4| ℬᎾℳᎯ  

    A FEW MINUTES PAST NOON. Mom gets in the car and I open the gate for her to drive out, getting in after. We drive through the mostly empty street, passing by tall gates and inanimate buildings similar to ours. She waves cheerfully at Mr. Ortega and his dog, Dibbo, as we drive past them.

   The day is sunny, and the sky is cloudless but for the little puffs of white that dot the crystal-clear blue. It reminds me of how poets might describe a good day, only that hospital days are usually anything but good.

   Without too much traffic, it takes two hours to drive from the main city where we live, to the outskirts where the hospital is located.

   Travelling from here to there is an adventure of change. The air smells crisp at first, and as we move farther, it acquires a hint of roadside trash, filthy gutters, and bad exhaust fumes. Then there are people, more people, cars, more cars and like magic, silence, palm trees and speeding trailers. 

   "Boma, seat belt." Mom instructs as we drive onto the long highway that cuts straight across the outskirts and neighbouring state.

   For a moment, I hesitate putting on the seat belt. I hate it when she drives. She doesn't look away from the windshield for even a second, she horns at every junction, drives with both hands, and always insists I wear a seat belt, even if we're always only driving just a little faster than a stroll.

   "Boma." She shoots me a warning glance.

   I buckle the seat belt. "So, when am I going to get my driver's licence?"

   "We've had this conversation before and I've told you that I'll get you registered at a driving school."

   "Well, when?"

   "Soon."

   "Soon." I repeat, she nods. "Like next week soon?"

   "No. Like when you turn eighteen soon." 

   "MOM!"

   "Yeah?" she smirks.

   "You said seventeen last year, and now it's eighteen? I don't trust you anymore." 

   She laughs. My phone vibrates, "Last movie before prom. You up?"

   "Was that Chinny?" Mom asks

   "Yeah, she wants us to see a movie."

   "What, you're not kin?"

   "I don't feel up to it."

    "Hmmm. This has got to be something." She says it like at some point she thought I was joking.

    Of course it's something, I want to be watching that movie with Chinny, the both of us being as crazy as two spectacular parrots, mostly Chinny, I'll just be the parrot everyone's smiling at. 

   On the outside, it's hard not to like the way some people make me look special because I'm mixed race in a country predominantly occupied by people of the same race. They smile at me, comment about how beautiful my hair is; I always have to politely decline their requests to touch it, some even take pictures without asking, ultimately pissing the hell out of me and ending up ruining my day. 

   On the other hand, it's hard to like it when I know there's absolutely nothing special about me, more so that I'm mixed race.

   My dad is one hundred percent German and I hate it when Mom reminds me that I have his confident nose, his independent personality, and his confused eyes. The way she says it makes me wonder why she looked in them in the first place; I probably won't be here, and she would be living her best life. Against popular belief, he doesn't want me and I'm fine with his choice.

    "Doctor's appointment. We could go next week. Post prom?" I text her back.

   "Did you have a crisis??? Was it the prom anxiety??? I'm sorry if I pressured you." She says.

   "Not really. Just regular check-ups are all. Text later when I come back?" 

   "Sure. No p. Alright then. Be good." She adds a kiss emoji. 

   I reply the same emoji before putting my phone on airplane mode. Going to the hospital is not fun, it's mental torture just knowing all the things that could go wrong in one visit. 

   I slide on my headphones: a limited edition sunset-inspired 'beats by dre', my most prized possession following my iPhone and laptop, all gifts from Tee, my would-be step dad. 

   Then I tune into FM 99.3: Nigerian info. I do this when I don't want to hear my thoughts. As the cool air from the air conditioner begins to take effect, I pull my denim jacket closer, relax the seat and close my eyes.

°°°°°

   I open my eyes and the first thing I notice is that my perfect sunny day has disappeared, now replaced by a grey, sombre looking space. In a short distance, the palm trees dance in the wind as thunder and rain begin to hum their rascal tune. 

   I yawn before taking my headphones off. 

   "There was a masquerade show a few miles back, you missed it." Mom says.

   "Why didn't you wake me?"

   "I couldn't, you should have seen yourself sleep," she smiles. "Like you used to do when you were younger."

    As a kid, I never saw the palm trees, I always woke up while Mom was driving into the hospital. "I know right, I needed it."

   "Obviously. " she says.

