KenWeal is a clothing company founded by Kenneth Weal
In the year of 2006 on September 11, Kenneth Weal was diagnosed with a illness called Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), class V lupus glomerulonephritis with Nephritic syndrome at the age of sixteen. Systemic lupus affected both of his kidneys which caused him to have kidney disease. It got worst because it turned into Stage 3 kidney disease, which almost killed him. A lot of people do not live long with this illness, like Kenneth’s great grandmother (He was born on her birthday) – who was also diagnosed with lupus and only lived with this illness for a couple of months after he was born.
In the year of 2006, Kenneth was in the hospital often and went through a lot of different procedures. One was a kidney biopsy because he had so much protein in his urine and his doctors wanted to check his kidneys. When the results came back to showed that he has systemic lupus and it’s attacking his kidneys. Kenneth experienced hair lost, 20 to 30 pounds of fluid in his body (which did some serious damage), joint swelling/pain, couldn’t urinate with taking a water pill, depression, fatigue, couldn’t stand or walk for a long period of time, lupus rashes/sores and much more. He’s still battling some of these symptoms. One of the hardest things he had to deal with as a teenager battling lupus (SLE) with kidney disease was when people stared at him – he even heard some people make fun of him because of the way he looked. It hurt he’s feelings but he’s glad that he went through that experienced because it made him tough and forced him to build up his self-confidence. (Before and after photos are below).
In January 2007, Kenneth was released from the hospital. He spent one week in October, three days in November and then three weeks in December/January (missing family birthday celebrations, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Years Eve and and New Years Day) – while Kenneth was in the hospital for those weeks, he was also diagnosed with High Blood Pressure and Diabetes because he was on so much medication; just to keep the lupus stable.
When Kenneth was home recovering from everything he went through in the hospital and trying to figure out how he’s going to live with systemic lupus, kidney disease, high blood and diabetes – he was in his bedroom feeling extremely depressed about his life, until his mother walked in and said “Why are you depressed? God has really blessed you… you know you wasn’t supposed to make it out of the hospital. When you were in there, I received an letter from the doctors telling me that you had a 70 percent chance of dying… give God the glory and smile.” After she told him that he was stuck and shocked because he did not know that. To this day, Kenneth is grateful that his mother did not share that information with him when he was in the hospital because he would have gave up. When he snapped out of being stuck and shocked, he said “God left me on earth for a reason… but why?” When Kenneth said that a couple of seconds later, he heard a small still voice say “Get back to designing.”
Kenneth Weal got so deep into designing products for his clothing line (Designing clothing products was something he did when he was a child) that he wanted to take his business to another level. The day when Kenneth was going to take that next step, he found out that a small company in another country had the same business name he was going to use. After finding out that the company name he wanted to use was already taken he didn’t know what to do anymore; until his mother told him to use his name – he thought about it for a second and that’s when he broke up his name to develop a business called KenWeal.
He just had a name but he wanted a logo to represent his life and his business. Kenneth came up with two ideas on using an eagle and a crown. The KenWeal crown represents: That Kenneth Weal is the king of his sickness – he is not going to allow any illness to control his life. The letters KW on the crown represents: His initials/KenWeal. The 6 circles on the KenWeal crown represents the age (16) when he was diagnosed with systemic lupus and kidney disease. The eagle represents: Strength to soar and Kenneth sees himself soaring as a child of God. The look on the eagles face represents: Determination – he’s very focused on achieving greatness. KenWeal name: He separated his first name and used his last name.
Years later, KenWeal is still growing and Kenneth is healed from high blood pressure, diabetes and Stage 3 kidney disease. Kenneth Weal sees himself as a symbol of hope and example of God’s incredible power. He’s grateful that God allow systemic lupus and kidney disease to attack him because if he was never diagnosed he wouldn’t be who he is today. (Follow his journey @KennethWeal on any social media platform before).
