Wow it has been a while since I last posted anything on this blog, since 1st of September which is about 8 months, but what has happened in the past 8 months makes it easily feel like a year or longer.

Let see, what has happened in the past 8 months; I celebrated my 30th birthday on 5th of December, tested positive for Covid on the 23rd of Dec and was admitted on the night of the 25th due to a crisis, recovered and was discharged on the 1st of Jan, got admitted AGAIN thanks to Malaria and a Bacterial Infection on the 8th of Jan, switched hospitals on the 15th of Jan because the hospital I was initally admitted to wasn’t treating the infection well, I was discharged on the 22nd of Jan from this other hospital I had transferred to, was admitted AGAIN a week later on the 31st of Jan because the same Bacterial infection still hadn’t cleared and only God knows what combined effect Covid, Malaria, the infection and Sickle Cell had on me, so I was admitted for the next two weeks, till 14th of Feb with full body pains from my head to feet and I spent about 5 of those 14 days in the ICU with freaking Sepsis.

For those of you that don’t know what Sepsis is, “Sepsis is the body’s overwhelming and life-threatening response to infection that can lead to tissue damage, organ failure, and death. In other words, it’s your body’s overactive and toxic response to an infection. Like strokes or heart attacks, sepsis is a medical emergency that requires rapid diagnosis and treatment. Sepsis can lead to severe sepsis and septic shock. Your immune system usually works to fight any germs (bacteria, viruses, fungi, or parasites) to prevent infection. If an infection does occur, your immune system will try to fight it, although you may need help with medication such as antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals, and antiparasitics. However, for reasons researchers don’t understand, sometimes the immune system stops fighting the “invaders,” and begins to turn on itself. This is the start of sepsis.“

Yeah, fun right!? 2 out of those 5 days in the ICU I was completely sedated and tripping on a combination of Ketamine, Fentanyl and Morphine. That was just to manage the pain. I felt like Dr Strange tripping through a multiverse of madness. Anyway so I was eventually discharged on the 14th of Feb and spent the next 2 weeks just recovering from it all at home.

And the 1st of March was the beginning of my 2022, yay! Back to living one day at a time, enjoying the most out of each day… and nights. Ticking off the days you don’t have to be admitted.

I just want to thank family and friends who were there with me 24/7 and the family and friends who took time out of their days to visit and brighten up my days. You know who you are and you have no idea how much I love and appreciate every single one of you.

It’s crazy to think about how this whole experience happened in what felt like eternity for me but it was just a quick two months in everyone else’s life. The pain, the suffering, the struggle, the sleepless days and nights bleeding into one-another, all that was only witnessed by a handful of people. While for everyone else life was just carrying on according to their usual schedule, the daily motions of life, clocking in and clocking out of work, school and everything else in between. Of course I understand this is not how everyone else experiences their daily lives but from my perspective it is how it seems. So ordinary, and there is nothing more that I wish for than ordinary, if such a thing even exists.

I watched this YouTube video this morning called Why Don’t Schools Teach Us About Sickle Cell which is a discussion between 5 people sharing their experiences growing up and living with Sickle Cell and that made me feel seen, it validated my whole hospital experience. Because as life progressed for everyone and stopped for me, I felt invisible to the outside world and that is something that I and many other Warriors have often struggled with because as one of the speakers said, Sickle Cell is not performative, more often than not there are no outward or at least there are very few visible signs of us having or struggling with anything. The constant anxiety, the constant minor pains that don’t flash across our faces, the decisions being made for us by our body before our minds can. It’s crazy because as another one of the speakers said “sometimes you make yourself sick because you’re not recovering mentally.” The daily struggle is so real but so invisible.

To my fellow Warriors, in the words of Bernie Siegel “Being a survivor doesn’t mean being strong – it’s telling people when you need a meal or a ride, company, whatever. It’s paying attention to heart wisdom, feelings, not living a role, but having a unique, authentic life, having something to contribute, finding time to love and laugh. All these things are qualities of survivors.” 

And to anyone who can, please support our foundation, check out our website S for Sickle Cell and drop us a follow @s_for_sicklecell on Instagram and @WarriorsClub5 on Twitter!