   I'm distracted by the marshy sound of speeding tires against the wet tarred road. Ivan and I used to make up silly games with racing raindrops when we were little. Then, we still pranked Mom and Sua; playing hide and seek around the house.

   I turn to the window, watching the little drops of rain race down, one after the other, enjoying the calm it brings me.

   I mutter, "insomnia is hard."

   "And you kept it all to yourself. Did you think I'll get mad at you for being sick?"

   "Not mad, worried. "

   "Boma, you can't stop me from worrying, that's my job, and I'll continue to do it as long as I'm alive."

   "When you say it like that, it just sounds super sad."

   I catch her rolling her eyes and she smiles. 

   "If I wasn't a sickler would you worry less?" 

   "You know I hate it when you refer to yourself as a sickler. Your genotype doesn't define you."

   I look away and roll my eyes, that was a straightforward question and she went all motivational speaker on me.

   "Did you turn away so you could roll your eyes?" She asks. 

   "Uhmmm. No. Never." I add a fake smile, "I'm not a sickler, I'm just always sick. My bad." 

   "I'm going to let it slide but I know you rolled your eyes."

   I heave, "I'm dreading this appointment. "

   "Why? You've been here a thousand times."

   "Exactly, when Dr. Hart was my doctor."

   "Boma you're not a baby, you shouldn't be scared of meeting a new doctor, you know they don't bite."

   "I'm not scared, just very pissed."

   She laughs. "You're always pissed so this one shouldn't be a problem. " 

   We drive into the hospital, Kevwe one of the security guy waves as we pass by the security station. He's always been there, waving us on entry and exit since the first day. Sometimes Mom passes a few naira notes to him on exit and he smiles like she just saved his life and then when I'm on admission, he always comes in with kind smiles and says, 'Hi'.

   Mom gets a parking space close to the big yellow and blue sign with ribbons and balloons that reads: Department Of Paediatric Haematology. It goes on to tell when it was established and by who it was commissioned. It's always looked like a tombstone to me and I've always hated it. 

   This part of the hospital is usually more pensive, with more sickly looking kids and guilty frantic parents. Many of which lament about how they got married thinking a miracle would happen, and their child would beat the odds of inheriting their sickle traits. Maybe it's Karma, or bad luck, or maybe nothing is responsible at all, just irresponsibility and false hopes. 

   Speaking of hope, at my last appointment—last month—Dr Hart had said my heart was getting worse, but it was monitored and manageable. I'm hoping it's still that way, but now she's no longer my doctor. It broke my fragile heart when she told me she had decided that the French life was her destiny, and how she was determined to ride the wild wind to France with her French husband. I don't want to wonder what this new doctor is going to be like, I want to turn around, walk back to the car and drive back home.

   We sign in at the nurses station and I grab Mom's hand. 

   "You don't have to hold my hands." She protests as we walk through the lobby to doctor Hart's former office.

   "Fine." I stick my hands in my jacket pocket. 

   At the door, Mom knocks twice. "Be nice." She whispers. 

   "Come in." The raspy voice says. 

   My new doctor is a man. Great. Just great. 

   "Be nice." Mom opens the door. We walk in.

   Remind me again why seventeen is still a child. Why I'm expected to behave like an adult but still be restricted from being treated like one.

   "Dr. Ekene, your new paediatrician." The man stretches out his big rough hand. I look up at him. His nose stands out, too thick for his face but he seems young, maybe a little older than Dr. Hart. He has a crooked smile, that makes the sturdy glasses on his face seem comical.

   "Hi." I dodge the handshake.

   Mom greets with absolute courtesy—smiles and handshakes—even taking the time to ask about his family. I notice he doesn't want to get into that with a patient, and he's hesitant about answering for a moment, but then Mom was so nice and he had to be polite so he said they were doing great.

   The office looks different from when it was Dr Hart's. This is in every bad way possible. I'm not saying I'm into rainbows, unicorns and glitters, but this is the paediatric haematology wing, he could have done better than grey and greyish white. It looks like a psychiatric ward for people with clinical depression.

   "So, Anas–"

   "Boma, just Boma." I interrupt him. "Would I have to start all over with you?"

   "No, not really," he says. "I believe–"

   "I don't feel well, that's why I came." I interrupt again. 

   I look at mom, she's wearing a wide grin. We both know it's fake. Mom has a long history with fake smiles and sudden reactions. 

