by Diamond
Mm-hmm. Maybe.
Sometimes people may try to break your spirit or stop your flow because either they have a problem with you or they don’t like something about you. This just means they have a problem with themselves.
However, when you know you are good at what you do, you have to just keep it moving.
Now, did I ever become a teacher at a school? No. We became teachers that teach all across the world. Because we don’t just teach thirty students in a classroom. Now, we can teach millions of people in the United States and around the world.
That’s right.
That just proves how good God is.
Chapter 5 Your Emotions Can Kill—or Heal
While we had been working at Burlington, Silk and I both started beauty school. We had a vision of being in business together, offering a service, having our own freedom. We had worked at Burlington for about four or five years before the NAFTA nightmare became so bad that Burlington slowed to a crawl.
We knew it was time to make a move, before the doors of Burlington closed and we found ourselves without a job or a career. I remember being so elated about it that we told a coworker by the name of Roger A. what we were planning. We confided in him about our aspirations and what we wanted to be. He looked us square in our eyes and told us we weren’t going to be sh—t!
He sure did.
Wow! What discouragement. It may have dampened our mood, but it didn’t break our spirits. Besides, he was right: we weren’t going to be sh—t; we were going to be better than sh—t.
You got that right.
We both enrolled in Paul Mitchell beauty school in Fayetteville. We went to class during the day and worked second shift at night. It was our second week in school when something unfortunate and unexpected happened to Silk.
Yes. I was on second shift in the weave room one night, doing my inspection in the back of the looms, checking for lint balls that could potentially cause damage to the cloth. As I was checking the cloth, a worker I did not know was pushing the steel comb cart and ran into me, hitting me in the back. The guy pushing the cart claimed that he did not see me.
I had enjoyed working for Burlington for five years; the challenge of exceeding my previous quota excited me. We were loved by many there, but when this accident happened, people showed their true colors.
They tried to make the accident look like something I set up, as if I walked backwards into the steel cart that was being pushed forward. Why would I do that? Retaliation against the coworker pushing the cart? Absolutely not. I didn’t know the guy who ran into me, and I certainly had no vendetta against him. I had no reason to set something up that would cause me so much pain. At times, that area can still get agitated.
I had to drop out of beauty college. Burlington wanted me to do light-duty work until I was able to come back to full-time work. Because of my injuries, even light-duty work was painful. There were times that the supervisor would call me into his office and taunt me. They began telling lies to me and about me. It got so bad that I had to go purchase a tape recorder to keep on me for my own protection so that no one could say that I had said this or that.
I was so upset with Burlington and human resources about how they treated my sister. All the times we worked hard, worked over when and where they needed us, and they couldn’t have cared less about Silk being injured. What if she had been paralyzed? No one cared. They only cared about how many man-hours they were going to lose because of an accident.
I finally had to stop work and go on workers’ compensation because of the injury.
While going back and forth with Burlington about my case, I still had to take care of my responsibilities. I remember going to social services to apply for food stamps so that I would at least be able to feed my daughter. I was honest and turned in the requested information. After processing the application, the lady looked at me and said these words: “You make one dollar too much to qualify for food stamps.”
What? I couldn’t believe my ears. One dollar too much? How was I going to feed my daughter? What was I going to do? I immediately broke down and started crying, right there in the social services office. I couldn’t understand how I had worked hard for years, paid into the system every pay period, and when I needed it the most, I made one dollar too much!
The money that I was receiving from workers’ comp was barely enough to keep the lights on. I was literally living workers’ compensation check to workers’ compensation check.
Thank God for my parents. They helped me out along the way.
After settling everything with Burlington and becoming functional again, I was able to go back to beauty college full time. This time I enrolled in Fayetteville Beauty College.
A month after graduation, I was fortunate enough to open my own beauty salon, Creations of Elegance.
After Silk left Burlington, I immediately started looking for another job. A company that didn’t care about their employees’ wellbeing wasn’t a company I’d invest my energy into anymore.
I knew I was an experienced weaver operator. I immediately started calling around to the different factories to see if they were seeking applications. When I called WestPoint Stevens, in Wagram, North Carolina, I was told that they were looking for weaver operators and to come in and put in an application. I went in, put in the application, and was hired on the spot. I was told to be back the next week on Monday morning to start the training process.
I do remember going into work at Burlington that night, on second shift. I walked in, said goodbye to a couple of coworkers I’d become close with, and walked right out. I never told Burlington that I was quitting, and I never told them I had another job. I just quit without any notice, and it felt good.
WestPoint Stevens made towels. I started my training that Monday morning. Training was a breeze because I was already familiar with tying weaver knots and inspecting cloth. The difference was, I was now performing these tasks on cloth for towels.
After training, I was added to the twelve-hour shift: three days on and four days off, then four days on and three days off the next week. I worked from 7:00 p.m. until 7:00 a.m.
Weaving towels was different from weaving cloth. When weaving towels, you needed to keep the machines running all the time. If there was a missed reed or a wrong draw, it didn’t matter: fix it, then start the machine. The goal was to make sure the machines were running at all times.
