menace in my blood - my affliction with sickle cell anaemia

magine

that your parents had received a diagnosis of

sickle cell in

you

before you were three years of age.

Imagine that the diagnosis

meant nothing to them other

than the fact that, as

always, you were

predisposed to

frequent illness.

Imagine that you yourself knew something was wrong with

you. You

had no name for it, but it kept you 'constantly

aware of itself'. Imagine

that by the time you were ten years

old you had come to see life as a

'general drama of pain'.

Now imagine your 12-year-old self running a cross-country

race of

nine kilometers with fellow students in secondary

school. Your

parents did not consider informing the school

authorities about the

vagaries of your health so

reasonable accommodations could

occasionally be made

for you.

just before you breasted the tape you were engulfed in

such pain as

you never thought existed. You end up in

hospital and for the first time

At the country race you did

your best even outrunning 'the normals' but

the phrase

‘sickle cell anaemia’ barged in on your consciousness.

Menace In My Blood is populated with startling and unbelievable experiences for a child challenged by
sickle cell disorder. He was seven when he underwent sexual molestation at the hands of a relative.
Before this he had learnt to smoke (real cigarettes and crumpled pawpaw leaves). Another relative took
him on hand to visit - and spend nights - with a prostitute. At 14, he regularly sneaked from school to
engage in gambling. Of his sickle cell experiences, the following are prominent: transfusions, blood in
urine, bed-wetting (’I was already in the university before the whole embarrassment finally ceased’)
and severe, constant, headaches.

Menace is akin to a genre of literature called family saga. The author tells about the experiences of a
first cousin who was similarly affected, about the ups and downs of the lives of two serial polygamists
(his father and uncle) who set up home together, the one a notable politician of Nigeria’s First
Republic, the other a tailor, farmer, trader, and roving patent medicine seller ('as one line of trade
failed, he switched calmly to another'). In such a household - or 'harem' as the late Chief SLA Akintola
dubbed it, filled with a motley collection of relatives, quarrels, accusations and counter-accusations
and intrigues were rife among the women. This led Elizabeth Anionwu, retired professor of nursing at
Thames Valley University to describe the household in which the author was raised as 'vibrant'.

The author's parents, distant relatives, got married in 1947 - a time, says the author, 'when men did no
wrong.' Thus, of the relationship between his parents, the author comments:

(Father) exercised a fascination over her that was less like that exercised over a snake by its charmer
than that exercised by that reptile over its victim

Many who have read the book describe it as very interesting. Professor Charles Ogbulogo, formerly of
the Department of African and Asian Studies of the University of Lagos, now dean of Human
development, Covenant University, refers to the book as offering 'a great deal of information about the
dreaded SCD, the Yoruba, and their family systems'; and further adds, 'the crafting of the story is rich
and captivating.' Similarly, an assessor with Spectrum Books, bowled over by the autobiography was
compelled to remark: 'a masterly work of profound expression.' Maxine Taylor, of Texas, USA writes: 'the
book has been keeping me past my bedtime. At one page I am laughing out loud and on the next I
am crying.’

100 years after its clinical identification, the sickle cell remains an enigma. Consequently, the author, at
the tender age of 14, summed up his experience of the bloody ailment in these haunting words:

As usual I went home to be treated for one illness or the other, usually malaria, severe headache,
abdominal troubles, jaundice, or bone pain. The last mentioned, more than all others combined, made
me sometimes to rue the day I took my first breath, and wish that I had not been born

Menace was written when Tamedu was in his late 20s although the recollections are all about his
dalliance with sickle cell to age 15. This compendium of childhood experiences would, however,
appeal to every age group.

Book Review: Menace Is His Blood
By Tosin Fawemida, Writer/Correspondent