Stop calling me a sickler..

Photo by Louis Galvez on Unsplash

You know that feeling when everyone around you is holding their breath, but no one tells you why? That’s how I realized people were quietly waiting for me to die. I was twelve. Nobody said it. They didn’t have to. You notice it in the way adults breathe out heavily after you pull through another crisis, like they’d already rehearsed how to cry at your funeral. You notice it in the way your friends’ parents suddenly treat you like you’re made of glass, warning their kids, “don’t let her run too much, don’t let her jump, don’t drag her into rough play” And the worst? You notice it in your own family’s eyes—thankful you’re still here, but already bracing themselves for when you won’t be.

I have sickle cell anemia. Yes, I know. Relax. Don’t gasp. I don’t usually introduce myself that way—I mean, who does? But let’s be real: it’s always the first thing in the room before me. It colors how people look at me, the expectations they carry, the story they’ve already written on my behalf. And if I’m honest, sometimes it even colors the way I see myself. The funny thing, though? I don’t look it. No sunken eyes, no stunted height, none of the ‘typical features’ people like to Google before they meet someone like me. On the outside, I pass. And that almost makes it harder—because the battle is real, just invisible.

So here we are. You, me, and this story. It’s messy. It’s special in its own way. And it’s one you probably won’t forget.

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My Childhood

For some, childhood is playgrounds and school bells. For me, it was IV drips and the smell of antiseptic. The beeping of machines was my lullaby.

By the time I could walk, I already knew the look on my mother’s face when a crisis was coming. Her eyes would narrow, her lips would tighten, and the house would fall into that heavy silence—the silence that told me she was already bracing for a long night.

My dad, well erm, he was there, technically. Being around but never there. I used to wonder if he didn’t see me, or if he saw me and decided it was easier to look away. Almost like he was tired of me. And honestly? I think that was worse than leaving. At least leaving is clear. Being there, but not really there… that’s a loneliness that sneaks up and settles in your chest.

My father wasn’t really there for the hospital visits. It was mostly my mum and me. And the irony? My mum wasn’t even supposed to have me this way. She told me that before she married my dad, she did her genotype test and the result came back as AA. Since my dad was AS, there was no cause for alarm. They thought they were safe.

But life has a funny way of humbling you. After I was born and started falling sick, they ran the tests again. This time, it showed my mum was AS too. The first lab had made a mistake. One small slip, and suddenly my entire existence came with crisis after crisis.

Sometimes I imagine my life as one giant clerical error—a typo in a lab report that nobody caught. And now here I am, with hospital files taller than me, IV transfusions like routine checkups, and pain like a twin to me..

My mum said when she found out, she nearly fainted. Because what do you do with that? Return the bride price? Cancel the child? Start shouting at the lab? No. You just carry it. And she has been carrying it ever since.

Meanwhile, my three siblings—my beautiful, strong, annoyingly healthy siblings—were all AA. Free. No hospital visits, no midnight fevers, no “be careful” warnings hanging over their heads. They were proof that bodies could actually behave. Sometimes I’d look at them and wonder if we were even from the same parents, because how come I was the only one carrying suffering like a handbag?

I loved them. I really did. But I hated the way their freedom mocked me. While they were outside running around the compound, I was inside bargaining with pain. While they were busy playing ten-ten and laughing till their stomachs hurt, I was learning how to keep still for another injection. Childhood, for me, was one long reminder that life was moving — just not with me in it.

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My Adolescence

If childhood was needles, adolescence was knives. Not physical knives—though sometimes the pain felt like that—but the sharp words of classmates. The kind of cuts you can’t see but you carry all the same. By then, the name had already stuck: sickler.

Well, here, that word isn’t a diagnosis. It’s a slur. A reminder that you don’t belong in the full spectrum of life. That you’re fragile, unworthy, an inconvenience.

Teachers might have understood when I missed class. But classmates? Some of them side-eyed me whenever I said I was tired. People assumed I was exaggerating. After all, pain is invisible. And what’s invisible is easy to dismiss.

I remember one boy when I was in JSS3 saying, “You’re always fainting or sick. Why are you even here? You should just stay at home.” Everybody laughed. And I laughed too—because it was easier to laugh than to let them see the words had lodged in my chest like stones.

Fast forward..Dating? That wasn’t even on the table. Who would date a sickler? Who would volunteer for a future full of hospitals, crises, and question marks?

So I folded the desire neatly, like a blouse I wasn’t allowed to wear, and shoved it deep into the wardrobe of my mind. Better not to expect love than to ask for it and be reminded, again, of why you can’t have it.

Adolescence wasn’t just about pain. It was about invisibility. Learning how to carry yourself small enough so your fragility wouldn’t irritate the world.

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Choosing a career

When it came time to pick a career, everyone assumed I’d go safe. Something light. Something that wouldn’t stress my body further.

