Having sickle cell disease affects different areas of one’s lives. Issues to contend with include daily pains, complications with the disease and a lot of relationship issues, which are stories that I have been sharing recently. Here is another story I hope you enjoy:
I opened the front door to see the old man off as he left my house. Friday, the gatekeeper, opened the gate immediately he saw us coming towards him. As the old man and I walked out, past the gatekeeper, Friday bowed to greet us. The taxi I had called for the old man was waiting. I opened the door, he got in slowly and the car drove off.
I got back into the house and sat in a chair in the living room, staring pensively. My four-year-old daughter burst into the room, shouting ‘Daddy, Daddy, who was that old baba?’ I smiled, looked at my daughter and lifted her up. I said, ‘That baba is baba as you said, Chantal.’ I swirled her round in my arms and she screamed with excitement, smiling and shouting happily. As suddenly as she came into the room, she asked me to put her down, and ran out of the room.
I lowered my tall frame and settled into the armchair again as I wandered off in thoughts. My name is Jimmy K and I have lived with sickle cell anaemia all my life. The old man my daughter was referring to is my biological father. I did not know he existed and here I was meeting him for the very first time in my life, at the age of 38. I was in disbelief and needed to be left alone, to process what was going on. I need to go back to the very beginning. It’s a long story, so come with me as I tell my mother’s story.
There was a young lady in her mid-twenties; she was a newlywed at the time and had just been posted to work within the construction and maintenance team of the ministry of works. Due to the fact that she was the new kid on the block, she was always being sent to one of the directors’ office to submit documents for signature.
This director and my mother’s paths crossed outside his office and afterwards, he told his secretary to make sure my mother was allowed into his office whenever she was there with documents. According to my mother, he showed her kindness and treated her like a daughter.
And that was how her escapade with this much older man started. The man was married and had grown children of his own. My mother became pregnant and she did not know if the pregnancy was her husband’s or her older boyfriend’s.
This situation was a wake-up call for my mother, as she confessed to her husband about her infidelity. The man asked her to get rid of the pregnancy, me. Since, I am alive to tell the story; it means she did not get rid of me. My mother was going through a tough time with her husband and also at work because my father kept pressurising her into having an abortion because he did not want her to ruin his career as a director.
I was saying to myself as my mother was telling me her story about 10 years ago that he should have thought about the implications when they were meeting each other secretly. She had the baby even though her husband told her if she wanted to stay married, she would have to give up her first child, me. My mother somehow persuaded her husband to allow me to live with them after she had me. He insisted on having a DNA done and they found out I was not his child. However, according to the story, I was sick a lot. I was crying all the time and her husband could not take it.
After a while, I was taken to hospital and after having blood tests done, they both found out that I had sickle cell anaemia. My health situation became an anti-climax for my mother’s husband and eventually, he told her she needed to give me up. What my mother decided to do instead was to give me to her mother (my grandmother) to look after me. So, I grew up believing my grandmother was my mother because everyone called her Mama and that was what I called her too. By this time, I was three years old.
My mama was everything to me. She had a larger-than-life character and she loved me to bits. I remember being a sickly child and how she took me to hospital whenever I had a crisis but other than that, she took care of me at home. My mama would love me back to health. I remember I would cry because of the pains and somehow, maybe because of her wisdom as an elderly person, she knew just how to take care of me. She did the best she could, in terms of feeding me well, giving me fresh fruits and vegetables, and making sure I drank lots of water and was not exposed to cold.
I remember when I was about eight years old, I had a very bad crisis and everyone thought I was going to die. I had developed acute chest syndrome. Sickle cells blocked the blood vessels in my lungs, a life-threatening complication, resulting in severe chest pain and fever. It got to a point that I had difficulty breathing. I remember being in bed in the ICU unit at the hospital. My mama would sit at my bedside till morning, noon and night. I don’t know if she went home to change during that time but she was always there. Mama filled the room with music that she knew I liked; music that we used to dance to together when at home. She held my hand and rubbed it up and down, letting me feel her touch.
I saw my mother visit her mother and thought she was my much older sister. Whenever she came round, she played with me and we laughed. After looking after me for 20 years, my mama died and that was when my happy life shattered.
The next part of this story will be next week.
In the meantime, if you would like to get in touch with me about this column or about sickle cell disease, contact me by email – t.dehinde@yahoo.co.uk and do visit my blog – www.howtolivewithsicklecell.co.uk.
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