Kelvin

This is the mind of a child. Get a crisis, couldn’t go outside, used to read comic books. So one day it clicked to me reading a comic book. I was like, ‘wait a minute, none of these guys in the book,’ I’m treating it like this real. ‘None of these guys get sick. What is it that these guys have? They don’t get sick.’ Then I noticed, not nowadays but back then, there was no such thing as a comic book hero without muscles. They all got muscles. I was like, if I lift weights and get muscles then I won’t get sick.

I know people look at my parents, pre-jitters but I wouldn’t change my parents for nothing in the world. I remember, I was sneaking lifting weights. Every time, my doctor was telling my mom, ‘don’t let this guy lift weights, his body’s not built for it, he’s only pushing himself to an early grave.’ Every time they found out I was lifting weights, I got a woopen.

Maybe a couple months later, lifting weights, they put the needle in me. My blood count was like that of a normal child. He was asking my mom, what is been doing? My mom tell him, ‘he’s been sneaking lifting weights.’ The doctor said, ‘whatever he’s been doing, I advise you to keep him doing it.’ Keep him doing it. Bought me a weight set. I started getting woopens because they felt I wasn’t lifting weights enough. It’s like, wait a minute, hey ma. Woopens coming and going.

I try to live my life, I drove trucks. I been places where they never seen it before.

I walk to the hospital, I tell them I got sickle cell. The most insulting thing I think I ever went through, look at me physically and tell me what I don’t have. Man, stick the needle in me. What do you think I’m here for?

I had one doctor I remember how they was crazy. He was professional, it was after he took my blood, he came back and shared with me, he said, ‘You know I didn’t know what to think of you when you first came in here and said you had sickle cell. We checked the blood.’ You don’t have to share that with me. You know what to think, I’m a person who needs help. You can offend people. Yeah. I know my looks can be deceiving. So, you know, it is what it is. I’ve always tried to be the most healthiest person I can be especially after I found out I had an illness.

I drove 18-wheelers for years, I had to stop because of avascular necrosis in my hips. Sickle cell cause both of my hip bones to start deteriorating. Can’t sit for long periods of time. Of course the hips, the ankle, my eyes were bleeding internally, third grade. They concluded it was from sickle cell. Doctors steady telling my mom, somebody’s hitting me in my head and he don’t remember. Yeah, that. I can’t count how many times I had pneumonia; priapisms, no fun whatsoever.

The hips, it was crazy because the day with the hips I came in, the doctors was telling me, ‘walk.’ So, I’m going through five, ten minutes and them just telling me to walk without telling me nothing. Finally the person who was with me blew up, ‘ya’ll telling him to walk, say something to him.’ They put a picture up of two normal hip joints, they showed me my hip joints, and I was just so numb. It was just like, ‘no way God even allowed my hip joints to look like that.’ It was crazy because they was sitting here telling me that scientifically they can’t even explain how I’m walking, let alone walking without a limp. It was the one thing that brought me back, sitting here telling me I shouldn’t be walking, shouldn’t be walking without a limp but I still do. I was just thinking, ‘it’s still a sign just how blessed I am,’ I let it be.

Kelvin

I try to live my life, I drove trucks. I been places where they never seen it before.

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