   "I believe–"

   I sigh, "I'm not well that's why I came."

   His face straightens up and the crooked smile disappears. My face is straight, unmoved, determined to rattle him as much as I can.

   "You see, young lady," he adjusts his glasses. "I have other patients to see. If you're not going to cooperate with me, then please leave so I can attend to others."

   "I'm sorry. Please don't be offended, she's only being a teenager." Mom says it like she's begging him. I feel betrayed. "Boma apologise to your doctor."

    "No, there's no need for her to do that," he says. "So, tell me what the problem is."

    "I always wake up at 2am with pain in my back, then it spreads to my chest and head, like I was having a crisis, but it subsides after a few minutes, and I can't fall back asleep. This morning, I had cold purple spots on my eyelids and my tongue and gums were bleeding when I brushed."

    "It doesn't look it." he squints.

    "And her eyes look yellower. I don't know if it's from the anaemia," Mom adds.

   "Okay, it has been this way for?"

   "The sleep problems, yellowing and pain, a week. The colouring and bleeding I noticed this morning," I reply.

   "Okay, have you been anywhere or done anything that could trigger an allergic reaction?" he asks, flipping through my folder. 

   "I don't even have any known allergies, and a week-long allergic reaction?" I ask. Looking at him like I'm the one who spent six years in medical school. I know he hates it. 

   "Okay, let's examine you then," he says. 

   Why does he keep saying 'okay' like it's part of his oath? 

   A short black nurse walks in holding a tourniquet. She's also new and with the way she walks, I think her buttocks are an extra load.

   I walk over to the bed with my headphones because I don't want to have to watch them draw my blood, palpate my abdomen, check my eyes, listen to my lungs, check my heart and do all the hundred and one things they do routinely, that bores me half to death. 

   The day I knew I had SCD, was the day I had my first heartbreak, the day Ivan left. I had gone to school as usual that Monday morning, so ready and excited to tell him everything I did during the weekend, which was mostly eating at the events Mom and Aunty Lisa were planning. 

   After assembly, I thought he was running late, but then he didn't show up for the whole day. Ivan's mom always forgot to pick him and Tosin up after school, that was normal, they stayed in my house afterwards until Sua, their nanny and their driver came to pick them up, but he was never absent.

   When I got home, I asked Mom to call Sua and ask why he was absent and she said Ivan lost his father during the weekend and, so they had moved to Lagos. 

   I cried myself into a crisis, and Mom rushed me to the hospital. Dr. Hart was the consultant paediatrician on duty that night. She stayed up with me till when I was stable the next morning. Before she carefully explained to me what my sickle cell disease—aka spider—was, how I got it because my parents were carriers of the sickle trait, and what I was going to face during my life.

   We nicknamed it spider because: 
   One: I hate spiders. And two: the webs caused many different problems in many different parts of my body; pain, a whole lot of it, low blood counts, the culprit of my usual yellow-white tan appearance, fever like a freaking volcano, a short life expectancy (Dr. Hart didn't believe that) and I can't marry someone who has the same genotype as me or risk having sickly kids. 

   As a child, being SS wasn't so bad except that I had to take a lot of medicines and couldn't do all the active sports I wanted, but whenever I was on admission at times for weeks at a stretch, Dr. Hart always played the role of therapist to me and the rest of her in-patients. 

   Daniel and Edo boy, aka Osakioduwa; were the same age as me so we became friends. When our crisis got bad, she would make fresh organic pineapple sorbets and bring them to us. 

   Dr. Hart is probably the reason I made it this far, if it wasn't for her enlisting me for treatment at Riverside, dealing with me would have definitely overwhelmed Mom. 

   He gestures at me to take my headphones off when he's done. I give him the 'so?' face.

   "The yellowing is most likely due to the anaemia, your blood boosters should make them better, I'll prescribe some. I don't like what I hear in your lungs, your heart too, and your liver is quite enlarged."

   "Sounds like everything's taken a downward spiral," I sigh.

   "I'm sending you for an MRI, abdominal ultrasound and echocardiography." He scribbles on the referral sheet. "Your results will tell what we're up against. "

   I take the sheet, put my headphones back on and walk out of the office, towards radiology. 

   If Mom likes him so much, she could stay back and ask about his grandparents and their retirement plans.

~♡Tamunosakiogaree♡~