I was a hard worker, but the worst thing about working at WestPoint Stevens was the big water bugs and the mice. They were everywhere. Rarely would I bring food from home; I was always afraid a rodent would get in it and eat it. Lint and cotton were always all over everything, either from blowers blowing from under the machines or just from the towels. I always had to wear a bonnet on my head if I wanted to save my hairdo.
I love to work, and I believe what the Bible says in 2 Thessalonians 3:10, “If any would not work, neither should he eat.” Because of my rigorous schedule, I dropped out of beauty school to work my twelve-hour days at WestPoint Stevens. Once the Christmas holiday rolled around, I picked up a part-time job working at a catalog call center called Daymark.
I would work from 7:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m., go home, rest until 11:00 a.m., get up, eat, and get ready to be at Daymark from 1:00 p.m. until 4:30 p.m. Then, I’d go home and do it all again the next day. Back in those days, I remember working so hard I was about to go crazy—but I did it.
Father saw how hard I was working, and he would tell me that I was working too hard. He did not want us spending the rest of our lives in the factory, looking broken-down. He wanted us to find something else to do.
I heard him, but I continued to work. After two years of working at WestPoint Stevens, I started feeling tired.
* * *
When you don’t listen to your body, your body will start to speak loudly.
I didn’t think anything was wrong when I saw the bruises on my feet. I thought it was because of the type of work shoes I was wearing, so I ignored it. A
few days later, while brushing my teeth, I saw little red dots on the roof of my mouth. I didn’t know what that was about, so I called the dentist to make an appointment.
They didn’t know what was going on either, but they told me my teeth were fine, not to worry about it, that it should go away.
A few days later, I knew something was wrong when I woke up spitting up blood, not knowing where the blood was coming from. I thought I had coughed it up, but it was coming from my bleeding gums. I remember the morning it happened, I drove to Mother’s house, crying the whole way. I told her what had happened, and she immediately responded according to her faith. She prayed for me and told me that I would be fine. She was right; the bleeding stopped, and I was fine—so I thought.
I was still working both my jobs, but my strength to keep up the pace was disappearing. I was getting so tired, and my menstrual cycles were getting very heavy. Finally, I scheduled an appointment with the doctor to get checked out. She thought my heavy periods were causing me to become severely anemic, which explained the fatigue. She also ran a complete blood count to check my red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelet count. When the numbers came back showing that my platelet count was dangerously low, she immediately admitted me into the hospital.
That was the first time I had been admitted into the hospital since I had my son. It was a scary experience because I didn’t know what was wrong with me, why my platelet count was so low, or what to expect. I remember a hematologist coming to my room to talk to me, and she diagnosed me with idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP).
According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, “ITP is a blood disorder characterized by a decrease in the number of platelets in the blood. Platelets are cells in the blood that help stop bleeding. A decrease in platelets can cause easy bruising, bleeding gums, and internal bleeding. This disease is caused by an immune reaction against one’s own platelets.”
Platelets are responsible for clotting the blood. My immune system was attacking my platelets and making them look foreign, as if they were not part of my body. This was described to me as an autoimmune disorder.
The doctors needed to know why my body was attacking my platelets. They started running all kinds of tests to get to the bottom of what was causing my body to overreact. I even remember them doing a bone marrow aspiration by sticking a needle through my breastbone and drawing out the fluid to do a biopsy and test it for leukemia.
It was such a scary time. One doctor suggested that I have a splenectomy, but it wasn’t a guarantee that my immune system would stop destroying my platelets. In my mind, I was like, why would I have an organ taken out of my body on a maybe and not a guarantee? I needed assurance that a splenectomy was going to make this all go away.
I never got the splenectomy. What I did get was a firsthand look at how doctors try to coerce patients into having surgeries that may not help them—the medical system ripping off the people they’re supposed to be taking care of.
They finally ended up releasing me from the hospital and sending me home with a prescription for sixty milligrams of prednisone a day. I was to follow up with a primary physician and a hematologist. Still not knowing what was wrong with me, I tried to do exactly what the doctors told me to do.
Because of my sickness, Mother and Father stood in the gap, making sure I had whatever I needed. I remember Mother being so concerned that she even suggested I leave my jobs. I ended up being out of work for six months. My platelet count was less than 5K, which was in the danger zone. It needed to be 20K or better. I kept believing that it would come back to a safe range, and I could return to work.
Mother prayed for me, fussed over me, and spoiled me, but it was time to get back to some normalcy.
Finally I was able to go back to work. The doctor wasn’t really for it, but I begged her to please let me go back to work; it would do me some good. Yes, I was still anemic, but my platelet count had come up to almost 20K.
My body was destroying the very cells that produced what my body needed in order to live: blood.
None of my doctors could explain why I was sick. They just kept telling me it was autoimmune and how I was very anemic.
