Close Your 32

Inhuman or bottom barrel — I’m trying to lay my hands on the best description for such output from the abundance of the heart. Hopefully, I’m able to get hold of it by the time you’re done reading this.

I find it appalling when I see people mock other people for their condition. Like, most people didn’t get to choose their battles. You happen to not be in their shoes, not because you’re special.

I really want to know what goes on in your head that’d make you make jest of someone with a physical disability. Why should your 32 be outside? Did you get the chance to control what happened to you as a foetus, at birth or even unplanned circumstances?

I know we now live in the reality of a world where everything easily gets fixed into the “meme” bottle, but be careful not to laugh without your “number six” in action.

Before you judge, before you conclude… remember the life in “what ifs”. What if the reason this happened is not what I think? What if there’s something else we all don’t know?

I’ll give three examples — priapism, bedwetting and pica. Well, September is Sickle Cell Awareness Month and I’ll like to inform you that the three mentioned above can sometimes be an issue people living with Sickle Cell Anaemia experience.

I remember a 14 year old I met last year, who couldn’t do without eating paper. People around him would usually abuse him, sometimes even beat him for doing it. I knew it was pica but had to be sure of what caused his. He wasn’t pregnant, heard how his parents ensured he didn’t lack any nutritional value both in drugs and food. Then it clicked! It was either he had a certain medical condition or developmental disorder. That was when I asked about his genotype. He was SS. Pica is a condition where people crave and eat non-food items like dirt, clay, paper, chalk, foam e.t.c. Before you remind them to make use of “self control”, let me remind you that they most times can’t help it.

Also, there’s bedwetting. Most people living with Sickle Cell Anaemia struggle with it past childhood age. It’s not everything that is village people. It’s not everything that’s a joking issue.

Then, there’s Priapism — let me describe it as something like crisis of the penis. It is common in HbSS genotype compared to other types of Sickle Cell Anaemia. You saw someone with an erection in public doesn’t necessarily mean they were turned on by the opposite sex. Before you join them to make videos of the scene, before you come online to tweet about it, think about the life in “what ifs”. What if it happened as a result of priapism? And it’s beyond just erection — it is painful erection. I wish it had a prevention but it’s just an advice — to stay hydrated and don’t delay emptying the bladder.

Asides the three examples given, people living with Sickle Cell Anaemia go through a lot. A lot that isn’t a result of their action — no one gets to choose their own genotype. Why stigmatize someone that didn’t get to choose their own genotype? It’s inhuman bottom barrel behaviour!

Most people from the 80s and 90s had an excuse of not being aware of “Genotype Compatibility”.
…but you? You that can see this? Someone in this generation? What’s your reason? What do you even have to say? That you really love the person? True love is putting into consideration the future of your kids. Don’t get married to someone with incompatible genotype! Know Your Genotype Today!

Till I’m back to stir the drink, stay gbam!