My Life After Now

22

Tear Me Down




“Fill these out,” the lady behind the desk said, handing me a clipboard with about twenty double-sided pages attached to it.

My dads and I divided the forms up—they took the insurance and past medical history ones and I was left with the ones that only I could answer, like the social behaviors checklist and the description of present condition. I took the clipboard over to a far corner of the waiting room so I could write my answers down without worrying about anyone reading over my shoulder.

When all the forms were completed, the copay had been paid, and the formalities were over, the wait began. There sure were a lot of people here for a Saturday morning on a holiday weekend. I didn’t know whether to take that as a good sign or not—on one hand, it seemed this doctor was in high demand. On the other, a lot of the patients were in really bad shape. They were run-down and tired-looking, some were coughing, some were incredibly thin. Many looked utterly miserable. If this doctor was so great, why did his patients look so sick?

This was all getting way too real.

And still the wait continued. As patients were called into exam rooms, more patients came to sign in. The flow was endless. I focused on breathing and tried to ignore the queasiness in my stomach. I’m not sick like these people, I tried to comfort myself. It’s just nerves.

My dads and I didn’t talk much. Like magnets, our gazes kept drifting over to the muted television hanging from the ceiling, but it was nothing more than an automatic reaction to the presence of the flickering screen. I don’t think any of us were really in the mood to learn about all the terrible things that were going on in the world from the CNN ticker.

Over an hour after we checked in, my name was called. My dads got up to follow me in the room, but the nurse stopped them.

“Patients only beyond this point, please.”

I gave them the most reassuring smile I could, letting them know I’d be fine, even though I wasn’t sure if I really would, and followed the nurse into the room. She took my blood pressure, pulse, and temperature, and then handed me a faded cotton gown. “Put this on, open to the back. You can leave your underwear on, but take off everything else, including your bra.” She dropped my chart in the little plastic holder stuck to the outside of the door, and closed the door behind her.

I was all alone.

I surveyed the tiny exam room. It looked like any other doctor’s office I’d ever been in. But though it was familiar, I was anything but comfortable. Shivering, I stripped down and hurriedly put the gown on, fumbling with the ties. I left my socks on. I was freezing.

I sat up on the bed, the thin paper rumpling beneath me, and covered my legs with my hoodie.

Fifteen minutes later, there was a brief knock at the door and before I could even say, “Come in,” the knob turned and the doctor entered the room.

“And you are…Lucy Moore,” he said, not looking up from the chart.

“Yes,” I said.

He went over to the sink and washed his hands with lots of soap. “I’m Dr. Jackson.” He sat down and took his time reading through all my forms. I felt entirely invisible and uncomfortably obvious all at the same time, sitting there in practically nothing in front of this stranger who was ignoring me.

Finally, he looked up. As soon as he laid eyes on my face, he frowned and flipped back through his notes, looking for something. “How old are you?”

“Seventeen,” I replied.

He sighed and shook his head in clear disapproval. I’d thought doctors were supposed to be nonjudgmental.

“And how do you know you’re HIV-positive, Lucy?” Dr. Jackson asked. Suddenly, his voice had taken on an entirely different tone, doing a complete one-eighty from the all-business, detached manner from when he’d first entered the room to sugary-sweet condescension.

“I was tested,” I said, goose bumps erupting all over my skin, and not because of the cold.

“By whom?”

“Harlem Free Health Services.”

“Where is your copy of your test results?”

“I don’t have it. I got my results over the phone.”

A corner of his mouth turned up in amusement. “Of course you did,” he said.

What the hell was this guy’s problem? He was treating me like I was a five-year-old playing dress-up.

“What grade are you in at school, Lucy?”

“Eleventh. Why?”

“Have you had sex education classes at your school?”

“Um, yeah…”

“So they’ve taught you all about the importance of safe sex?”

“I guess…”

“I see here that you believe you contracted HIV from engaging in unprotected sexual intercourse,” he said, gesturing to the file. “That was very irresponsible behavior, Lucy.”

Was he for real? He was actually reprimanding me?

Listen, I wanted to say. I don’t need your judgment, okay? I have enough to deal with without you contributing. So can we just get on with this so I can get out of here?

But I couldn’t form the words. Dr. Jackson viewed me as a child, and somehow, under his contemptuous gaze, I had regressed to one. I was frightened and shy, and it was all I could do to answer his questions and count the seconds until the end of the visit.

Dr. Jackson waited for me to respond, but when I didn’t he just shrugged, as if he decided I wasn’t worth his little lecture. He had a whole office full of people to treat; I was just another number to him.

