Page 72 of Lighting the Lamp
“Good. I love you, Beau.”
“I love you, too, Momma.”
She hangs up, and I’m left sitting there with the echo of her voice in my ear and a flood of tears I didn’t even feel coming. Momma is right about Alise and everything else. The problem is, I don’t know what terrifies me more, losing Alise or knowing that I may have never really had her, to begin with.
By the time I make it to the clinic, I’m a mess of static like my brain is a radio, stuck between stations, buzzing and restless,too much noise and no clear signal. I pull into a parking spot and turn the engine off, and my hands won’t stop shaking. They twitch on the steering wheel as if they’ve forgotten how to be still. The leather is slick with my sweat, and I can’t get a good grip, can’t unclench my fingers, can’t breathe right. Every inhale scrapes up my throat like broken seashells. My chest rises too fast, but also too shallow at the same time. My lungs are staging a rebellion. My heart pounds like it’s trying to beat its way out of my ribs, and I swear for a second that I won’t go in. It would be easy to just put my truck in reverse and back out of the spot and drive. I don’t have a destination in mind, just anywhere other than here, where some doctor might have my future on a tablet. Deep down, I know I can’t run from this, not when I’ve already lied to everyone I love to come here alone.
I shove the door open and climb out, every muscle locking in protest after a night folded up in the driver’s seat. My back aches, my neck throbs, and there’s a knot under my shoulder blade that feels like it’s fused to the bone. I stretch and roll my shoulders, forcing the air into my lungs again until I’m dizzy from trying before hedging inside.
Inside the clinic, it smells like bleach and old, stale coffee filters. It makes my skin crawl, stripping me down from the inside out. I blink against the fluorescent lights as the receptionist gives me a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes before handing me a clipboard. I take a seat in the unreasonably uncomfortable chairs. The pen feels too small in my hand, like it might snap if I grip it too tightly, and I answer all the questions with hands that don’t feel like mine.
Have you been experiencing fatigue? Yes.Like gravity tripled, and no one told me.
Joint pain? Yes.My knees, wrists, fingers, ankles—hell, my whole body sounds like a bag of Rice Krispies every time I move.
Shortness of breath? Sometimes.Even more so right now than usual.
Chest tightness? Yes.All day. Every damn day.
When they call my name, I flinch like I’m guilty of something. I follow the nurse down the hallway on autopilot, nodding, humming responses, and trying not to throw up. The blood pressure cuff bites into my arm. The scale flashes a number I can’t process. I hear her talking, but the words slip through the cracks in my panic, and then I’m alone.
The exam room is cold and humming. The paper beneath me crinkles like a warning as I rest my hands in my lap, useless, like they don’t belong to me. I stare at a crack in the floor tile and try not to let my mind spiral too far out of control.
Don’t think about what she’s going to say. Don’t think about Alise not answering. Don’t think about how this could change everything. Don’t think. Don’t think. Don’t?—
The door opens, and Dr. Conway walks in like nothing’s about to change. She’s as calm as always. Her salt-and-pepper black hair is pinned back, coat pressed, eyes sharp behind rectangular glasses. Not cold exactly, but clinical, like someone who’s already ten steps past the worst news and into the logistics. Like she’s practiced this conversation in the mirror a hundred times and didn’t once flinch. She has a tablet in one hand, like it holds the weight of everything I don’t want to hear. She doesn’t smile or frown, just looks at me the way a surgeon might look at a scalpel, and just like that, the floor disappears beneath me.
“Morning, Beau,” she says, like this is just another Tuesday, and maybe it is for her.
“Morning.” I swallow.
My voice barely makes it out, rough and frayed at the edges. Dr. Conway nods once and lowers herself onto the rolling stool, the tablet balanced on her knees like a verdict. Her fingers tapagainst the screen; her face remains perfectly still, not even a twitch to hint at what news waits for me on that tablet.
I glance down at the edge of the heart monitor peeking from beneath my shirt, the adhesive tugging faintly at my skin with every breath. The words slip out before I can stop them. “How much longer do I have to wear this thing?”
“At least another week. We need as much data as possible before we can make any decisions. The arrhythmias you’ve had—” Her eyes lift to mine, steady but not unkind. “How’s it been going so far? Any trouble with the device?”
I huff a sharp laugh that doesn’t sound like me. “Other than feeling like a cyborg with a sticker problem? Peachy.” My tone is dry, deflective, and I know it.
She doesn’t smile, just makes a note on her tablet, like she’s too used to patients hiding behind sarcasm to bother calling me out. Then her expression shifts, subtle but enough to make my stomach knot. “Beau, I got your bloodwork back.”
It only takes three seconds for everything to change. My spine locks into place, my stomach drops into my toes, and something knocks the wind out of me like I took a slapshot to the chest. I’ve taken worse; I know this. I’ve bled on the ice, broken bones and played through it, but the moment she talks, the room spins sideways.
ANA positive. Elevated inflammation. Autoimmune. Systemic. Chronic.
Her words are cold raindrops in winter—tiny, sharp stings I barely register until I’m soaked through.
Manageable,she says, like that means anything.We’ll start treatment right away. With the right meds and adjustments, we can keep it stable.
Then she says it, the words that split me in half: Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) or lupus.
It’s a chronic autoimmune disease that can affect various parts of the body, most commonly the skin and joints, but can also affect other organs… We need more testing to rule out potential additional organ damage.
It hangs there in the air—clinical, casual, final—and I swear I feel something inside me crack. A thin fault line that runs from my chest straight down through my gut. My heart stutters, and everything slows down as if a punch, too hard and fast, landed on me, and my brain hasn’t caught up yet.
Dr. Conway keeps going, her voice steady while mine disappears.Fatigue. Flares. Organ involvement. Monitoring. Medication.Each word slams into me like a body check I didn’t see coming. I’m nodding—at least, I think I am—but I’m not really here. My ears buzz like static. My mouth is dry. My body’s gone ice cold, like all the heat has drained out through the soles of my feet.
I can’t feel anything because how do you feel when the life you’ve built—the future you counted on—starts slipping through your fingers?How do I keep playing? What if I can’t? What if I lose the team? What if I become the guy they pity? The one who used to be something? What if I lose her?
