Although sickle cell is not a common disease, it affects many people of African descent. It affects the Red Blood Cells (RBC). There is not much information on the disease and how to cure it, which results in many sickle cell patients being left to live through the pain or left to die.
Sickle cell anemia is a disease that affects the red blood cells’ shape and function to carry oxygen. The function of a normal red blood cell is to carry oxygen and other nutrients using hemoglobin to different organs around the body. These molecules carried by hemoglobin are essential for the body and its way of functioning. In sickle cell patients, their RBCs are shaped differently causing them to function differently. Sickle cell patients have crescent-shaped blood cells instead of the normal round disc-like shape, this then impairs the blood cells from carrying oxygen around the body; without enough oxygen in the human body tissues, there are many malfunctions that lead to illness or even death. People with sickle cell have the hemoglobin S gene which they inherit from both parents. When one had both traits from parents, they have a 50% chance of having the disease. There are many people who can have the trait but not experience the symptoms and that is if they only inherit one trait from one parent. It is important to know whether one has the sickle cell trait to see the possibility of their children getting the trait or disease.
I do not have sickle cell anemia, but I know at least two people personally with the disease who have to go through many procedures to reduce the symptoms of sickle cell and they know people who had the same disease have passed away at young ages because they were not given the proper treatment. The common symptoms of the sickle cell include anemia, stroke, retina damage, limb inflammation, and occurring infections. The friends that I know that have sickle cell have said that their pain episodes have lasted a long time and it usually occurs after they have been in cold for a long time. Their pain episodes cause them to go to the emergency room to reduce the pain just a little. Although they go to the hospital to get help with their episodes, they are usually not given the right treatment because there is not much information on sickle cell in black people or information on the difference between many diseases in black people and how it differs from a white people. Many sickle cell patients that are black are usually given less medication or wrong medication because nurses underestimate their pain or assume that they may be exaggerating their pain levels which leads them to go home with the same amount of pain they came with. Because sickle RBCs are shaped differently, they move differently in blood vessels and when there are a lot of sickle cells, they bundle up in the vessels which then causes them to have strokes way more often than usual and at a really young age. Many sickle cell symptoms are visible at the age of 4.
Now that there is a little more information on how to treat sickle cell many patients are given a few more years to live. Blood transfusion is now a common treatment for sickle cell or anemia in general; it is also a treatment for cancer in some cases and when in accidents where there is a loss of blood. Blood transfusion is the process of taking blood from a blood bank and inserting it into the body needing the blood. But before the blood can be moved the doctor has to make sure the donated blood and recipient blood is of the same type otherwise the recipient’s body will refuse the blood and end up killing the body in a form of self-defense. Therefore, it is important to know your blood type in case of an emergency. When patients with sickle cell go through blood transfusion procedures it reduces the number of sickled blood cells and increases the number of normal blood cells which reduces the symptoms. Although blood transfusion has to occur multiple times it does make a difference in sickle cell patients.
Because many sickle cell patients are black, it is very important for more black people to donate their blood to help the many sickle cell patients in need. There are many children with sickle cell who don’t make it to their teenage years because of how severe their symptoms get but whit blood transfusion could add years to their lives and even reduce their pain levels. I do know that many black people in America do not donate blood because they do not trust the healthcare system in America. This is because of the past incidents that occurred that caused many African Americans to lose their lives or not be given proper care. The Tuskegee syphilis study is the main experiment that caused distrust of many African Americans in healthcare and the government. There are also other cases where there was unequal treatment of black people that leads them to self-treating or not trusting their health care services. All this is a reason there is a little amount of black or any minorities donating blood or organs, but it is still important for black people to donate blood to help other black people. It is also important to do more research on sickle cell and to understand how it is different in every patient; this could help people to understand what to do when they are dealing with a sickle cell patient. It is important for medical students to learn about the disease and how it affects different groups of people and how it could be treated depending on the type of person.
Although I don’t have sickle cell, hearing about it from people who have it and how it had affected their lives gave me a reason to work as a physician or a nurse. I have always been passionate about being a healthcare professional but learning about a disease that affects most people who are like me and people I know personally continues to push me to work in the medical field as a nurse or physician. While learning about sickle also brought to my attention how the Americas health care system treats minorities and that is another reason for me to want to work as a health professional. Sickle cell is a good example that shows how different people’s bodies work differently depending on race because there is now more research on symptoms that are different in different bodies of race and age. Donating blood is a thing to do and it does make a difference even if it’s just a little bit of blood work.