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| Angela Mattio | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Surviving with Lupus | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| October 22, 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| "On the way here, I almost hit a deer!" Mrs. Zanders informs the nurse. She seems nervous as she walks hobbles into the doctor's office. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The nurse, who wears Care Bear scrubs and has dark brown hair, takes Mrs. Zanders silver and black cane and puts her in a wheel chair. Mrs. Zanders, a short, friendly, kind, beautiful, black woman in her late forties, with hazel-brown eyes, has come to the doctor's office for her monthly lupus visit. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| A gray-haired, blue-eyed, tall, gaunt, man enters the room. It is Doctor Hunter, Mrs. Zander's physician. Sitting down and spinning around in the chair, Doctor Hunter asks, "Are there any more changes in your health other than what you told me last visit?"Talking softly, Mrs. Zanders replies, "It seems like everything is the same, other than these aches in my joints." As Dr. Hunter begins examining her, Mrs. Zanders mumbles, "Ooh, awww that hurt! Wait! Stop! You are hurting me." Dr. Hunter tells Mrs. Zanders, "Your muscles are inflamed." | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| A nurse with rosy cheeks and brown eyes comes into the examination room. The nurse, who wears Hugs and Kisses scrubs, is there to give Mrs. Zanders a shot in her butt, to relax her muscles. As the needle goes in, she yells "Ouch that shit hurts!"She can be heard all the way down the hall. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Mrs. Zanders relaxes for fifteen minutes, and then Doctor Hunter comes back. Looking concerned, Doctor Hunter asks, "Are you o.k.?"Mrs. Zanders retorts, facetiously, "Yes, thanks for the shot." Dr. Hunter and Mrs. Zanders begin talking about her illness and how she has been dealing with it. While rubbing her legs, Mrs. Zanders says, "You known Doctor, I have my ups and downs, but thank God, everything has been pretty good lately." He gives her a prescription for her pain and tells her, "I will see you in a month." | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| When Mrs. Zanders gets home from her doctor's visit, she eats a ham and cheese sandwich with sour cream chips and drinks a glass of ice cold lemonade. Once Mrs. Zanders finished eating, she says, "It took the doctors ten long years to diagnose me with lupus." Looking annoyed, she adds, "Why did it take so long?" Rocking back and forward, she says, "The doctors had me going back and forward, from doctor visit to doctor visit." She also adds, "I was getting very irate about them sending me around in circles like I was at an amusement park on a rollercoaster." | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The phone rings; Mrs. Zanders tells them to call her back. Getting back to her story, Mrs. Zanders explains with a sad face, "I have been in a wheel chair for five consecutive years because of lupus."With a stern look, she adds, "I also had two major strokes which caused me to be in the hospital for eight months, plus four months of rehab."Rubbing her short hair, Mrs. Zanders says, "I have to wear my hair cut like a man because the disease causes it to fall out." | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Mrs. Zanders keeps a photo album with different pictures showing how her body went from a size ten, to a fourteen, to an eighteen. She says, "I just fluctuate like an elevator." Yawning and stretching, Mrs. Zanders gets up to go in the back room and grabs a big, blue, handbag where she keeps her medications, bursting out loud, "Girl, I am a walking drug store!" I have all types of medications, from birth control to pain medicine. You name it, I have it!" | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Mrs. Zanders has been through the ringer with this illness. The doctors gave up on her a long time ago, but she is still perking along. In the words of her favorite Scripture, Matthew 6:33, Mrs. Zanders says, "But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." She adds, "I will survive." | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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