The Sick Man from Europe

THE SICK MAN FROM EUROPE: Life has a lot of ups and downs, but the one thing that scares people the most in life after poverty is "SICKNESS". It is true that health is wealth as the wise ones put it in words. Even as people fear the seriousness of fallen sick yet only a few pay attentions to details of staying healthy. May be because only those who have suffered severely, nursed a sick one or lost someone dearly have an idea on how painful being sick is. But to others being sick is a word they have no idea of its true pains.  Born on the 14th of September few years ago to the families of Late Alh. Dalhatu Mustapha Bawa (DM Bawa) and Haj. Mairo Ahmed Dalhatu, "THE SICK MAN FROM EUROPE" is a nickname giving to me, Rufa'i Dalhatu Bawa by my late grandfather Mal. Mustapha Bawa Ibrahim (MB Ibrahim). I use to sit and wonder, sometimes I pounder, why the sick man of Europe, why not something better, something like "The Golden Child", "The Precious One" or just something uniquely different? But then the tale of my childhood days was told by many, and explains the way I look. But no matter what many or any will tell I RD Bawa alone knows the true pain of bearing such name.  A year later, after the birth of the fourth child of the house ME; little did anybody know that seven others will be arriving. I started running on high temperature perhaps hot enough to melt butter or cheese. I fell sick from what looks more like an ordinary malaria fever. From that point I have known pain and sickness for years and ages to follow. After a failed malaria treatment it was presumed that I was a sickler (someone suffering from sickle cell anemia) but then the confusion arises when my blood group and genotype proves otherwise, with an O+ blood group and AA genotype I surely not suffering from sickle cells anemia. Now you can understand why I underlined the word presumed, how can a medical expert say or assume anything? What is the need of having a medical test? Even during my childhood days, the medical situation in Nigeria is questionable. My condition subsides after an accidental intake of folic acid, and Prednisolone and aspirin. And since then I've been forced to stay on it for the next 12 months of my babyish life. A year later my left limb starts getting weaker, and gradually lamer, the hospital say it's polio, and as we all know polio has no cure, all efforts were made to manage and control the pain I go through every day and night. The same Prednisolone and Aspirin continue to be my SUPERHEROES. My condition got a bit worse, now I can hardly move a muscle or walk, my joints hurt like they hold molting-magmas' in them. At the hospital I was diagnosed with "JUVENILE RHEUMATOID-ARTHRITIS" this they say is only common in Russia and other lower temperate nations in Europe. That earned me the nickname "THE SICK MAN FROM EUROPE" by my grandfather Mal. MB Ibrahim; he wonders why a child who has never been to Europe will be suffering from an European ailment. Just as he wonders we all did. I enjoyed a free pain season for a while with the help of my two heroes Hulk-Nisolone and Thor-Spirin that lasted for a while, perhaps my longest free sickness period, for five to seven years. But when the whole family moved to Bauchi State, I received another visit by yet another serious attack that sends me back to the hospital for another series of cross examinations. This time the medical terminologies got a bit laborious as they say they have diagnosed me to be suffering from what they called "MUSCULAR-SKELETAL DISORDER" the only medical terminology that made sense to me and my dear loving parents, because at this time we could all visibly see my figure getting disfigured, I gradually begin to take an ‘L' shape. And as time passes by I become the way I am.  Well that is how my grandfather gave me my nickname "THE SICK MAN FROM EUROPE". I always wondered why I like telling stories from human angles, about pains sickness, struggle and survival, but every time I remember my late grandfather and this nickname, I understand why.