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When Jenkins visits their schools, they love to show their friends the scars from the batteries implanted in his chest and the wires touching various nerves in his head.
"We try to keep a lighter side about it all," Jenkins, a Battle Creek resident, said.
The reason Jenkins has these wires, however, is no laughing matter.
He has suffered from migraines ever since a childhood car accident.
"Mr. Jenkins' case is a very serious one because he's a migraine invalid," said Gholamreza Shareghi, Jenkins' pain doctor for over a decade. "He lost his job because of migraines. He lost his means of income. He became disabled because of migraines."
By 1994, Jenkins was bedridden, fired from a job he'd had his whole life and his wife, a stay-at-home mom, had to enter the work world, Jenkins said.
"When she started working, our income drastically changed," Jenkins said. "We lost our house. We lost our car."
In spite of 13 surgeries and more than $1 million in medical expenses, Jenkins has remained proactive since migraines took control of his life.
"Since I lost my career, I've really spent all my time just volunteering," Jenkins said.
Jenkins also has devoted much of his time to migraine research.
"I've always researched," Jenkins said, flipping through an enormous three-ring binder full of informative articles about migraines. "When I find something I just pull it out and keep track of it."
Jenkins has participated in clinical trials. He said whenever he found out about a new treatment, he would call the people conducting the trial and ask to be included.
Some treatments worked; others did not.
"I was in the trials for Imitrex," Jenkins said, referencing a now-common prescription headache medication. "A lot of people can use Imitrex now, but Imitrex didn't do anything for me."
In the midst of these letdowns, Jenkins finally did find something that worked for him.
"I was in the early trials and stages for these stimulator implants," Jenkins said.
The day he got his first stimulator implants in 2005, the technology was still in primitive stages, said Mike Meyers, a therapy consultant at Medtronic Inc.
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"When we rolled him into the operating room, even though he was inside, he wore sunglasses because the light hurt," Meyers said. "It was one of the most moving things I've seen -- him rolling in there with sunglasses on."
Jenkins' story finally took a turn when he came out of that first surgery and the many that followed, including the most recent one in May.
"In my own stubbornness to just keep trying and keep looking for things, this has been the best thing so far," Jenkins said.
Jenkins said the implants do not make him headache-free, but they do help him manage the pain, so he can lead a more normal life.
Shareghi said many physicians don't know about or use the technology, even though it has opened a new world of possibility.
Meyers said the batteries send a small amount of electricity to the wires, stimulating the nerves.
"Really what (the implant) does is it just confuses the body's sensory system into thinking the pain is not there," Meyers said. "The pain is still there, but the effect it has is blocking that pain."
Shareghi and Meyers both said that the technology would only be used in specific and severe cases.
But if what he has gone through could help one other person, Jenkins said he is happy.
"I just recently found out that my oldest grandson, who I raised for two years, is getting severe headaches," Jenkins said. "That was one of the worst moments of my life."
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