to peripheral artery disease.”

“Sho whaht? If they’re puhri… p’ripheral…” Did she seriously need to take a breath to say a four syllable word? “That jusht meansh they ain’t impohrtant, r-right?”

“It means you could lose a leg, ma’am.” To your growing frustration, she simply shrugs again, and for a moment you could swear her puffy lips curled into a bemused grin.

“Wehll, you lot’re alwaysh shayin’ ah should loshe weight… b-beshides, it ain’t ash if ah ushe ‘em that much.”

You set your clipboard down on her bed, rubbing your temples in a valiant effort to stave off a migraine thanks to this bloated mimicry of a human. It's impossible to tell if she really doesn't care, or if she just wants to get under your skin.

“W-What about heart attacks, then? You said it yourself, your chest keeps hurting, and those beta blockers aren't as effective as they used to be. A heart attack could be fatal...”

Another roll of her eyes, another dismissive huff. “Cahn’t ah jusht take one of thoshe defib thingsh hohme?”

“I don't think you'd be able to work them, Miss Black, not with your… considerable heft.” You say, lifting one of your hands up and flexing your fingers, just to demonstrate something else that she can't do.

“L-Loohk, iunno why yer washtin’ yer tihme; yer noht th’ firsht doc t’ tell me I should loshe weight. Jusht wrihte me a preshcription, gimme one of thoshe dumb diet pahmphletsh and lemme go.”

You begin to say something, but her smug grin stops you; how the hell are you meant to help someone who parenthetically doesn't want help? With a resigned huff, you hurry out of the room. Not because she asked you too, though; because this conversation was going to cause your blood pressure to skyrocket.