In the meantime, I was so happy to be back at work. Being self-sufficient and having myself back in the game was a great feeling. I was starting to feel like an adult again. Remember, I loved to work, and I loved making my own money.
Things were going well, and though my platelet count was not at 100K, it was hovering around 20K. That kept me out of the danger zone.
Every two weeks I would go to my doctor. She would inform me that my platelet count was still low, but it was out of the danger zone. However, I was still severely anemic.
One day, I went to the doctor, and she told me she wanted me to go straight to the hospital to get a blood transfusion. I said I would, but I didn’t go that day. That was a workday, and I had to go to work. I remember being so tired, but I worked my twelve-hour shift. That night, the supervisor put me on a set of looms in the back of the weave room, close to the entryway, just in case I needed to run to the bathroom.
Finally, I got through the shift. It was about 6:30 a.m. when another weaver relieved me from my job and told me to go up front to see the nurse. I didn’t think anything of it because periodically the nurses would call us in to do breathing tests and hearing tests. That’s what I thought this was. Come to find out, she wanted to check my hemoglobin. When she checked it, it was so low that she told me I needed to go home, and I could not return to work as long as it was low. She informed me that as long as my hemoglobin was low, I could fall, hit my head, and get seriously hurt, and they would be liable. She told me I needed to get my things and leave. She said I wasn’t fired, but I could not come back until my hemoglobin was up.
I suspect my doctor may have called to let them know it was dangerous for me to be working, being severely anemic. I broke down and started crying. I’ve always tried to do the right thing, and I felt like I was being punished and kicked aside. I didn’t know what I was going to do.
When you can’t do anything about anything, then do nothing, and get still.
That’s right. Just like the lyrics of the gospel song, “After you’ve done all you can, you just stand.”
The next day, I remember feeling so down as I was getting ready to go in for my part-time job. Once I got there, I remember sitting in a cubicle and feeling like I wanted to burst into tears. By then, things had started slowing down there, and people were getting laid off. Though I still had a part-time job, it was not a secure job. That was my last day at Daymark—I quit. Then I contacted my sister, who contacted the Fayetteville Beauty College—the school that she graduated from—and talked to the owner about me getting a grant to go back to beauty school. I had accumulated a few hours but not enough to graduate. I was told to go in and complete the paperwork. I did, and I was able to receive a grant.
I restarted beauty school while I was sick. It was strenuous, but I did the best I could. Sometimes when the instructor could see how weak I was, she would put me in the supply room to hand out supplies. I only needed fifteen hundred hours to graduate.
One morning, I went to get up to start my day and couldn’t; I was just too tired. I started bleeding, and I just couldn’t stop. I was so tired and so weak; I couldn’t even lift my head. Mother knew I wasn’t feeling well, so she and my other sister came by the house to check on me. By this time, I was covered in blood. It was like someone was butchering me, and the bleeding would not stop.
The last thing I remember was passing in and out of consciousness. Mother was shaking me, trying to keep me awake. The inevitable was happening; I was leaving this earth.
Silk was now working as a hairstylist. After work, she came by my house to check on me…
Immediately, when I walked into Diamond’s house, I saw my sister lying in a pool of blood. Everybody was praying, but nobody was doing anything. My sister kept going in and out of consciousness. My mother was crying, praying, and s
creaming for my sister to come back to us. My father was standing helpless, unable to make it all go away. It was like death had entered the room to take my sister. We were all emotionally distraught.
Just thinking about this moment is making me emotional right now. My sister was dying, and nobody was able to do anything. Yes, I believe in God; yes, I have the faith; yes, I believe in the power of prayer; and, yes, I believe that prayer changes things; but I also believe that God gave wisdom and vision to man so that he would be able to save his fellow man’s life.
I hollered out, “She needs to go to the hospital. We’ve got to get her to the hospital.” My father and I jumped into action. My sister was gone—still breathing, but gone. We literally had to lift her up to put her in the car. She was like deadweight. Strength came out of nowhere, and my father got her in the car. After taking off, I decided that it would be best to call the EMS. They could get her to the hospital faster, plus they have the proper equipment.
As luck would have it, we were passing my parents’ home en route to the hospital. We stopped there and I called the EMS. In no time, they were there. Diamond’s vitals were all in the danger zone.
I remember being too weak to open my eyes, but I could still hear what was going on around me. I was taken by EMS to Moore Regional Hospital. I was in such critical condition that a medical team had to helicopter me to UNC Medical Center, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I ended up in intensive care. The medical team did not expect me to make it.
I was praying for you to live, but, before they flew you to UNC, Chapel Hill, they told the family that you might not make it. I went home, went into my bedroom, and I prayed like I’ve never prayed before.
By the time they got me into intensive care, my blood count was 0.1. The first thing they did was give me a blood and platelet transfusion. I remember the next morning, a team of doctors were around my bed, asking me a lot of questions: “Do you know what day it is? What is your name? When is your birthday?” I had lost so much blood, they feared that not enough oxygen had been in the body to get nutrients to my brain.