Chapter 3: The Fallout Begins

Turns out, I was naive.

What happened next with these two really opened my eyes.

For a few minutes, I sat quietly at my desk after they left, replaying the conversation in my head. Sometimes the hardest part of being a doctor isn't delivering the diagnosis—it's witnessing the fallout, the unraveling of trust between people who walked in together but might leave changed forever. In those moments, the clinic felt less like a sterile box and more like a crossroads, where hearts and futures turned on a dime.

What I didn’t realize was that the real diagnosis—the one that would change both their lives—hadn’t even surfaced yet.