LIFE ITSELF

Hospital

*Diamond's POV*

I'm at the hospital's waiting room for about two hours waiting to see what'll happen when the doctor comes out and takes me to his office and starts telling me what's wrong.

"What's your name?" He asks "Diamond....... Diamond Baxter" I tell him, "how old are you?" He asks me again "I'm 15 years old" I answer "and what school do you attend?" He asked me "I attend Brentwood High" I answer "what..."  He's about to ask me something when I cut him off and say "Sir I don't mean to be disrespectful but I honestly didn't come here for a Q&A (question and answer) session.

He stares at me straight for like 10 seconds and says "Your Mum's name is Jasmine Baxter right?" "Yes it is" I answer "well after running some tests on her we discovered an excessive amount of alcohol in her system,tell me for how long has she been drinking?" "2 years" I answer him with a voice like a whisper.

"Well, what's happened is really bad" He says with a pitiful look,
The look on my face probably tells him how worried I am, "Your Mother's kidneys have been damaged" he says "WHAT!!!!!!" I yell "Diamond please calm down" He says, with my eyes already filled with tears "how?" I ask him with a voice you can barely hear

"You see um, The kidneys filter harmful substances from your blood,One of which is alcohol, The alcohol causes changes in the function of the kidneys making them less able to filter blood, The kidney also performs many important jobs one of which is keeping the right amount of water in the body, alcohol affects it's ability to do this, when alcohol dehydrates (dries out) the body, the drying effect can affect the normal functions of cells and organs thus leading to the damage of an organ.

"What needs to be done?" I ask, "well a surgery needs to be carried out and the treatments are very expensive, we'll be needing the help of a well known adult to sign the paperwork in order to start the surgery" he tells me.

"Ohh wait, because she's a black woman you're just going to sit around doing nothing until an adult comes running along? Did I ever tell you I had someone to sign the papers?? If it where a white woman in there all of you would've been looking out for charity organizations to donate to the cause of a helpless white woman, I DON'T HAVE ANYONE!!" I blurt out.

The 'white' doctor stared at me and I could see a hint of anger and confusion, I didn't feel the need to point out the fact that he was white before but I guess now for clarity I'll tell you anyone I meet or know that's white.

In case you didn't know or you feel , Diamond's overreacting let me tell you what's up; The Healthcare system is rigged against Black People studies have shown that black women are 2 - 6 times more likely to die out of complications of pregnancy and black infants die twice as often as their white counterparts - Now all that is from a Netflix series I watch BlackAF to be precise the first season and third episode, it might be from a TV series but it sure is accurate. Which means I have my head's up for all the things this country might throw at me for being black, so is to say I am unsuprised.

I spent the night at the hospital and left in the morning of the next day to go check on Grace after I realized I didn't have James' phone number and I was going to have to get a Job to at least pay for Mum's bills but who was going to sign the papers allowing doctors to proceed with the surgery?