I was teaching an African American women's course at the U. W. Madison, almost twenty years ago, when a retired professor, female and white, asking what the themes of my course were, became upset when I mentioned that a main theme was slavery. No wonder they don't want you here, she shouted.
She was right, they didn't want me if I had students looking at the African American woman's experience of enslavement in the U. S. And its legacy.
Yes, its legacy.
Six days into the new year, on a Saturday, I was admitted to the hospital. I went to the grocery store, three blocks away, early that morning. I stopped at a Latina/o restaurant on the same strip and had coffee. At least four or five hours before I called for an ambulance, I tried to read a do a little editing, ignore the mentally ill tenant below who always wanted to remind me that she existed because the world revolved around her.
It wasn't until after mid-day when I started noticing the stars.
I continued to work, stopping to eat something, to drink some water. Juice. However much I eat or drink, I realized that I wasn't feeling better. Only worse. Dizzy. I think, maybe if I just wait some more. I have two cats now. The youngest one I adopted last October. There's no one here. I'm the strange one with hoarding books. The teacher, with all that nonsense about race. The closest thing to an alien from another planet. Not one of us!
The stars, larger as time went on, were blinding, and it was increasingly difficult to read from the laptop screen or the book I was reading. Taking a nap wasn't an option now; my head was throbbing.
At a hospital, where the crucifixes in every room seem to be accusatory, I envisioned myself on a bed surrounded by medical personnel, many of whom would agree with the retired professor. I spend too much time accusing white people of enslaving black people and not recognizing that the true victims were white Americans.
When I finally called the ambulance, I was barely able to walk. I remember being brought to the Emergency Room but not being taken to imaging for a CT scan. I do remember the pain in my left leg. It felt as if someone were hammering the bottom of my feet and the knee was made metal. I tried to tell the Emergency Room attendees. I heard one, a white male, ask where was this coming from? Was I acting? Thus wasn't on the CT scan.
So, I had a CT scan?
The next thing I know, I'm in a hospital room. The pain in my leg had subsided. But then, I wasn't allowed to leave the bed without alarms sounding. I also had an IV attached to my right arm. I asked a nurse what had happened.
You had a seizure.
A seizure!
And she leaves. And that's it.
A male doctor comes in, introducing himself as if he were some young celebrity, I should be made aware of. Then he leaves. Never to be seen again. The remaining two days, I trying to find out more about my condition, trying to tell anyone who would listen that I had two cats back in Kenosha. This is Pleasant Prairie. There is no one there to see to them. To feed them. To give them water.
I recognized the looks. Silly old black woman!
By Monday, I decided I had to leave. A female doctor, young, arrives and looks at me as if she heard a naughty little child in room_____. I want to explain to her that I have no family or friends surrounding my bedside or out in the waiting room because they have family and friends. There are no such people for me in the whole state. They have family and friends! I just have siblings, most, a whole generation younger, listed on the page labeled, Family. As a result, I have to leave. But, before I could finish the sentence, I have two cats back home, she walks out of the room.
At 70-years-old, I shower and dress, hobbling on an injured knee. No explanation about the knee, of course. I never forget I'm a black woman. Alone. No witnesses.
Ten minutes!
I know to be alert. On my toes. Born with a heart condition, I battled cardiologists who only recognizing in me a militant patient. Afro and not concerned about being described as only a heart patient. When my mother died, I had a hard time convincing these doctors that I was really teaching, really pursuing a MA. For real! All these doctors seemed to want was a compliant patient. And no questions, please.
Ten minutes! That's all I'll have if that!
And the internist comes dancing in, takes a seat at the desk in front of the computer. She has it on when I'm looking at my watch, already anticipating the call from the medical ride announcing a driver is waiting downstairs. Downstairs! Down one of the alphabetized elevators. Down a color-coded hallway.
Normally, I have a 40- to 50-minute ride into Milwaukee to one of the six cancer hubs, and my internist is located in the middle of this expansive hospital.
A month and a half before the seizure, the nurse took my blood pressure and it was 163, the first time. Then 140 something. When the internist arrived in the room, I tried to explain the stress I was experiencing, particularly with medical rides from Kenosha to Milwaukee, without making her think I needed the services of a psychiatrist!
There's Kenosha, the neighbor(s), the medical rides, which might show up or might not. And yes, I do write and read and research. I do keep up with what is happening in the world. I refuse to come home and sit before a television I don't own anyway.
Well, she was a doctor, and this sounded a conversation for someone else. This race thing had nothing to do with her proscribing high blood pressure to me--someone who hadn't had a blood pressure reading higher than 131 before or after this particular day.
I came home that day and located another doctor only to hear from her. Please give her another change. She really does understand the significance of race plays in treating black patients.
On the second visit to see her, she was going to contact an agency to see if I could be "lifted" out of the housing situation, at least. She would make some calls on my behalf.
Now, on this hospital visit follow up, she turns from the computer when I ask her the first question. The seizure drug? I just need to understand, not necessarily challenge her authority, but I do have a mind, and I'm ultimately responsible for this body. I'm asking, and rightly so, what happened and why this drug!
But she has an agenda. I'm taking up the time of an oncology social worker who should concern herself with patients far more needs than me. I could set my own medical rides. Why have this woman do so?
She herself spent time on the phone on my behalf. If you able to write those "scholarly" articles, then you're capable of making calls for yourself.
Well, I know what this is all about. I understand her better now. She doesn't have to look at me and she isn't. But I see her. I'm no longer writing scholarly articles but Op-eds. Nonetheless, what is silent but as loud as a freight train is the subject of those articles.
By the time I reach the lobby, I realize the medical ride company didn't call. Of course. I had to call company. Twice, in fact. I waited over an hour to escape that hospital and the rebuke of that doctor. In the long run, I suspected she was unprepared to discuss why I had the seizure. I also suspect that I didn't have the income for this agency assisting seniors in locating housing in Milwaukee.
The internist had succeeded momentarily in turning me into Kafka's bug.
Momentarily.
I read the Visit Notes the following weekend. Peppered with untruths, incorrect information, and missing dates I responded as a human being determined to protect myself from the various manifestations of ignorance.
I suffered a mini stroke on January 8, 2021. Yet, in several pages, there was no mention of this event. A date of 5/19/2021 referring to a hospitalization and seizure that never happened was prominent, however. The document failed to note that I was admitted for immune thrombolytic (ITP), low platelets, in March 2021.
There was the seizure on June 3, 2014, when the Emergency Room at Meriter in Madison discovered a meningioma (benign tumor in the membrane). The surgery to remove the tumor was successful, and this was the only other time I suffered a seizure. So my question regarding Kappra, administered at the hospital and prescribed by the internist on this visit, wasn't so off the wall.
And finally, I was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma in May 2016, not November 16, 2023.
This doctor made sure to point out how much time she spent studying my medical records. Not to mention those calls made on my behalf to the senior agency.
I never had a chance to bring up that sore knee I suffered. And of course, she mentioned that I brought up my housing situation again.
In the end, the oncology social worker, the one I've known since January 2019, contacted the senior agency. A representative reached out to me. It was obvious that the agency couldn't help me. I can't financially afford the "peace of mind" such an agency offered to others.
I was referred to the Aging and Disabilities Resource Center. Maybe I needed help in my one-bedroom apartment?
In the meantime, I'm still waiting for a second opinion about the high blood pressure pills. Could this drug have contributed to the seizure I experienced on January 6th ?
America is still dealing with the legacy of slavery no matter how it's dressed up and appears in a white coat, with a hospital ID tag dangling from the lapel. Attempting to ignore the issue of racism or addressing the issue with anger won't make America a nation of innocent victims.
