There Are Warriors Among Us.
Inspired by BellaNaija’s display picture on Twitter (Friday, September 25, 2020)
We keep on moving, drilling ourselves through hopes and hankering fate that someday we just might end up in the very hearts of those we love and have loved us in return. We are every shade of beautiful and ugly. Our days are crowded by too many chances we are presented with. We sometimes exploit our vulnerability as humans and are quick to forget that even in the hustle and bustle of life, we are the privileged few chosen to honour the heroes among us. There, indeed, are warriors among us fighting through each day with loud courage and fears that inspire us towards gratitude.
Probably, my first contact with the word ‘sickle cell’ was on a pent-up evening when my foster parents received a call while we were driving along the Lagos-Apapa Expressway. All I knew was that the caller had a familiar voice and whatever it was she said was responsible for the increased speed we maintained until we found ourselves in Jolad hospital. There and then was the caller with red shot eyeballs swollen as a result of excessive crying. I still couldn’t place my hands on what made her cry but I knew whatever it was was strong enough to demand the attention of God. So we prayed and prayed and really didn’t stop until one of the nurses walked some meters towards us and announced that “the patient is now stabilized”. I immediately asked the driver about who it was that we had been praying for. Baba Sunday, knowing how curious I was turned towards me in a pitied gesture and then told me we had come to see our parish’s warden’s daughter who was admitted based on her sickle cell crisis.
There was really no need for him to go into details because some few years later, I gained admission into the University of Benin where I made friend with Joan. Joan and I were coursemates in the English and Literature Department but we outgrew the stereotype of formalities and soon became school siblings with each other always watching the other’s back. Few months into our first year in school, Joan introduced me to her younger brother — Prosper. Yes, Prosper was such a cool guy who knew how to balance socials with other areas of life. He was always fun to be with and never for once heaped a frown on his nearly cracked-up broad face. The best of what made Prosper a known face was the fact that Joan rushed in on one of the fellowship days, panting and pleading that her brother be prayed for. I had thought he must have been involved in some motor accident or something close but Joan snubbed my thoughts as she shouted “it’s his crisis again. He is a sickle cell and now the doctor just said his spinal cord has been affected by this recent one.”
This was heavy to bear and all we had to do was pray for him as well as visited him. On seeing Prosper on the hospital bed, his whole body had emaciated and it was easy to peel off the cracked parts of his whitish lips. For days, Prosper received medical and emotional treatments and in no time, he was back on his feet again with some deformities in his waist area. Joan and I alongside many other fellowship brethren resumed our normal life. By final year, I practically lost touch with Prosper even though Joan still caught up with me in some coincidental conversations once a while. We graduated and relived in the joy of being ready to face the real world. I was bent on someday becoming a journalist while Joan’s love for teaching made her the best English teacher in a school she applied to some few months after graduation. Prosper too moved on with life despite the many punches and pits he had to endure as a young man fighting through survival. I remember Joan narrating some staled experiences he had to go through during one of his rounds of surgeries. According to her, “it was as though he was going to leave us. We all felt him leave but Prosper fought and won. He never saw himself as a young man; he was fighting as the man of the house. He always wanted us to see that daddy’s death qualified him as the chief protector of the whole family. And this was all he continued to do till the doctors discharged him.”
This was something close to the story narrated by a lady on the radio four years after my graduation. The lady had talked about how close she was to death and how everyone around her almost gave in to her sickness as the last of all there was to her. She did say that it was no sheer comedy being a sickle cell patient’s parents or sibling. She recounted several scenarios of how her mum almost slipped off the tiled hospital ground in trying to help her sit and do some other things. Her dad also had to sell a listless number of properties to keep her alive each time her crisis began. It was an endless fear constantly looming in the heart of her sibling who didn’t know when next another crisis will erupt. And in all these, the lady happily said “I am happy to be me. I am happy to have won these battles even if I do not know when it all will end. I am so glad that I still have my life and with it, I can do and will do many of the things that will engrave my existence in the sand of time”.
I really didn’t get to finish the interview due to some social media distractions immediately I drove into the house. I had noticed earlier that Joan’s WhatsApp page was excessively flooded with lots of metaphoric expressions, many of which emphasized her use of dark conceits. Then I messaged her to enquire about the inkling behind her posts. Joan didn’t even allow me to rephrase my curiosity before slamming Prosper’s demise on my page. In her words, “Prosper is dead. This last one took my guy. He is gone and there is nobody to ask me for money again. Prosper is dead — the war is over.”
How heavy this was, and still is, I cannot express in words but I knew about the many wars Prosper fought. I knew how aunty Fisayo fought through the many syringes and abrupt collapses. I can picture what it looked like being the interviewed lady’s sibling and other weakening shots everyone around a sickle cell patient has to undergo. It is never a scratch-and-rub experience; these wars are powerful in themselves. They are battles fought by too many persons even when the target has just a body to fight with. I do not know how many wars are left to be fought by a living sickle cell patient but I know that wars like these can be avoided if the right choices are made as regards being aware of our genotypes and saving our nations from losing the best of our protectors.
For the lives, money and many more lost in these wars, I am pleading that we say NO to being ignorant about our blood compatibility before marriage or any sexual commitment. We must save the world and help engrave the victories and loses of every sickle persons out there because indeed, they are the warriors among us.
