6. Falcon #2
My face contorted before I told her that I would tell her husband.
That threat turned the situation from bad to worse when she told me that Steve Harvey was her hall pass and Angela Bassett was my father’s.
What the fuck did they know about damn hall passes?
I would just be quiet, watch the show, and wait for the doctor’s office to call back.
Forty minutes into the show, the nurse called back. She spoke to my mother first to ask her all the important questions. After they spoke, Nurse Matthews asked for permission to speak with me. My mother reluctantly gave her permission.
“Hey, Falcon, how are you today?” Nurse Matthews asked. After I told her that I was fine, she continued. “We want her to come in for bloodwork on Monday based on everything that she and I discussed. If her symptoms worsen, I need you to take her to the emergency room.”
She went over what the bloodwork order would be. The order would include inflammatory markers, anti-double-stranded DNA antibodies, a urinalysis, a complete blood count, metabolic panel, and a urine protein-to-creatinine ratio. I hated that I knew what most of them were for.
They would look for blood and protein in the urine that shouldn’t be there with the urinalysis.
The complete blood count would look for anemia, low white blood cells, or platelets.
The metabolic panel was to see whether her creatinine had changed and if her kidneys were filtering properly.
When my mother’s lupus became more active, her C3 and C4 complement levels could fall.
Her anti-double-stranded DNA antibodies could rise as well.
Nurse Matthew let me know that if the labs didn’t show infection or organ involvement that her rheumatologist more than likely would temporarily increase her Prednisone.
Once the inflammation settled, it would be tapered back.
I knew she would hate that. She and Kee both equally hated Prednisone.
I could always tell when my baby had to take it because she was tough to deal with that day.
If my mother’s flares became more frequent, they would reassess her other medications as well.
I spoke to the nurse for a few more minutes to let her know that I would call my father.
Lauren Coral pushed back with me when it came to her care.
When it was Franklin Joseph, she listened and was as meek as a church mouse.
I watched my father be so gentle with her over the years, and I had also witnessed when he bossed up because she didn’t want to listen to what was best for her health.
After I disconnected the line, I peered at my mother who had her head back and eyes closed.
She was exhausted from this thing that everyone called moderate.
Moderate. In my mind, I always thought the word was an outrageous attempt to insinuate that this lupus thing had boundaries.
If you were in that moderate range, then it would respect you a little more.
I saw how lupus disrespected my mother and now the love of my life, Mazikeen. Two of the women I loved most both were affected by the same disease in very different ways.
Lupus showed itself through my mother’s skin, joints, blood counts, occasional inflammation around her lungs, and exhaustion.
Her hand and ankles would swell, sores might form in her mouth, or rashes on her body.
It would be an interruption in her life for some time, but her kidneys’ function remained stable.
Lupus nephritis didn’t give my woman that much mercy. It moved to her kidneys, built a house, decorated it, then planted roots. I heard the diagnosis before I met Kee from my mother’s doctors as something that they didn’t want for her. It wasn’t until Kee that I understood what it all really meant.
My baby’s immune system had become an enemy to the tiny filters in her kidneys.
It stopped them from cleaning her blood properly.
That had happened over two years now before I met her.
When I came into her life, dialysis was a penned part of her weekly schedule.
There was no penciling it in because it wouldn’t change.
Monday, Wednesday, and Friday were days that she spent hours connected to a machine in a room that felt like the inside of a Frostbuddy with ice in it to do what the filters couldn’t do any longer.
I watched the machine on many days pull blood from her body to filter out the waste and extra fluid, then return it back to her body through the port in her arm.
I knew a thrill was the soft vibration beneath her skin over her fistula.
That was the arm that no one could take her blood pressure on.
We both watched her sodium, fluids, potassium, and phosphorus because her kidneys needed help since it couldn’t do what it needed to do automatically.
Were these the things that my father had to do for my mother?
On the days that she gained some pounds from fluid between her treatments, I loved on her more.
Mazikeen needed to know that I didn’t give a fuck about any of that shit.
When she was cramping, lightheaded, nauseated, or didn’t feel like getting on this dick, I didn’t care.
There were far more ways to be intimate.
We found intimacy when we watched a movie together in bed or listened to one of her audiobooks that told me that my girl was a freak.
When Mazikeen had a flare, there was no concern that the lupus had reached her organs, because the damage was already there.
With my mother, it was the overarching concern.
That was one of the biggest differences between the two women that I loved.
It was like they were the same song played over different beats.
While my mother rested her eyes, I went to the kitchen to make her a fresh cup of tea, toast, and applesauce.
Habit made me look for a measuring cup to measure the ounces of tea that I poured.
It took less than a minute to remember that this snack was for my mother, not my woman.
Every drink that Kee consumed stayed in her body until dialysis or if the small amount of kidney function left decided to do its job.
My mother could drink when and as she saw fit.
There were two sets of rules that I learned and lived by when it came to my mother and Mazikeen. Same song over a different beat.
“I’m not hungry.” She spoke with her eyes still closed. She must have felt my presence next to her.
I sat the plate down on the coffee table in front of her so that I could grab the small, foldable table to set near her. “I understand that you’re not hungry, but that doesn’t mean that you can just not eat. I know Nurse Matthews told you that they might be increasing your Prednisone dosage.”
She griped as I set the plate down on the TV table with the tea next to it.
Her fingers gave her trouble when she tried to pick up the toast. I noticed but chose to not speak on it.
Help wasn’t always doing the thing for a person.
Sometimes it was giving them enough time to do the thing themselves.
We sat there in silence while she ate the half slice of toast, and I thought about my baby.