So when I said I wanted to study medicine, the laughter wasn’t quiet this time. It was loud.

“How can a sickler become a doctor?”

“Do you want to collapse in the ward?”

“You can’t even stand for long!”

Sometimes the comments came from genuine concern. Most times actually, but again sometimes from mockery. But either way, the message was the same: stay in your fragile corner. Don’t dream too big.

Maybe another version of me would have listened. But I’d already spent too much of my life inside the boxes people built for me. Expectations are prisons, and I was tired of living locked inside them.

So yes, I picked medicine. Not only to prove a point (though maybe there was a little of that), but because hospitals had always been my story, and I wanted to write myself into them differently. Not as the patient lying in bed, but as the doctor standing by it.

The day my admission letter came, my mother cried. But this time, her tears weren’t from worry. They carried something brighter. Something that said: maybe you’ll outlive the prophecies after all.

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Medical School

Medicine is not for the faint of heart—or the faint of body. And yet, there I was, walking into lecture halls with my textbooks clutched like armor, carrying a body that was already tired before the day even began.

Medical school doesn’t care who you are. It doesn’t care about your background, your fragility, your story. It demands the same long nights, the same endless readings, the same stamina. My classmates would complain about being tired, but I carried tiredness like a second skin.

Some mornings I dragged myself out of bed with joints that felt like glass. My body begged for mercy, but I still showed up. Because missing class wasn’t just missing class—it was proof to others that I didn’t belong here.

And then came the ward rounds. Hours of standing behind consultants, scribbling notes as if your whole life depended on it. My body didn’t forgive me for those. There were days the room spun, my vision dimmed, and I gripped the bedrails just to keep standing. Pretending to write when all I was really doing was fighting to stay conscious.

But I stayed. I always stayed. Because every day I remained in those wards, I was rewriting the script that people had written for me.

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The Classmate

There was a boy in my class. A quiet, beautiful boy. We eventually started getting close. Sometimes, when the pain forced me to sit down mid-round, he’d pause. Not too long—just a second—as if checking quietly if I was okay. He never asked out loud, maybe because asking would draw attention I didn’t want. But in that pause, I felt something rare: to be seen.

He’d wait for me after lectures, walk beside me during the long treks to the hostel, share his notes when I missed class. He bought me my favorite drink a couple of times too. That was his own way of making me less tired. It wasn’t actually grand but guys believe me it was steady. And for the first time in a long while, I let myself imagine something reckless: that maybe love was possible for someone like me.

But reality doesn’t need to raise its voice. It just waits.

Do you know why?

The first time he saw me during a full-blown crisis, his face changed. Not disgust. Not impatience. No, something worse: pity. He sat by my bed, held my hand, whispered I’d be fine. But his eyes were already calculating—would I live long enough? Could he shoulder this weight? Would his life be swallowed by mine? See, Pity is louder than rejection. It made me feel less like a woman, more like a case study. So I pulled away before he could leave. Told him we wouldn’t work out. He just nodded. No protest, no plea. Just quiet agreement, like he’d been waiting for me to say it first. And I learned: love, for people like me, is a door you close yourself before anyone else can.

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Living Loud, Dying Quiet

If you’ve followed me this far, maybe you’re waiting for the big twist. The triumphant ending. A miracle. Something about how I beat the odds, proved everyone wrong, found love, became not just a doctor but an inspiration. The part where I tell you my sickle cell disappeared overnight, or I went for one experimental treatment abroad and came back brand new. My genotype changed! My blood was washed clean! I became the medical miracle that baffled doctors and pastors alike.

Haha. It doesn’t work that way. Nothing like that happened. Sickle cell isn’t something you “overcome.” It’s not a mountain you climb once and plant a flag on top. It’s a tide. It keeps coming, wave after wave. Survival is not victory—it’s a negotiation. A body learning, daily, how not to drown.

Yes, I’m in school. Yes, I’m alive. But every day is still a battle with fatigue, with pain, with the reality that my body is both mine and not mine.

People don’t always get that. They think surviving is enough. And maybe it is. But survival also comes with its quiet aches: like the jobs I won’t get because of medical restrictions, the love I don’t dare touch, the people who stigmatize me.

Still, I write this. Not for pity—pity has never saved anyone—but because silence shrinks you. And I’ve spent too many years small.

So here I am, loud in my own way. Loud in saying my story matters even if it’s messy. Loud in admitting that I’m tired sometimes, but I still show up. Loud in reminding you that survival isn’t neat—it’s noisy, it’s gritty, it’s showing up even when your body screams otherwise.

And if the world expects me to die quietly, then let me at least live loudly enough that when the quiet comes, it won’t be mistaken for defeat.

Oh, finally: Don’t test your ‘luck’ with children. Don’t call it romance. Don’t pick love over wisdom, desire over science. Never make a gamble someone else’s body has to pay for. Thank you for reading..💕