He stuck his head out the door and called for the nurse to join us. I felt incrementally better that I didn’t have to be alone in the room with him while he was doing the physical, but I hated every second of that exam nonetheless.

He poked and prodded me all over, not even bothering to apologize for his cold hands or icy stethoscope. He had no grace whatsoever as he jammed the little light into my ears, felt for swollen glands in my neck, and pressed under my ribs to check the size of my liver and spleen.

And it got even worse, when he did the breast exam and felt for lymph nodes in my pelvic area. I did not want this man touching me in those places. It wasn’t that he was being inappropriate; it was more that he obviously didn’t view me as a person—let alone a scared person with actual feelings. He saw me as just another scientific specimen, there for his own experimenting. I squeezed my eyes shut, cringing the entire time.

“You can get dressed now,” I heard him say. I opened my eyes to find the nurse exiting the room and Dr. Jackson back at his stool, scribbling away.

I hesitated. Wasn’t he going to leave so I could dress in privacy?

Apparently not.

So I put my clothes on as quickly and discreetly as I could, facing away from him and keeping the gown on until my clothes were safely back on my body.

“All right, I’m going to send you down to the lab,” Dr. Jackson said. “They will draw blood and run the CBC, T-cell subset, and RNA viral load tests. I’ll need to see you back here in one week. You can make the appointment on your way out.” He crossed to the door. “Any questions?”

Um, yes. What’s a CBC, T-cell subset, and RNA viral load test? What did you find when you examined me? Why are you such a dick?

“No, no questions,” I said.

• • •

My dads were right where I had left them. They jumped out of their seats as soon as they saw me. But I didn’t go over to them.

As my physical proximity to Dr. Jackson distanced, the more my courage and anger returned. I marched straight over to the front desk, jaw clenched. My dads followed wordlessly, sensing something was up.

The lady looked up. “The doctor would like to see you back here in one week. How does next Saturday at eleven a.m. sound?”

“Horrible,” I said.

Papa put a hand on my shoulder. “Lucy, I know this is hard for you—”

I spun around and glared at him. “You don’t know what it was like in there. I’m never going back to that doctor again.” I didn’t bother to whisper; the whole waiting room was watching and listening. This must have been far more interesting than whatever was on CNN right now. I turned back to the lady behind the desk. “Do you have any other doctors here?”

She swallowed. “Yes, we have one other physician specializing in…your particular department.” She whispered that last part, though I didn’t really see the point. It was clear from Dr. Jackson’s air of absolute boredom that people came here for one reason only.

“Who is that?” I asked.

“Dr. Vandoren.”

“Yes, I’d like an appointment with him, please,” I stated firmly.

“Her,” the lady corrected.

“Even better,” I said.

Before I could leave that god-awful medical building, I had to get my blood drawn. I watched in a trance as it was siphoned from the tiny vein in my arm, through the clear tube, into the vials. The technician repeated the process again and again, collecting eight vials in all.

When he was finally done, I moved to stand up. But the whole room went dark and spun around me like a tornado, and the next thing I knew, I was on the floor, vaguely aware of cold hands on my forehead, my eyes working to focus on the face hovering over me.

“Oh, wonderful,” I said as I attempted to push myself up to sitting. “I passed out, didn’t I?”

Dad nodded. “Are you okay?”

“Who even knows anymore?” I grumbled.

As the background became clearer, I realized that Papa was arguing with someone. His voice was raised, and he was gesturing wildly.

“What’s going on?” I asked Dad.

“Seth is…expressing his dissatisfaction with the amount of blood they took from you.”

Oh yeah, now I heard it.

“She’s all of a hundred pounds!” he was shouting. “What makes you think that it’s okay to take that much blood out of her?! Of course she’s going to pass out. What kind of operation are you people running here, anyway? Don’t you know how to do your jobs? I’ll have you know that I am an attorney, and if there is even one bump on that child’s head resulting from your negligence, I’ll sue you so fast you won’t even know what hit you!”

The technician’s face was flushed, and he was pointing an unsteady finger toward a computer screen. “Sir, please, look. The doctor ordered eight vials. I don’t make the decisions.”

“Papa,” I called out. “Calm down, I’m fine.” I slowly stood up to prove it.

Papa exhaled when he saw me supporting myself on my own two feet, and I saw the fight leave his body. He took my hand and led us toward the elevators. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

“Best idea you’ve had all day,” I agreed.