Sickle Cell

SICKLE CELL AND ITS UNPREDICTABILITY

isolation-FI SC

Today, I would like to talk about how tough it can be living with Sickle Cell.  The exasperating thing about Sickle Cell is how it can creep up on one so unexpectedly.  Now that I am mature, I know the tell-tale signs and quickly deal with it.

But when I was a child, I didn’t know the tell-tale signs and neither did my parents and as such would just fall ill just before my older sibling’s birthday party or before something important or after something important had happened in the family.  My childhood was characterized with being sick often enough but I had love and everyone knew to look after ‘Tola’ in the house. 

The hard part of living with Sickle Cell is that one minute is all is okay and the next minute, I have to be carried to the bathroom or toilet if having a full blown crisis.  The pain could start from various parts of my body, it could start with my hand, shoulder, knee, back, chest etc… and before I know it the pain has spread all my body and I cannot move or do anything for myself.  What kind of a sickness is this?  A sickness that totally incapacitates the sufferer; how can this be?  That when I have a full blown crisis, everything has to be done for me; its degrading and embarrassing.   My loved ones who have looked after me over the years would look at me with this pitiful look in their eyes because there is nothing that they can do to take the pain away.  It is brutal, to have a loved one, sister, brother, child, wife, husband, cousin who has Sickle Cell, and there is nothing you can do to help when he or she is sick.   

I remember when I was a child and in my teens, when I became ill with a full blown crisis, what I wanted the most is for someone to put something heavy on my back for example.  I needed some really heavy weight on my back and would hope and pray that the weight will suppress the pain.  Of course my loved ones did not want to put a BIG box or suitcase on the back of someone who is ill, sick, frail, weak and a light weight.  However I needed this pain subdued and quashed because, if either of these two things didn’t happen, I could die of pain infiltrating of my body.  Of course I did not die but that was how I felt at the height of the pain.   

I remember going to a party a long time ago, all well dressed and dancing to the beat of the music and before I knew what was going on, here I was ‘displaying’ at someone’s party.  What I mean is having a full blown crisis and being unable to sit still.  I look back and can only laugh at my adventures with Sickle Cell.

This sickness is so unbelievably crippling and that is the part of Sickle Cell that I find hard to understand.  One minute, you are playing as a child with your friends and the next minute, BAM, you are down health wise.  Or as an adult, one minute I am working hard at work and overnight, the crisis hits me and I am unable to go to work the following day.  How do you explain it to your ‘oyinbo’ boss?  Someone who knows nothing about Sickle Cell and might be thinking in his mind that I am lying.  Afterall, if you have a cold or a cough, it does not start suddenly.  Eventually, I get better, go back to work and work even harder because I am trying to overcompensate for being sick, when having Sickle Cell is my reality and sometimes, unfortunately, a lot of things that I would want to do, I cannot do.  Yes, I do know my boundaries and know I cannot go ski jumping.

Painful as Sickle Cell is, I want to encourage anyone who knows someone who has Sickle Cell to please cut them some slack.  A lot of people have died from the disease, so if you know someone who is alive and keeping it together, working, striving, studying, hopeful, not giving up, such a person deserves some encouragement.

I want to finish on a helpful note as you or your loved one need to know how to manage this disease better and one of the ways to safely do so is eat well.  Let’s look at more snacks that can be eaten on the go and are healthy for us – carrot (good for eyes), banana (good for energy), orange (good source of Vitamin C), apple (good for the immune system), African cherry or Agbalumo or Udara (good source of calcium – teeth), tiger nuts or Ofio or Aya or Imumu (good for stomach constipation), Guava (good for vitamin C), Garden eggs (good for the digestive system).  These vegetable and fruits have many more nutritional value, than what I have written down.  My focus is why someone with Sickle Cell should eat one of the above. 

Until next time, you can contact me on t.dehinde@yahoo.com