Growing up I felt special, because that was how my parents treated
me; it wasn’t preferential treatment per se because they treated us all
equally, I wasn’t exempted from any house work except the very strenuous
ones. As early as primary school I knew I had sickle cell anemia but
that was all there was to it. I grew up a normal kid who had special
needs, because that was how my family saw me. It continued this way
until secondary school, that was when the feeling of something might be
wrong with me started coming to me; schoolmates will tease, at times it
was the attitude of some teachers. Then there where those who felt I
would die anytime soon and thus treated me like I was a piece of china-
breakable. People’s attitude got to me more than the condition itself; I
didn’t know how to deal with it but the genetic counselors we worked
with came to my rescue. It was sometime in senior secondary that I
started dealing with the issue of having sickle cell anemia. Attending
the club meetings that we had back then helped because it was an
opportunity of meeting people with the same challenge as me and learning
how they are dealing with it; there was this comfort that came from the
knowledge that I was not alone.
I was able to come to terms with my situation when I understood that
God loves and accepts just as I am, I didn’t have to change or become
healthier for him to love me. On my own I couldn’t have dealt with the
condition, I still lack words to describe the pains, the depression that
sets in during and after crisis; the urge to give up living at times in
the midst of the pains; the guilt of falling ill one time too many but
a combination of some factors has helped me thus far and will keep me
in years to come; most importantly the God factor, the family factor and
the friendship factor, all these combined with the services of the
medical personnel have been my mainstay.
I will like to say here that the staff of hematology department
University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH) are among some of the
finest members of the medical community, from the doctors to the least
person in the department. Nothing compares to having a doctor who
understands or even feels your pain, at
